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The Accountant's Handbook of Fraud and Commercial Crime
G. Jack Bologna, Robert J. Lindquist and Joseph Wells John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, 1993, 339 pp.
This book has been written for professional accountants. It aims to provide accountants in industry, government and professional practice with a basic knowledge of fraud, how to prevent it and, if necessary, how to deal with it. It is inspired not only by the spate of well-known frauds and scandals in the 1980s and early 1990s but also by the prevalence of fraud at all levels. Accountants, as employees of government or industry, are expected to minimize the potential for fraud. Since the origins of the audit lay in the distrust (actual or potential) of management by the owners of the enterprise, and the need for accountability to investors and creditors, accountants as auditors are often the first to be criticized, and even sued, when they fail to detect fraud. The authors claim that many accountants have had little practical exposure to fraud and set out to provide them with the basic tools and raw materials to deal with it.
They define fraud as "criminal deception intended to financially benefit the deceiver" and go on to distinguish several different types of fraud: fraud from within the organization, fraud perpetrated by outsiders, computer crime and commercial crime by the organization itself. The book is organized in a series of chapters dealing with general techniques for: managing the risk of fraud, promoting an ethical environment, risk insurance and computer security. Further chapters deal with the four specific types of fraud, and a final chapter deals with crisis management. Examples...