ACCT 738: Advanced Topics in Fraud
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Course Website: Canvas
Required Material:
- Forensic and Investigative Accounting Crumbley, Fenton, Smith. Wolters Kluwer, YEAR.
- Case Studies in Forensic Accounting and Fraud Auditing, by Crumbly, LaGraize, Peters, Wolters Kluwer, YEAR.
Course Website
The course is available on Canvas in your Student Portal. Log into the portal. In the Courses Tab, there is a list of courses in which you are enrolled. Click on the Course Name to open the online classroom. Please refer to the Courses Support website for more Canvas help.
MSA Program Learning Goals
Professional Skills: Our graduates will demonstrate professional skills necessary for success in the public accounting profession.
Teaming & Leading - Our graduates will demonstrate the team leadership and interpersonal skills needed to form, lead, and work effectively in diverse organizational teams.
Ethics and Professional Responsibility - Our graduates will understand the importance of ethical conduct and the regulatory environment of accounting.
Professional Communications – Our graduates will communicate effectively to professional audiences in both written and oral forms.
Analytical Decision Making - Our graduates will demonstrate analytical decision-making skills.
Accounting Research - Our graduates will effectively conduct and communicate accounting research.
Course Description
Course will cover advanced topics in forensic accounting. The focus will be on contemporary issues in fraud. Examples of topics include litigation support, money laundering, consumer fraud, bankruptcy, divorce and tax fraud, fraud in e-commerce, insurance fraud and mortgage fraud. The course will provide a comprehensive look at fraud investigation.
Course Objectives
Upon completing this course, you will be able to:
- Become familiar with several forms of information, concepts, frameworks, tools, and techniques required for forensic accounting and fraud investigation.
- Develop expertise in detecting various forms of fraud.
- Acquire an understanding of values, self-awareness, leadership, temperament, and capacity for continued learning in forensic accounting, fraud investigation and fraud schemes.
- Study to understand the ethical pressure to commit fraud by gaining familiarity with common ethical dilemmas that you might encounter in the business world.
- Gain a historical view of financial statement fraud.
- Develop expertise in capabilities with respect to analysis, critical thinking, judgement, decision-making, and execution in forensic accounting analysis.
- Real life examples to prepare you to resist ethical pressure to commit fraud by gaining familiarity with common ethical dilemmas that you might encounter in the business world.
Class Management
The class will include learning textbook chapters, analyzing case studies, discussions of the latest fraud schemes, and completing a group project. In many cases, there is no one right answer to the questions you are required to address. The students’ ideas and discussion will be a key in learning this material. The more you bring to the classroom, the better for you and your classmates.
This class will require a significant amount of time. A three-hour, 16-week, semester class, meets about three hours per week. It is generally expected that students should spend about three times the class hours per week for outside studying and research. Doing the math, that computes to 12 hours per week for 16 weeks, or 192 total hours. For the MSA 8-week module, that works out to be 24 hours per week. It is expected from the University that I present the same amount of material in this class as a 16-week semester course. You should expect nothing less as well.
Grading
Assignments will be reviewed with feedback shared with you as quickly as possible. Please be sure to submit all assignments through the appropriate submission link.
Your grade in ACCT 738 will be determined as follows:
| Weekly Case Studies & IDEA exercise | 35% |
| Group Project | 20% |
| (Online) Class Discussion | 10% |
| Exam 1 (Chapters 1-7) | 10% |
| Exam 2 (Chapters 8-12) | 10% |
| Exam 3(Chapters 13-18) | 10% |
| Professionalism | 5% |
| Total | 100% |
Class Discussion & Professionalism
Points will be earned by your participation in the Blackboard Discussion Board. You should address all the required questions related to the discussion topic and respond to at least two classmates’ posts. Your responses should be thoughtful, substantial, polite and more extensive than a simple "well done" phrase or "I agree." Consider points of agreement, disagreement, assumptions, and value judgments.
Group Project
Each student will be assigned to a randomly-selected group. Each group will complete a case study and submit the results at the end of the semester.
Weekly Case Studies & IDEA Exercise
I will assign from one to three cases each week for you to review, answer questions, make comments and conclusions. The case studies will come mostly from the assigned Case Studies in Forensic Accounting and Fraud Auditing, with possibility of other cases from current events. The written responses will be submitted weekly. Cases not submitted on time will have a 10% reduction of that case’s assigned value for each day late, unless discussed with me prior to the assignment due date. There is no required length for your case write-ups. You may be able to provide a sufficient case write up in less than a page. Others could take five pages or more. I will be grading your ability to address the major issues in a way I understand what you have identified as important. Also, as mentioned earlier, I will evaluate how much effort I think you put into developing your position.
