Fraud Lens for Accountants: Expenses, Payroll, Cash and Tax (Video) (Course Id 2600)

• Who is this course for?
  This course is designed for finance professionals such as CPAs, accounting managers, controllers, internal auditors, and others involved in safeguarding financial operations within an organization.

• What is this course about or what problem does this course solve?
  The course focuses on helping professionals recognize and prevent fraud in key financial areas such as payroll, expense reimbursements, cash handling, and tax compliance.

• How can the knowledge from this course be used?
  Learners can use the tools and techniques covered to implement effective fraud prevention controls, spot red flags, and apply ethical decision-making to safeguard against financial wrongdoing.

• Why is this course important to a CPA, Accountant, or IRS Enrolled Agent?
  This course is critical as it empowers professionals to protect their organizations from significant financial losses due to fraud, a common threat in everyday financial operations like payroll and expenses.

• When is this course relevant or timely?
  This course is especially relevant in today's environment where fraud risks continue to increase, particularly in high-volume and routine financial processes.

• How is a course like this consumed or used?
  This course is consumed via video-based self-study, allowing participants to learn at their own pace and immediately apply the tools provided.

This comprehensive course is essential for finance professionals seeking to fortify their organization's defenses against financial wrongdoing. Uncover the alarming statistics: organizations lose approximately 5% of their revenue to fraud annually, with a significant portion occurring in routine, high-volume payroll processing, expense reimbursements, petty cash handling, and daily tax transactions.

This practical course equips you with essential skills to understand modern fraud schemes, spot red flags and subtle signs, select the most effective controls, and protect your organization's assets throughout payroll cycles, expense reimbursement processes, cash handling, and tax compliance. You'll master how to detect and prevent common fraud schemes in these critical financial areas, which are particularly vulnerable to both internal manipulation and external threats.

Through real-world scenarios and practical applications, you'll learn:

• Payroll Fraud Prevention: Identify ghost employees, falsified hours, unauthorized pay raises, and other schemes threatening your payroll integrity and employee trust
• Expense Reimbursement Protection: Recognize mischaracterized expenses, fictitious claims, duplicate submissions, and other clever techniques
• Cash Controls Implementation: Design and implement easy but powerful preventive and detective controls specifically tailored for petty cash handling
• Tax Fraud Detection: Spot sales tax/VAT evasion, payroll tax skimming, and other transactional tax schemes before they hit your organization

The course includes four valuable downloadable tools you can immediately apply in your daily work:

• Payroll Red-Flag Cards: Quick reference guide for identifying the eight most common fraud indicators in payroll processing
• Expense & Cash Red-Flag Cards: Eight warning signs of potential fraud in expense reports and petty cash transactions
• Tax Red-Flag Cards: Eight key indicators of transactional tax fraud that demand immediate attention
• Rapid Dilemma Tree for Daily Transactions: Four quick questions for making sound ethical decisions when facing questionable situations

Whether you're a CPA, accounting manager, controller, internal auditor, or finance professional, this course will enhance your ability to safeguard your organization's financial integrity throughout daily transaction processes. Join us to develop your "fraud lens" and become a stronger defender against fraud attempts in your payroll, expense, cash, and tax operations.

Please Note: These Fraud CPE credits satisfy the California Board of Accountancy (CBA) fraud requirement.

Video - NASBA QAS - NASBA Registry - 2600

Course Learning Objectives

1. Identify the most common fraud schemes in payroll, expense reimbursements, petty cash, and transactional tax processes.
2. Recognize key red flags that indicate possible payroll, expense, or tax fraud, using the provided Red-Flag Cards as a reference.
3. Implement practical preventive and detective controls to mitigate fraud risks in payroll, expenses, cash and tax operations.
4. Apply ethical decision-making tools—including the Rapid Dilemma Tree for Daily Transactions.
5. Leverage technology and automation (RPA/AI) to augment fraud prevention and detection in daily transactions.
6. Understand what is your real-life exposure to fraud in payroll, expense reimbursement, cash management and taxes.

Section 1 - Introduction - Why Ethics in Transactions Matter

Section 2 - Payroll Fraud Prevention

Section 2 Review Questions

Section 3 - Expense Reimbursement and Petty Cash Fraud

Section 3 Review Questions

Section 4 - Tax Fraud in Daily Operations

Section 4 Review Questions

Section 5 - Course Wrap-Up and Next Steps

Glossary