Detecting Financial Statement Fraud: Revenue, Earnings, and Expense Manipulation

Course Overview:

This course provides an overview of common fraudulent practices aimed at inflating revenue and earnings, as well as manipulating expenses. It examines the tactics used by some companies to misstate revenue, manage earnings artificially, and underreport or misclassify expenses. Understanding these fraudulent schemes allows auditors to better identify signs of manipulation.

Learning Objectives:

Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Identify common methods of manipulating revenue and earnings in financial statements
• Recognize indicators of inflating earnings with non-recurring items and overstating deferred revenue
• Distinguish between legitimate and fraudulent journal entries 
• Recognize indicators of backdating transactions and how they can impact financial reporting
• Identify fraudulent activities that involve understating expenses and liabilities in financial statements
• Recognize common schemes for misclassifying financial statement items and manipulating reserves
• Distinguish between legitimate and fraudulent lease classifications under accounting standards