Many businesses find themselves in an unfortunate position. They find that assets are missing, that the books have not been kept accurately or that bribes have been taken. Other businesses are learning from these mistakes and are electing to perform a fraud investigation on their own.
A fraud investigation might be conducted in order to determine:
whether or not there has been a sale of assets that were either misrepresented or fictitious;
whether or not improper payments kickbacks, illegal political donations, bribes, or payoffs have been made from within the company;
whether or not there has been some sort of intentional misrepresentation or assets, liabilities, transactions or income;
whether or not there have been intentional pricing changes created to benefit the business financially;
whether or not items have been deliberately left off the books; or
whether or not tax fraud has occurred.
In some cases, a fraud investigation is conducted by an auditor from within the company an auditor who oversees the financial departments. In other cases, a fraud investigation may be conducted by external auditor, a financial...