Why Businesses Need Forensic Accountants

A forensic accountant is characteristically a CPA that a business hires to help them with determining the valuation of their company, or to examine or reconstruct financial records, analyse their tax situation, or compute an employee’s salary. They are used during times when money or property are being contested or when a business’ worth needs to be determined in order to divide it, or similar financial situations which usually somehow involve a court case.

Reasons to get a Forensic Accountant

Forensic accountants are oftentimes employed as an expert witness in a court case and it is better for a business to hire their own than to rely on the court to appoint them since they can better trust an independent forensic accountant that works directly for their business. They are skilled in making the necessary calculations to guide in dividing assets, find out if one party has squandered another’s monies, or similar financial problems that must be solved.

Court cases are not the only time that the services of a forensic accountant can be valuable to a business. Forensic accountants can also be very valuable to ensure if a business is operating under the most current laws and regulations since these often change and it can be difficult to keep in track of current accounting laws.

For instance, a small business may not have the skills to determine the financial state of their affairs and outsourcing this job to a forensic accountant can ensure it is done correctly from the view of an independent third party. This can be extremely valuable in cases where fraud is suspected, but are also just as valuable if a business is merely trying to see where it stands financially.

Forensic Accounting Helps Gather Hard to Get Data

These days with all the information a company may have stored in various places both online and offline, a forensic accountant can help to pull it all together to determine where a business stands financially and if there are any problems going on such as fraud or money loss for other reasons. Data may exist on the company’s computers, paper files, employees’ personal portable drives, or even in the Cloud on outside servers. Getting all of this data together is a huge task and a forensic accountant is the skilled professional who knows exactly how to do it.

Even if you believe that your company’s bookkeeper is 100 percent honest, a forensic accountant can help you in more ways than a company financial person and has access to more tools to do so. That is why if your company is having some sort of financial issue or suspects some sort of financial misconduct, you should contact a forensic accountant as soon as possible for help.