To be a successful forensic accountant, you must possess three skills:
critical thinking, reasoning, and communication. Critical thinking is
defined many ways. One way to define it is by saying critical thinking is
when individuals use their judgement from observations and develop
conclusions from it to solve a problem. Critical thinking is important in
forensic accounting because you need to look at the data and draw
scientific conclusions from it. Reasoning involves developing
conclusions from facts. You must understand what is going on with
behaviors and events. The last skill is communication. Communication
is needed so that you can articulate your findings to your audience.
Your audience could be your client, a judge or jury. The
communication must be simple so that everyone can understand your
findings.
I have always been interested in forensic accounting. I like analyzing
data to determine what occurred. I have my enrolled agent certification,
so I would be interested in being a Tax Compliance Officer, Internal
Revenue Agent, or Criminal Investigator.
Rufus, R., Miller, L., Hahn, W. (2015) Forensic Accounting. Pearson
Education
Rufus, Miller, & Hahn refer to forensic accountants as researchers and
problem solvers. There are many characteristics/skills needed to be a
successful forensic accountant. The first is curiosity. Forensic
accountants need to be able to look beyond the issue at hand and try to
find the “why” behind it. Forensic accountants also need critical
thinking and reasoning skills. Reasoning can be deductive (drawing a
logical conclusion) or inductive (drawing conclusions from patterns).
Additionally, forensic accountants need to be able to communicate
clearly and effectively. Simple things like tone of voice can have a big
impact in a courtroom (Rufus, Miller, & Hahn, 2015).
I would love to eventually work forensic accounting for a law
enforcement agency. I find fraud detection (an investigative service)
and financial crimes fascinating. I can see myself pursuing a career as
a forensic analyst or fraud investigator.
Reference
Rufus, R. J., Miller, L. S., & Hahn, W. (2015). Forensic accounting.
Pearson.
