The Complete Guide to Spotting Accounting Fraud & Cover-Ups: Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply [Paperback]

Martha Maeda (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 2010

In 2009, high-profile fraud cases like the Ponzi schemes of Bernard Madoff and Arthur Nadel vividly illustrated the harm done to investors who placed their trust in these apparently successful money managers and then discovered their money had never been invested at all. News stories featured 90-year-olds forced by necessity to work in supermarkets, elderly people losing their homes because their life savings were gone, and wealthy retirees suddenly unable to pay their electricity bills. Charities were forced to curtail their services, lay off staff, and even close their doors forever as their funds evaporated. Almost every day, there are stories in the media about dishonest employees who have robbed their organizations of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not so well-publicized are the countless smaller thefts occurring every day from cash registers, warehouses, and business bank accounts. Sadly, the organizations that have the most to lose small businesses, family-run companies, churches, and charities are often the most vulnerable because of their size and inexperience. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Exaiminers, accounting fraud cost more than $994 billion in 2008, and the average organization lost 7 percent of its total revenue to fraud. How can you prevent this from happening to you as an investor, business owner, or a person attempting to acquire or merge with another firm? Read The Complete Guide to Spotting Accounting Fraud & Cover-Ups and you will be able to understand, detect, and avoid accounting fraud. You will learn how to identify fraud, how to spot minor abnormalities that may hide fraud, how to spot forgeries, and how to prove your case, as well as what to immediately suspect and methods for uncovering scams. You will know what signs to look for, including excessive turnover of lawyers and auditors, changing professionals in the middle of a transaction, inconsistent information, and significant declines in stock prices. In addition, you will know how to recognize the common maneuvers, earnings manipulation, premature and fictitious revenue, overvalued assets, undervalued liabilities, bogus revenue, expenses that have been shifted to another period, overstating revenues, understating expenses, and the misuse and misdirecting of funds. This new book is filled with studies and discussions of fraud cases and how they could have been avoided, checklists for detecting accounts misdeeds, and advice from analysts, CFOs, and CPAs. This manual will be an indispensable aid for serious investors, industry pros, acquisition and merger managers, and small business owners alike. After reading this book you will no longer have to worry about accounting fraud and you can increase your company s profits.

Editorial Reviews

Review

...Maeda s book is an excellent overview on fraud. There are a number of other books on this subject, but they are mostly more technical in nature. This work does a good job of covering a broad and complex area in its 336 pages. --Richard P. Kozlow, Senior Managing Director, Watkins Consulting, Inc in ABA Banking Journal 2010 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Winner - Finance Category --Indie Book Awards

2010 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Winner - Finance Category --Indie Book Awards

About the Author

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Publishing Group Inc. (2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 160138212X
• ISBN-13: 978-1601382122
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #611,713 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Easy to Understand and Thorough, March 23, 2010

By 

Erin Schmidt (Northern Indiana) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Complete Guide to Spotting Accounting Fraud & Cover-Ups: Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply (Paperback)

When I first started 'The Complete Guide to Spotting Accounting Fraud & Cover-Ups' by Martha Maeda, I thought I was going to be bored. Actually, this book is quite fascinating. It promises to be easy to read, and it lives up to that promise, even for someone who'd had no background in accounting or finances. There are plenty of examples, including the cases of Bernard Madoff and Martha Stewart and examples from Coca-Cola, AOL, the International Olympic Committee, and more that show how the lessons apply to real life. As a psychology major, I found the discussion of psychopathic personality disorder in business especially fascinating.

This book is also very thorough. It discusses in detail the different kinds of frauds that are most likely to occur, why the occur, and who is most likely to be involved in them. More important, it details the ways owners of businesses large and small and investors can keep an eye out for the various kinds of fraud. Numerous resources went into researching this book, and Maeda shares the particularly valuable and user-friendly resources with the reader. According to the introduction, organizations in the USA lose about 7% of their annual revenue to fraud, or an estimated $994 billion total. For these reasons, anyone who runs a business or a charity (even church groups) or who has investments should read through it at least once.

5.0 out of 5 stars Termendously useful book !, November 1, 2011

By 

D. Malavase (Bloomfield, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Complete Guide to Spotting Accounting Fraud & Cover-Ups: Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply (Paperback)

This book came highly recommended by a colleague and I appreciate its clarity and useful examples. It has more than met my expectations.

4.0 out of 5 stars TRUST NO ONE! Lose your faith in humanity but keep your retirement!, May 4, 2010

By 

Shay E. Escobar (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Guide to Spotting Accounting Fraud & Cover-Ups: Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply (Paperback)

For those of us still walking the tightrope between optimism and pessimism, the verdict is in . . . . the glass is half empty when it comes to human nature and if you don't want your nest egg empty as well, it is critical that you read The Complete Guide to Spotting Accounting Fraud and Cover-ups by Martha Maeda now.

This is a must-read for anyone involved in any capacity of a business. Vigilant owners and would-be owners should consider it their new bible and make it mandatory reading for any employee involved in their finances, since, as Maeda points out, there are many levels where fraudulent actions could be caught, but because of oversight, are not. One word of warning before taking the aforementioned advice: One man's science kit is another's Anarchist Cookbook and this book could do as much harm as help should it fall into the wrong hands . . . but perhaps that is just the pessimist talking. That being said, Maeda walks the reader through every aspect of fraud from the various types (financial statement, corruption, asset misappropriation, etc.) to detection of each in great detail. However, what many readers might find just as useful are the segments that profile the would-be embezzler; surprisingly, it's not what one would think.

Punctuating a highly readable and educational text are segments from newspaper headlines about costly fraud cases. This adds emphasis to the importance of the information presented and serves as a warning for the "it could never happen to me types." Case in point, even the coffers aren't safe from embezzlement. If your faith in the priesthood wasn't shaken by molestation allegations, reading the news story "Priest Calls Theft from Collection Basket his 401 K," should do it. Maeda uses this story to emphasize the point made by her research in Chapter 3, "Who Commits Fraud?" According to Cressey's Triangle, or the fraud triangle, any ordinary person can and just might commit fraud if three factors unite: personal motivation, the opportunity to do so, and means of justifying the criminal behavior. While the eternal optimists would like to think an employee would never betray them, Maeda's research clearly illustrates that under the right (or wrong) set of circumstances, almost any employee has the potential to commit fraud.

At this point the optimist might be questioning their employees, their religion, even the fidelity of their spouses. Is nothing sacred? Sadly, the answer is no when it comes to money. The Complete Guide to Spotting Accounting Fraud and Cover-ups addresses the realists by acknowledging that while there is no way to stop fraud entirely, there is still hope. Implementing the proactive approaches provided in the book may curb workplace dishonesty without going all 1984. By creating and maintaining an ethical environment, an employer may be able to minimize fraud without turning to the services of the Thought Police. However, just as your mother nagged you to be a good example for your little brother, Maeda points out that the attitude of senior management has a trickle-down effect on all the employees of the organization. So be prepared to set the example because no one likes a hypocrite, and it's a lot easier to justify stealing from one.