Forensic Accounting: Have You Got What it Takes?

Source: Accounting Tomorrow

Forensic accounting is hot, particularly among younger CPAs. Recently, the AICPA published a white paper designed to educate accounting firms and college professors about the skills forensic accounting requires. To get a handle on what it takes to be a forensic accountant, the authors polled attorneys, CPAs and academics.

All three groups agreed that analytical ability is the most important characteristic of a forensic accountant. It's also essential for a forensic accountant to be detail-oriented and ethical. Interestingly, however, the respondents had inconsistent views on a forensic accountant's core skills. For example, attorneys ranked oral communication as the top skill, while CPAs and academics named critical and strategic thinking as most important.

It's not surprising, then, that more than 80 percent of attorneys identified inability to simplify the information and ineffective oral communication skills as the top reasons that forensic accountants are ineffective. Most CPAs, on the other hand, blamed ineffectiveness among forensic accountants on inability to identify key issues and lack of investigative intuitiveness.

For the complete blog posting, click here.

For a free copy of the AICPA white paper, "Characteristics and Skills of the Forensic Accountant," click here.

From Accounting Tomorrow, www.webcpa.com/acto_blog, April 13, 2010, "AICPA Looks to Boost Forensic Accounting Within Profession."