Assessing the relevance of external auditors and forensic accountants when performing fraud risk assessments

Abstract

The International Standards on Auditing 240 requires auditors to identify and assess the risk of material misstatements due to fraud. Significant focus is placed on fraud and fraud risk assessment (FRA), and the public constantly relies on auditors to identify fraud and protect companies against the act. FRA assists in protecting a company against fraud as it is used by auditors to assess whether the controls implemented by the client are effective in identifying, preventing and detecting fraud. Even though FRA performed by auditors is essential for companies, several authors have determined that auditors find it challenging to identify fraud within a company due to the lack of experience and sufficient knowledge. Extensive knowledge of fraud together with a specific set of skills is imperative to effectively identify the possibility of fraud. The question can be therefore be asked as to whom have the necessary skills, knowledge and experience to perform an effective FRA: the auditor or the forensic accountant? The main objective of this study was to determine the skills needed by an auditor to perform FRAs in terms of ISA 240. For the purpose of determining who is better suited for such a task, between the auditor and forensic accountant, an understanding of the following aspects needed to be acquired: - The concept “fraud” through analysing different fraud models and fraud risk indicators. - FRA by means of discussing the objective and procedures to enhance the effectiveness thereof. - The attributes needed to identify fraud and perform an effective FRA. In summary, it seems that auditor’s knowledge and understanding of fraud is limited due to the inadequacies of ISA 240. In addition the majority of auditors have insufficient experience as they have never encountered fraud in their career. Forensic accountants are proven to be equipped with the necessary attributes, experience and knowledge required to identify fraud and perform an effective FRA. This study contributed to the auditing and forensic accounting practices by developing a new fraud model to be used in identifying and detecting fraud and indicating how the effectiveness of FRA could be enhanced when making use of forensic accountants