Now, a course to make auditors financial detectives!

 Now, a course to make auditors financial detectives!

K. Ram Kumar

Mumbai, Jan. 15 The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) wants its members to learn a lesson or two on frauds and forgery; its three-month pilot Certificate Course in Fraud and Forensic Accounting begins on January 17 here.

Coincidentally, this comes on the heels of the Satyam fiasco, which has raised questions about an external auditor’s ability to detect accounting frauds.

Spread over four modules, the course curriculum has been drawn up to turn chartered accountants into professional financial detectives, well almost!

“Investigation into frauds is not a structured skill. It is a creative skill. Success in investigation and unravelling the modus operandi of frauds and forgery depend on the ability of investigators to think differently.

“Our course has been designed so that accountants can discern if accounting practices are legitimate or fishy and whether they need to dig deeper for evidence of wrongdoing,” said Mr Chetan Dalal, Faculty Member, ICAI.

The course will introduce accountants to the elements of fraud, train them probe for red flags (or early warning bells), teach them basic/ advanced/ unconventional investigations, help them use computer-aided auditing tools, mine for data, take recourse to digital forensics, recover deleted files from computers, train them in the art of interviewing, deciphering of handwriting and specimen signatures, et al.

Those enrolling for the course will be required to put in 100 hours of classroom and project work and dedicate another 100 hours to self-study. At the end of the course, members will have to take one paper of four hours’ duration to earn their certificate.

Currently, the certificate course is being offered by the Institute in Mumbai as all five faculty members, including Mr Dalal, are based out of the city. Depending on the response to the maiden course, the Institute wants to roll it out across the country.

Down the line, 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.