{"id":16253,"date":"2002-02-01T06:00:06","date_gmt":"2002-02-01T12:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/?p=16253"},"modified":"2015-03-10T16:20:06","modified_gmt":"2015-03-10T21:20:06","slug":"cpas-magnify-their-interest-in-forensics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/cpas-magnify-their-interest-in-forensics\/","title":{"rendered":"CPAs Magnify Their Interest in Forensics"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Wisconsin CPA \u2013 Excerpts from Cover Story<\/strong><\/em>
\nBy Amy Gaeth, Managing Editor<\/p>\n

\"\"Many people consider fraud and litigation to be unpleasant business. A growing number of Wisconsin CPAs are willingly getting involved in these areas, however. CPAs\u2019 reputation for financial expertise and integrity has led litigants and attorneys to hire CPAs as expert witnesses and resulted in increased demand for forensic accountants.<\/span><\/p>\n

Forensic accountants provide expert witness services, damage calculations for contract disputes or lawsuits, audits for insurance fraud or business fraud cases, and business valuations.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Like most CPAs, they work with numbers, but their focus is on conducting detailed investigations, examining financial records, asking questions, looking beyond the numbers, and finding the missing links.<\/p>\n

Litigation support services
\n<\/strong>Tracy Coenen, CPA, MBA takes satisfaction in investigating fraud. \u201cI am a criminal justice buff. I enjoy having a special area of knowledge that most other people don\u2019t have. I also enjoy getting the bad guys,\u201d says Coenen, a forensic accountant who started her own consulting business, Tracy L. Coenen, SC, in Milwaukee, January 2000.<\/p>\n

Coenen works with the insurance and legal industries to calculate losses in insurance policies, investigate insurance fraud, help attorneys calculate economic losses in lawsuits, and serve as an expert in litigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I\u2019m brought in by an insurance company, they already have a situation that they think might be fraudulent. I\u2019m hired to examine the economic impact of the fraud,\u201d says Coenen. \u201cI sit down with the people at the insurance company to get their background on what\u2019s going on. Then I study a pile of documents. I look for the red flags and start piecing things together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once Coenen has identified insurance fraud, her next step is write a formal report. \u201cI give them my written report and they take the ball and run from there. There\u2019s always the possibility that I may end up testifying in court, but I\u2019m not the one who initiates the criminal legal process,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n

In legal cases, Coenen provides attorneys with the numbers. She also coaches them on how to question experts on the other side. \u201cI help my client learn how to question other experts and suggest additional documents that might help in the case. I also see myself in a partnership with my client to help them understand the numbers side of it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Coenen says serving as an expert witness is just part of her job. \u201cI work very hard before hand to make sure that my numbers are correct, that I can support the opinions that I\u2019ve given,\u201d she says. \u201cIf I\u2019ve got that upfront work done, there\u2019s no problem testifying because I can verify where my numbers came from and how I did my work.\u201d<\/p>\n

– Sidebar –<\/div>\n

Beyond numbers, knowledge and ethics
\n<\/strong>
\n\"\"To be a successful forensic accountant requires more than a nose for numbers, technical knowledge and stalwart ethics, say Wisconsin CPAs.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to be able to explain technical information in lay terms to the judge or jury,\u201d says Tracy Coenen, CPA, MBA of Tracy L. Coenen, SC in Milwaukee.<\/p>\n

In addition, hands-on training is critical. Coenen says many CPAs want to get involved in forensic accounting because they\u2019ve heard that it\u2019s a growing area. Yet, they don\u2019t have the practical experience to do it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only way you can really learn about this field is through on-the-job training,\u201d says Coenen. \u201cI was fortunate because my boss let me start working on cases early on. I learned by doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the seminars in the world are great, but if you haven\u2019t been trained practically in the job, I think you\u2019re missing something,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Wisconsin CPA \u2013 Excerpts from Cover Story By Amy Gaeth, Managing Editor Many people consider fraud and litigation to be unpleasant business. A growing number of Wisconsin CPAs are willingly getting involved in these areas, however. CPAs\u2019 reputation for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2777,2778],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forensic-accountant","category-media-profiles"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Z0e-4e9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}