Search results

According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, financial statement fraud represents the smallest amount of fraud cases but results in the greatest monetary loss. The researcher previously investigated the characteristics of financial statement fraud and determined the presence of 16 fraud indicators. The purpose of this study is to establish whether investors and other stakeholders can detect and identify financial statement fraud using these characteristics in an analysis of a company’s annual report.

This study analyses a financial statement fraud case, using the same techniques that were previously applied, including horizontal, vertical and ratio analysis. These are preferred because stakeholders have relatively easy access to them.

The findings show several fraud characteristics, with a few additional ones not previously found prevalent. Financial statement fraud thus tends to differ between cases. It is also easier to detect and identify fraud indicators ex post facto.

This study is a practical case showing that financial statement fraud can be detected and identified in the financial statements of companies that commit fraud.

The purpose of this paper is to re-test the determinant factors of the quality of financial statements and performance of the government by adding contextual factors, such as personal factor, system/administrative factor and political factor, that may affect the quality of financial statement information and performance of the government. Personal factor is proxied to the competencies that affect the quality of financial statements and performance. Social administrative factor is proxied on the regulations and presentation of quality financial statements.

The analysis unit in this study was conducted at the organizational level. The research object was in South Sulawesi Province. This was a descriptive and verificative research with survey technique. Based on the objectives of the research, this is an explanatory research. The research method used was explanatory survey with quantitative approach. The population of this research was proxied to the Regional Unit Organization (Organisasi Perangkat Desa) which compiled the financial statements in South Sulawesi Provincial Government consisted of 803 units of Local Government Agencies (Satuan Kerja Perangkat Daerah). The purposive sampling technique was chosen under the following criteria: the regional government whose financial statement has been audited by Badan Pemeriksa Keuangan; the regional government whose financial accountability report has been evaluated by Indonesia’s Agency for Financial and Development Supervision (Badan Pengawasan Keuangan dan Pembangunan). In line with the criteria mentioned above, the minimum samples required for 26 observations/indicators are 5×26=130 respondents. The sample size met the minimum sample requirement of 5 for each group (cell) (Hair et al., 2006, p. 112).

Personal factors competence affects the financial statements quality. The high personal factors competence will affect on the high financial statements quality. System/administration factors regulation affect the financial statement quality. The high system/administration factors regulation will affect on the high financial statements quality. Political factors affect the financial statements quality. The high political factors will affect on the high financial statements quality. Personal factor competence has no direct effect on the performance. The high personal factor competence will not affect the high or low of the performance. However, there is a significant indirect effect between personal factor competence on performance through the financial statements quality which means that higher personal factor competence will lead to higher performance through financial statements quality. System/administration factor regulation is not directly affects the performance. The high system/administration factor regulation will not affect on the high or low of the performance. However, there is a significant indirect effect between system/administration factor regulation on performance through the financial statements quality which means that higher the system/administration factor regulation will lead to higher performance through financial statements quality. Political factors is not directly affects the performance. The high political factors will not affect the high or low of the performance. However, there is a significant indirect effect between political factors on performance through the financial statements quality which means that the higher the political factor, it will leads to higher performance through the financial statements quality. Financial statements quality affects the performance. The high financial statements will affect on the performance.

The research issues raised are the increasing public demands for the government services and accountability, while on the other hand the government is faced with the report and financial quality that are below the expectation. This issue is a national strategic issue, leading this research to aim at providing guidelines that can help the regional government to formulate operational policies and strategies of the quality improvement of financial statement and performance of the regional government.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the possibility of rating the credit worthiness of a firm’s quarterly financial report using a dynamic anomaly detection method.

The study uses a data set containing financial statements from Quarter 1 – 2001 to Quarter 4 – 2016 of 937 Vietnamese listed firms. In sum, 24 fundamental financial indices are chosen as control variables. The study employs the Mahalanobis distance to measure the proximity of each data point from the centroid of the distribution to point out the extent of the anomaly.

The finding shows that the model is capable of ranking quarterly financial reports in terms of credit worthiness. The execution of the model on all observations also revealed that most financial statements of Vietnamese listed firms are trustworthy, while almost a quarter of them are highly anomalous and questionable.

The study faces several limitations, including the availability of genuine accounting data from stock exchanges, the strong assumptions of a simple statistical distribution, the restricted timeframe of financial data and the sensitivity of the thresholds for anomaly levels.

The study opens an avenue for ordinary users of financial information to process the data and question the validity of the numbers presented by listed firms. Furthermore, if fraud information is available, similar research can be conducted to examine the tendency for companies with anomalous financial reports to commit fraud.

This is the first paper of its kind that attempts to build an anomaly detection model for Vietnamese listed companies.

The purpose of this paper is to re-test the determinant factors of the quality of financial statements and performance of the government by adding contextual factors, such as the personal factor, system/administrative factor and political factor, that may affect the quality of financial statement information and performance of the government. The personal factor is proxied to the competencies that affect the quality of financial statements and performance. The social administrative factor is proxied on the regulations and presentation of quality financial statements.

