E061 : Accounting Ethics: Understanding & Detecting Creative Accounting Practices

Programme Objective

This course will discuss the environmental factors, situations and motivations behind Creative Accounting to help you gauge the believability and reliability of financial reports.

The common Accounting Cycles which are prone to Creative Accounting, as well as real-life case studies will also be highlighted for discussion.
 

Programme Outline

• What is creative accounting?

• Reasons for using creative accounting

• Relationship between creative accounting and fraud

• Situations where creative accounting is more likely

• Types of creative accounting

• Environmental factors influencing creative accounting

• Earnings management and red flags

• Five accounting cycles that are prone to creative accounting

• Sales and accounts receivable

• Expense and accounts payable

• Human resource and payroll

• Capital expenditure

• Off balance sheet

• Concealing creative accounting

• Usefulness and limitation of financial statements analysis in detecting creative accounting

Case studies:

• Xerox

• Enron

• Tyco

• WorldCom