Graded assignments and feedback will be shared with you as quickly as possible. Please be sure to submit all assignments through the appropriate submission link.
Exams 1 – 3
You will take ‘open book’ exams in Weeks 3, 5 and 8. Each exam is 60 minute long and has 40 multiple-choice questions. Exams will only cover the chapters studied in that period (i.e., the exams are NOT comprehensive). Exams will be delivered online. Due to increase in honor code violations, this course will not allow students to backtrack the questions (This is also similar to how the CPA exam is administered).
All exams must be taken at the scheduled time between 12:00 AM Saturday to 11:59 PM on Sunday (48-hour window) in the week of the exam. Students will be permitted to make up examinations missed because of illness, mandatory religious obligations, or other unavoidable circumstances, on the condition that students provide the instructor proper documentation (e.g., doctor’s note) in advance. No exam will be allowed to be taken late without prior written approval from the instructor.
Professionalism
The (virtual) classroom should be an environment of mutual respect. Different points-of-view and opinions should be addressed in a respectful manner in class discussions. Students are expected to always communicate with the instructor and university personnel in a respectful and professional manner (e.g., no overly casual or dismissive tone in e-mail communications). You will lose a portion of your final grade, at the instructor’s discretion, if you engage in behaviors that are deemed unprofessional.
The final letter grade will be based on the following scale. The grade is nonnegotiable after it is finalized and posted.
| Grade | % Earned | Points Earned |
| A | 93 - 100 | 930 - 1000 |
| A- | 90 - 92 | 900 - 929 |
| B+ | 87 - 89 | 870 - 899 |
| B | 83 - 86 | 830 - 869 |
| B- | 80 - 82 | 800 - 829 |
| C+ | 77 - 79 | 770 - 769 |
| C | 70 - 76 | 700 - 769 |
| F | Below 70 | 600 - 699 |
Student Responsibilities
Tips for success: The module structure goes very fast. As such, it is important that you make all attempts to stay on track with respect to homework. You will need to get started early on your group assignments. At the beginning of each week, you should review the Assignment Table for the week and plan your time accordingly.
Course Schedule
| Week | Date | Readings | Topic | Exams |
| Week 1 | A-1 | Introduction to Forensic and Investigative Accounting | ||
| A-2 | Forensic Accounting Education, Institutions, and Specialties | |||
| A-3 | Fraudulent Financial Reporting | |||
| B | Case Studies 3 | |||
| Class Discussion 1 | ||||
| Week 2 | A-4 | Detecting Fraud in Financial Reporting | ||
| A-5 | Employee Fraud | |||
| B | Case Studies 5 | |||
| Class Discussion 2 | ||||
| Week 3 | A-6 | Indirect Methods of Reconstructing Income | ||
| A-7 | Money Laundering/Transnational Financial Flows | |||
| B | Case Studies 6 and 37 | |||
| Exam 1 | Online – 60 minutes (noon- | Ch. 1-7 | ||
| Week 4 | A-8 | Litigation Services Provided by Acct. | ||
| A-9 | Proper Evidence Management | |||
| B | Case Studies 12 | |||
| Class Discussion 3 | ||||
| Week 5 | A-10 | Commercial Damages | ||
| A-11 | Litigation Support in Spec. Situations | |||
| A-12 | Computing Economic Damages | |||
| B | Case Studies 19 and 30 | |||
| Exam 2 | Online – 60 minutes | Ch. 8-12 | ||
| Week 6 | A-13 | Investigation of Electronic Data | ||
| A-14 | Digital Forensic Analysis | |||
| A-15 | Cybercrime Mgmt.: Legal Issues | |||
| B | Case Study 7 | |||
| A | IDEA Exercise (Ch. 13) | |||
| Class Discussion 4 | ||||
| Week 7 | A-16 | Cybercrime Loss Valuations | ||
| A-17 | Business Valuations | |||
| B | Case Studies 21 | |||
| Class Discussion 5 | ||||
| Week 8 | B | Case Study 39 (IDEA) | ||
| C | Group Project Final Deliverable Due | |||
| Exam 3 | Online - 60 minutes | Ch. 13-17 |
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