The analysis unit in this study was conducted at the organizational level. The research object was in the South Sulawesi Province. This was a descriptive and verificative research with a survey technique. Based on the objectives of the research, this is an explanatory study. The research method used was an explanatory survey with a quantitative approach. The population of this research was proxied to the Regional Unit Organization (Organisasi Perangkat Desa/OPD) which compiled the financial statements in the South Sulawesi Provincial Government and consisted of 803 units of local government agencies (Satuan Kerja Perangkat Daerah or SKPD). The purposive sampling technique was chosen under the following criteria: the regional government whose financial statement has been audited by the BPK, the regional government whose financial accountability report has been evaluated by Indonesia’s Agency for Financial, and Development Supervision (Badan Pengawasan Keuangan dan Pembangunan or BPKP). In line with the criteria mentioned above, the minimum samples required for 26 observations/indicators are 5 × 26 = 130 respondents. The sample size met the minimum sample requirement of five for each group (cell) (Hair et al., 2006, p. 112).

The personal factor “competence” affects the financial statements’ quality. The high personal factor “competence” will affect the high financial statements’ quality. The system/administration factor “regulation” affects the financial statement quality. The high system/administration factor “regulation” will affect the high financial statements’ quality. Political factors affect the financial statements’ quality. The high political factors will affect the high financial statements’ quality. The personal factor “competence” has no direct effect on the performance. The high personal factor “competence” will not affect the high or low of the performance. However, there is a significant indirect effect between the personal factor “competence” on performance through the financial statements’ quality, which means that the higher personal factor “competence” will lead to higher performance through financial statements’ quality. The system/administration factor “regulation” does not directly affect the performance. The high system/administration factor “regulation” will not affect the high or low of the performance. However there is a significant indirect effect between the system/administration factor “regulation” on performance through the financial statements’ quality which means that higher system/administration factor “regulation” will lead to higher performance through financial statements’ quality. The political factor does not directly affect the performance. The high political factors will not affect the high or low of the performance. However there is a significant indirect effect between political factors on performance through the financial statements’ quality which means that the higher political factor will lead to higher performance through the financial statements’ quality. Financial statements’ quality affects the performance. The high financial statements will affect the performance.

The research issues raised are the increasing public demands for the government services and accountability, while on the other hand, the government is faced with the report and financial quality that are below the expectation. This issue is a national strategic issue, leading this research to aim at providing guidelines that can help the regional government to formulate operational policies and strategies for the quality improvement of financial statement and performance of the regional government.

This study aims to investigate what are the capabilities and limits of external audit in detecting frauds in companies operating in the territory of the Republics: Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In total, 51 certified auditors from Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were surveyed to analyze what are the most frequent warning signals of the existence of the frauds auditors encounter during the verification of company’s financial statements.

The study indicated that the auditors of the Republic of Serbia more often encountered groundless overstatement of revenues compared with other countries, while regarding manipulative representation of inventories, the largest mean value and median are still among the auditors of the Republic of Serbia.

Based on the research results, it can be concluded that it is necessary to expand the legal obligation and power of external auditors when, in financial statement auditing, they come to clear findings that indicate fraud. Expansion of external auditors’ powers would reduce their current limitations and expand the domain of action.

Limitations in external auditors’ work prevent the processing of frauds. However, auditors’ analysis of financial statements and pointing to potential irregularities can be a good manner for the early detection and prevention of frauds in company’s operations.

This study analyses to what extent politicians use public sector entities' financial statements along with the politicians' perceptions of the usefulness of such statements in the politicians' decision-making. The authors analyze financial statements' use and usefulness when the statements are prepared on a modified accrual basis and in the setting where there is the intention of full accrual accounting adoption. In addition, this study provides information about the use of the individual components of financial statements and investigates the reasons why the statements may not be used.

This study was conducted using a questionnaire. The authors surveyed politicians that are members of Croatian public sector bodies. To conduct this research, the politicians were contacted by telephone over the period from February to April 2022.

The findings of this study are of potential interest to researchers, regulators and policy makers. The findings show that most politicians use financial statements, but the politicians' perception of the statements' usefulness when the statements are prepared on a modified accrual accounting basis is greater than the politicians' actual use of the statements. The findings also show that in the process of making decisions, politicians use the selected financial statements that contain information of interest to the politicians; that the politicians tend to gravitate to the use of reports on revenue, expenses, receipts and expenditure prepared on modified accrual bases which are closer to budgetary reporting; that the politicians use the information that supports the politicians' sphere of responsibility as enforced by legislation.

This study provides insights into the use and usefulness of financial statements in public sector setting where modified accrual accounting is used to prepare the statements and reports. This study provides additional evidence on the significance of legal setting to the financial reporting in public sector.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of financial restatements (FRs) on the likelihood of the top management team (TMT) dismissal. It investigates the effects of types of FRs [corrective note and reissuance of financial statement (RFS)], of FR severity and of FR related to international financial reporting standards (IFRSs) easy or difficult-to-estimate.

