When Should You Bring In A Certified Fraud Examiner?
A certified fraud examiner is a type of forensic accountant. They have a professional certification affirming their experience and skill in searching for evidence of potential fraudulent activities.
If you're thinking about hiring a CFE, you may want to know if your situation is appropriate for doing so. You may want to hire an examiner in any of these 5 scenarios.
Seeking Compensation
Individuals and businesses can ask a forensic accountant for assistance if they're pursuing compensation related to fraud. A CFE can help you determine if fraud happened. Likewise, you may need one to help you determine how much fraud occurred. A certified fraud examiner can assess the extent of what happened and prepare a report. You can then use this to support an insurance claim or a lawsuit.
B2B Fraud Concerns
There are two scenarios where B2B transaction fraud tends to be common. First, a vendor might be messing with an agreed-upon transaction by using accounting tricks or misrepresenting deliveries. Second, someone making purchasing may be doing something similar. In either instance, you may want to have a certified fraud examiner look into the situation.
Divorce
Notably, it takes a specific type of divorce with fairly high financial stakes to justify hiring a CFE. However, fraud does happen during divorces. Particularly, some people try to hide assets and income from the divorce process to avoid paying what they properly owe. A CFE can examine records for signs of fraud. Also, they can try to trace where hidden assets and accounts might be.
Regular Internal Accounting
Even if you're confident your personal or businesses finances are tight as can be, it's wise to have a forensic accountant examine the records occasionally. At a minimum, this serves to avoid complacency about the potential for fraud. Similarly, periodic fraud checks, especially in large commercial operations, can serve as a reminder to folks who might try to do something. The worst that happens is you'll come away with an independent perspective regarding the state of your organization's accounting.
Risk Assessments
Parties seeking or offering loans, insurance policies, or bonds may need to profile potential risks. The same goes for entering some business arrangement. Especially when the risks tilt toward the financial side of things, it's a good idea to consider possible fraudulent activities. A certified fraud examiner can look at available data about another party to an arrangement, produce a report, and help you accurately assess the associated risks.
For more information, contact a company such as Capital Financial Forensics and Accounting.