Towards the end of the investigation the forensic accountant will prepare a report for
the client. These reports can be written or delivered orally based on the client’s
request. While written reports contain high levels of detail, the oral report provides a
summary of the information. The client might prefer an oral report if they are
concerned with discovery issues or legal privilege (Driskell, 2019). Additionally,
written reports are expensive and time consuming, while oral reports can be
prepared quickly. Regardless of whether the client wants a written or oral report, the
expert’s opinion must be stated in a legally sufficient manner, and needs to be
based on reliable facts, data, and methodology (Rufus et al, 2015).
Forensic accountants may be asked to present their investigation findings orally
and should be cautious when asked, as verbal information can be misinterpreted
and misrepresented. A client's motivation for a forensic accounting oral report
may be confidentiality, secrecy, cost, or competitive advantage. (Rufus, Miller,
Hahn, 2014).
According to (The Fraud Files Blog, 2018), "An oral report is not the most
common way to report on the findings of a fraud investigation." However, in some
instances, legal counsel does not want a "discoverable" report in the case file.
A likely scenario that may put a forensic accountant's credibility and career at risk
would be a client or lawyer's misrepresentation or misconstrued information
requiring a forensic accountant's confirmation, expert opinion, or testimony
resulting in a conflict. (Rufus, Miller, Hahn, 2014).
A forensic accountant can avoid precarious situations by "preparing a written pre-
report outline, followed by a memo-to-file." (Rufus, Miller, Hahn, 2014) The oral
presentation documentation should include essential details regarding the
engagement, scope, assumptions, limitations, and findings, including "preliminary
or estimated numbers." (Rufus, Miller, Hahn, 2014)
If you arrived here, thank you for reading my post!
References:
Rufus, R., Miller, L., & Hahn, W. (2014). Forensic accounting. Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Pearson Education.
The Fraud Investigation Report. Fraud Files Forensic Accounting Blog. (2018,
June 3). Retrieved March 30, 2023, from
https://www.sequenceinc.com/fraudfiles/2018/06/the-fraud-investigation-report/
Driskell III, Dean. (2019). Conducting Forensic Accounting and Internal
Investigations. https://willamette.com/insights_journal/19/autumn_2019_1.pdf
Rufus, R., Miller, L., Hahn, W. (2015). Forensic Accounting. Pearson Education.
