Forensic accounting is disciplined investigation, not suspicion with a spreadsheet. This course teaches you to scope an engagement, form and test hypotheses, analyse and reconstruct financial data, weigh alternative explanations, preserve evidence properly, quantify losses where the evidence supports it, and report findings in language that stands up to scrutiny.
What you will be able to do
- Scope a forensic engagement, establish predication and run a hypothesis-driven investigation with disciplined working papers.
- Assess fraud risk and recognise behavioural and transactional red flags without mistaking them for proof.
- Detect and reconstruct financial statement manipulation, asset misappropriation and procurement schemes.
- Identify related parties and conflicts of interest using lawful sources and test the economics of related-party transactions.
- Test whole journal-entry populations, find duplicates, apply digit analysis and manage false positives.
- Reconstruct bank, vendor and payroll records and trace funds across sources.
- Use spreadsheet and data techniques reproducibly, including network and timing analysis, and understand sampling limits.
- Handle evidence, chain of custody and interviews properly, and recognise legal, privacy and jurisdictional constraints.
- Quantify losses and damages with stated assumptions and write a defensible investigative or expert-style report.
Prerequisites
Solid financial accounting, internal controls and audit basics; spreadsheet skills (lookups, pivots).
What is included
- All 50 lessons with worked examples, original charts and diagrams, exercises with full solutions and knowledge checks.
- Module checkpoints, a 40-question final assessment and a capstone project with a rubric and model solution.
- Downloadable CSV datasets, progress tracking and saved assessment scores when signed in.
Not accredited; no CPE/CPD credit. Educational content only — not investment, legal or tax advice. See the Refund & Cancellation Policy.
