The Satyam scam has made auditors realise the need to have a ‘fraud-finding’ approach, rather than the conventional fault-finding mode while examining the books of companies. Looking at the need and appetite for such accounting practices, the apex body of chartered accountants, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), has introduced new study modules for CAs on ‘fraud and forensic accounting’.
“This accounting practice is useful to find corporate fraud, arresting business leakages, and also for finding compliances of corporate governance, and so on,” said Chetan Dalal, chief faculty for the course. At present, many companies use the services of forensic auditors and fraud examiners, but it is only need-based.
This can be an added skill-set for auditors as more and more corporate frauds and cyber crimes are coming to light. Explaining forensic accounting, Dalal said, “It is much more penetrative and findings are acceptable in the court of law.” One has to go to the root of the transaction or action to find out the genuineness. And, skills in forensic audit helps tracking this.
ICAI course consist of five modules — financial crime, cyber crime, use of computers as tools in investigations, signature evaluation, and field inquiry. In India, there are only a handful of experts in fraud and forensic audit.
Dalal, who designed the structure of the course, said, “Police and CID wing that follow economic crimes were given training in the past on forensic audit.” The Institute also plans to offer the course to officials from the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor-General, Income-Tax, Serious Fraud Investigation Office, Reserve Bank of India, Securities and Exchange Board of India, banks, non-banking finance companies, Economic Offences Wing of the police, etc.