The authors hand-collect: data about 96 FRs from the Italian public oversight board documents; chief executive officer (CEO) name, chairman name, year of the financial statement under investigation, total assets and operating income, from their financial statement. The authors use multivariate regression to test the effects of FRs on the probability of TMT dismissal.

The authors find that the RFS leads to a higher likelihood of chairman dismissal. A greater magnitude of misrepresentation on income statements, and FRs, which decrease net income, increase the likelihood of CEO dismissal. Difficult-to-estimate IFRSs increases the likelihood of CEO dismissal.

FRs are significant determinants of the CEO/chairman dismissal. The authors show that FRs directly involving shareholders (RFS) have negative consequences on the chairman of the board of directors, while the CEO is more affected by FRs that involve technical factors (FR severity or financial statement associated with difficult-to-estimate IFRSs).

Governmental financial reporting is prepared for accountability and decision-making purposes and is directed to a wide range of users, including citizens. However, this may sound easier than it actually is as citizens without specific accounting knowledge may find it difficult to understand the financial information prepared by governments. The study analyzes citizens' perceptions toward infographics as well as their ability to improve accounting understandability by nonaccounting experts compared to the traditional financial statements.

The paper presents the results of an exploratory analysis conducted with the participation of a group of citizens in three European countries through a questionnaire.

The results show that infographics improve accounting understandability by nonaccounting experts compared to the traditional financial statements. However, infographics alone are not enough to succeed in making nonaccounting literate citizens experts in fully understanding accounting information.

The novelty of the research consists in its ability to give voice to citizens' preferences regarding the way the financial information is presented, which has been largely neglected by previous studies. In parallel, it analyzes the effect of accounting knowledge on accounting understandability. Moreover, it is the first study that analyzes the use of infographics in public sector financial reporting.

This study aims to examine whether there are differences between financial statements prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and financial statements prepared in accordance with local accounting standards in terms of its ability to present the financial conditions of companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange as one of the emerging markets.

Data on study variables were obtained from the published financial statements of 67 of listed companies in the Saudi Stock Exchange during the period 2014–2019. The study addressed the research hypotheses by using Altman Z-score model. Both the T-test and Wilcoxon rank test were used to investigate the significance of differences between the values of Z-score and the individual variables included in the model in the pre- and post-IFRS mandatory adoption periods.

The results revealed a decrease in the values of Z-score as well as the values of the individual variables included in the model in the period following the adoption of IFRS than it was before the adoption of IFRS, which indicates the ability of IFRS to show the financial conditions of companies more transparently than local accounting standards. However, the results of the T-test and Wilcoxon test showed that these decreases were not statistically significant.

This study has some limitations, including the small sample size as a result of the small size of the Saudi Stock Exchange, As well as the reliance of this study only on the Altman model with its five variables in assessing financial conditions without examining the impact of other factors that may affect the financial conditions of companies.

Financial conditions of the companies have important implications for multiple parties such as management, government, investors and others as an early warning sign that enables them to take the necessary measures early before the actual bankruptcy occurs and what results in costs.

Although assessing financial conditions of the companies is one of the basic uses of accounting information, this topic has not received sufficient attention as a means to test the benefits of adopting IFRS, especially in emerging markets such as Saudi Stock Exchange. This is the first study to examine the impact of adopting IFRS on the transparency of financial reporting in assessing financial conditions in Saudi Arabia.

This study aims to analyze antecedents of students’ lack of proficiency (in preparing financial statements, cash flow statements, cost volume profit analysis and budgeting) and the need for an automated financial plan (AFP) for the course entrepreneurship creativity and innovation within Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) in Oman.

The study used a set of four instrument items containing questionnaires to measure the variables in this study. A cross-sectional study was carried out at various universities and colleges in Oman during the year 2020, comprising 174 students from different majors. The results were analyzed using structural equation modelling-partial least squares.

The findings of the study suggest that the students in the universities and colleges should be educated and facilitated to enable them to gain more knowledge in finance/accounting through an AFP and, thus, warrants preparation of fair financial estimation for their innovative business project. A majority of students strongly support the need for implementing an AFP for their compulsory course, entrepreneurship creativity and innovation in HEIs in Oman.

This research is restricted to AFPs for the students in Oman who study the course entrepreneurship creativity and innovation. It is recommended that future study may extend to automated business plans for the students to improve their practical knowledge pertinent to the readiness of Omani students, as well as to give material transformation of internal environments in HEIs.

Unique AFP for university and college students for their compulsory course, entrepreneurship creativity and innovation provide important resources for policymakers responsible for HEIs, allowing them to improve the quality of preparing a financial plan for their innovative business ideas and new business start-ups.

There has been little discussion about the need for an AFP for the students who study the course entrepreneurship creativity and innovation. This study analyzes accounting standards as antecedents about students’ lack of proficiency towards an AFP for the course entrepreneurship creativity and innovation of universities and colleges in Oman which tries to fill this gap in the existing research. Hence, this study is considered as a novel approach that has not been broadly discussed in the earlier research.