The Importance of Forensic Accountancy for Your Business

Modern society has changed rapidly and this includes the field of business. With different challenges arising in business, new areas of practice have evolved to tackle the ensuing issues. One of the most important of these is forensic accountancy.

Demystifying Forensic Accountancy 

Like most entrepreneurs, you probably link the term forensic with medicine and there is the problem. Your business might be missing crucial services offered by a forensic accountant. This makes it imperative for you to get insight on what this field means for your business.

According to the Network of Independent Forensic Accounting UK (NIFA) forensic accountancy is the art of applying investigative methods in matters of law.

In other words, a forensic accountant uses accounting skills to investigate fraud or embezzlement and later using that information to aid in legal proceedings against involved parties. In essence, this field combines accounting, auditing and investigative skills to help your business.

Specific Role of Forensic Accountancy

If you are an entrepreneur you will agree that the modern business climate gives rise to many situations, which would require the intervention of this field. Some of the areas we can play a role include:

·         Shareholders and partners disputes

·         Intellectual property infringement

·         Dissolution of marriage

·         White collar criminal investigations

·         Asset impairment

·         Business valuation

·         Financial reporting fraud

This field of accounting can help you and your business to win a beneficial outcome in a case in many more ways. Their expertise is supposed to reveal aspects of financial activity that would otherwise be lost to the ordinary eye.

A financial accountant will use legal and accounting expertise to investigate, analyse and review your case situation using all tools available including computer technology. They have training to look beyond the numbers on paper and help deal with the reality of your business.

If your case ends up in court, forensic accountants can serve as expert witness to help you solidify your case. On the surface, it might seem that you have a very solid case but without expert input investigating paper trials, analysing patterns and trends it can be difficult to win.

Are you still wondering why forensic accountancy is now one of the most sought services by businesses? Just consider that a report by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners found that only 23% of employees are honest in cases such as these.

What’s more, 66% of your employees will commit fraud if they note others are getting away with the same. With more fraud cases and omission leading to risk of financial inaccuracies, it behoves upon you as management to detect and curtail such cases using forensic accountancy services.

If you suspect anything fishy in your business books there is no need to take chances – just let the experts do their work lest this oversight comes to haunt you in future.