Education as a new approach to fighting financial crime in the USA

Abstract

Describes recent attempts to help auditors fight financial crime in the USA, focusing on the new Statement on Auditing Standard (SAS). Indicates however auditors may lack sufficient training to recognise or understand fraud, and that accounting students at universities should have anti‐fraud education. Outlines the provision of the new SAS 99, which requires the audit team to brainstorm in order to detect misstatements in client accounts and maintain professional scepticism; auditors also have to question more directly in their investigations of fraud risk, and the SAS introduces the “fraud triangle” and guidelines to help assess risk factors; finally, auditors must respond to the assessments. Reports two recent fraud surveys: the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) found 663 fraud cases for 2002, most of them involving asset misappropriation, and the Pricewaterhouse‐Coopers 2003 survey found similarly. Concludes with a look at ACFE’s higher education programme for fraud, and that of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants; the trend in the USA is to provide specific courses on fraud.