Forensic accounting refers to the investigation of the financial records of a company to determine whether or not any wrongdoing has taken place. This is one of the fields of the accounting industry is which you can specialize. There are two possible routes you can take to obtaining the credentials you need to obtain a position as a forensics accountant. One of these routes is that of a regular accountant in which you take the courses leading to a bachelor’s degree in accounting. Then you obtain a position as a public accountant and the certification as a CPA.
The second route to follow to obtain a job as a forensic accountant is to pursue the courses leading to a Bachelor’s of Science degree with a major in forensic accounting. In this degree program the courses include a general education core, a business core and courses needed for investigative accounting. In the general education core, the courses will teach you how to use spreadsheets and databases, communicate in a professional manner in business and give you the basic knowledge of economics. The Business core includes the accounting courses that you need such as business law, management theory and practices and the principles of finance.
Forensic accounting requires that you can examine financial documents to detect fraud, and that you have an understanding of all facets of accounting used in business, such as cost management, federal and state tax laws as well as the use of accounting information systems. In the process of taking the courses for this degree, you will have 128 of the initial 150 hours required for CPA certification. In addition to these courses, you also need an additional thirty hours of course work beyond the 150 hours and at least two years of experience working in the accounting field. You then need to have experience to be eligible to write the CPA exam, but this level of experience varies from state to state. Also not all states require you to have CPA certification in order to work as a forensics accountant. Therefore, you need to check the regulations for the state in which you plan to work.
The job of forensics accounting is somewhat like being a detective or a private investigator. It would be beneficial for you to have training in some area of the criminal justice system as you will have to work with law enforcement agents and testify in court on your findings in an investigation. You won’t have to walk a beat in this job as your workplace will be an office settling – most likely the offices of the firm under investigation. You will have to carefully scrutinize all the financial documents and records of the firm to identify areas where there many be evidence of criminal activity.
With the rise of accusations leveled against companies dealing in the stock market and insider trading, forensics accounting is one area of the accounting industry that is growing in popularity. In this job, you should be proficient at using computer software and be able to research in many different ways to find hidden assets that a company may have. You can also work in areas other than white collar crime as forensic accountants also work in divorce cases and other civil suits to help determine assets that have not been decared.
