Vijay S. Sampath

Most of the time, forensic accounting is used when someone commits fraud. For this reason, forensic accountants are often referred to as fraud investigators or fraud examiners. Fraud takes many forms, but no matter how you look at it, fraud is theft; it is profiting by deceit or trickery and involves the theft of funds or information or the use of someone's assets without permission.

Whether you’re starting a new business, launching a new division or a new product line, or simply preparing for the future, you need to develop a strategic plan — your business’s road map to the future. The plan reminds you, your employees, and third parties what you do, how you do it, the customers you do it for, and maybe even how you’ll do it in a superior way.

The Limited Liability Company or LLC is an alternative type of business entity. A Limited Liability Company or LLC is like a corporation regarding limited liability, and it’s like a partnership regarding the flexibility of dividing profit among the owners. An LLC can elect to be treated either as a partnership or as a corporation for federal income tax purposes.

A budget is a financial plan that includes both financial and non-financial information. Its most obvious features are revenue and expense projections — how much you anticipate earning and spending. The budget can also contain non-financial information, such as how many employees you think you need. A budget is a forecasting document, but businesses also use it as a financial control tool to monitor activities in their business.

Fraud can be a huge problem for a business or a government entity, and that problem is growing. Most frauds involve financial matters, so the most logical people to investigate them are accountants. Forensic accountants are specially trained to investigate and report fraud in relation to legal cases. If you want to tap into this growing career field, here are some courses to take and certifications to consider so you can be at the top of the forensic accounting pack.

Businesses lose huge sums of money each year to fraud committed by their employees. Small businesses and large businesses alike must establish strong internal controls to prevent employee fraud, whether it involves employees stealing company inventory, embezzling cash, or fudging expense reports. Here are some crucial steps a business can take to deter employee fraud: Set the right tone from the top of the company.

To become a forensic accountant, no government-issued license is required. However, certifications related to forensic accounting and fraud investigation are issued by several professional associations. Here are some of the certifications you may wish to pursue en route to becoming a forensic accountant: Certified Public Accountant (CPA): You don't have to be a CPA to be a forensic accountant, but this certification is very valuable.

Making profit generates cash flow — any business owner knows that. What may not be known, however, is that the actual increase in cash during a given period is invariably lower or higher than the profit number. Understanding how cash flow relates to profit is critical for business owners and accountants. The following points illustrate how cash flow relates to profit: The amounts of cash flows during the period rarely are equal to the revenue and expense numbers in the P&L (profit and loss) report for the period.

Financial statement fraud, commonly referred to as "cooking the books," involves deliberately overstating assets, revenues, and profits and/or understating liabilities, expenses, and losses. When a forensic accountant investigates business financial fraud, she looks for red flags or accounting warning signs that indicate suspect business accounting practices.