Financial statements are one of the key sources of information for stakeholders of companies. Therefore, financial reporting aims at presenting an objective and transparent state of an enterprise. In order to protect the interests of all stakeholders of companies, whether external or internal, the role of financial accountants is very important, which is related to the detection of fraudulent activities in the financial statements. Forensic accountants with the knowledge they possess in the field of accounting, auditing, management and other skills, have the ability to clearly understand the irregularities and injustices that occur within the company. Fraudulent actions are most often a case of using an enterprise management strategy to gain benefits to the interests of other marketers that surround it. The aim of the paper is to show the significance of the role of a financial accountant in detecting fraudulent actions in the financial statements. The subject of this paper is to investigate the possibility of fraudulent actions and to look into the specific role forensic accountants have in this process.
The financial statements, as the end product of the accounting information system, are a structural account of the financial position and financial success of an entity's business over a period. Earnings or net profit indicates an important position in the financial statements and is considered as a measure of a company’s success. Earnings management comes from the accounting skills that executives and business owners use when making business decisions. The Generally Accepted Accounting Principles set out in International Accounting Standards (hereinafter IAS) and International Financial Reporting Standards (hereinafter referred to as IFRS) generally give the owner or manager the choice between several accounting methods within the various stages of the accounting process. One of these methods is creative accounting, which is often correlated with the manipulation of financial statements. Creativity in accounting is known to be legal and to stay within the legal framework, but it is often the case that, with its creativity, it is beyond its boundaries. The way managers exercise this discretion is very important to the quality and objectivity of financial reporting.The tendency of the owners, and then the managers, to show the performance of the company better than they really are, is certainly not new. The reason that in the world from the beginning of the 2000s to the present day, both by the scientific and professional public and by the regulatory bodies in charge of financial reporting, particular attention is paid to this problem are the major political and economic scandals caused by the inaccurate presentation of financial statements. It is considered that manipulative accounting practices are applied in the preparation of financial statements when the application of accounting principles is made with the intention of achieving the desired objective, such as, for example, generating greater profit regardless of whether the procedures selected are in accordance with international and local prescribed rules.The prevalence of manipulation of financial statements depends on the situation in the environment, the quality of the normative basis of financial reporting, the quality of management and the ability of accountants to comply with professional and ethical standards. The environment implies the general economic situation, the existence or absence of appropriate legislation, including its implementation, as well as the relation to tax liabilities.The result of the original empirical research is presented in this paper. The research was conducted in the form of a case study of a domestic business entity (the Republic of Serbia), whose main activity is trade in sports and fashion products. The financial analysis was performed using the Beneish model, which was derived from the official financial statements of the companies, collected from publicly available databases (Balance Sheet and Income Statement 2016-2018) as the basic information base in order to discover the degree of possible manipulation of their own earning capacity. This model has become particularly popular since the Beneish M-scoring model revealed the manipulation of the financial results of the US company Enron, which went bankrupt in 2001.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.