ACPEN Signature: 2022 Business Fraud Update and Managing the Risk of Fraud

Fraud Happens; and it can happen to your organization.  The public expects accountability professionals to be the first line of defense against fraud. To meet this expectation, accountants, internal auditors, external auditors, and risk management professionals need to develop the skills needed to prevent, detect, and deter fraud.

According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), the typical organization loses about 5% of its revenues each year due to fraud.  So, an organization with $10,000,000 in revenue would lose about $500,000 in revenue—and profit, because the lost revenue goes right to the organization’s bottom line.  If that organization had a profit rate of 15%, it would need to generate about $3,333,000 in additional revenue to recover those lost profits. The impact of fraud is almost always devastating, and can be catastrophic.

Why do organizations continue to be so vulnerable to fraud?  One reason is that most organizations simply do not think fraud can happen to them.  They think that fraud only happens to other, not-as-well-managed organizations.  So, such organizations do not focus on fraud, fraud prevention, fraud detection, and fraud deterrence.  Then, when fraud happens to them, senior management and those responsible for governance immediately try to find someone to blame besides themselves.  The scapegoat is often the very accountability professionals—accountants, internal auditors, external auditors, risk management professionals—who tried to warn them about fraud vulnerabilities and the importance of proactive fraud risk management.  The accountability professional needs to (a) remain at the cutting edge of knowledge about fraud and (b) constantly warn management and those charged with governance about fraud risks.

The 2022 Business Fraud Update is another fast-moving seminar that will provide a comprehensive look at the latest developments about fraud from the technical, legal, and operational perspectives and update participants on the most recent legal and regulatory developments in this important area of professional responsibility.  The Update will cover:

• The latest developments in "best practices" for implementing the revised Internal Control Integrated Framework issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO) of the Treadway Commission.  Every organization that purports to follow the COSO Internal Control Framework must now adhere to the following key principle: The organization considers the potential for fraud in assessing risks to the achievement of objectives.
• The COSO/ACFE Fraud Risk Management Guide, first published in 2016 has undergone an update process.  Key improvements will be discussed.
• Covid-19, Cares Act, and the Payroll Protection Program introduced enormous amount of pandemic relief funding. Obviously, that funding attracted the interest of fraud perpetrators across the globe.
• The latest developments related to the ever-changing cyber-risk and cyber-security landscape will be explored.
• The legal ramifications of the most recent fraud cases will be discussed.
• Continuing developments in data analytics and digital analysis will be explored and explained.

Our panel of legal experts (prosecutors and white-collar defense lawyers) will weigh in on these emerging issues from their special points of view. Participants will learn and master new skills for meeting their professional, legal and ethical responsibilities to make reasonable efforts to deter, prevent, and detect fraud.

Once again, our panel of experts will portray players in an afternoon fraud case scenario designed to illustrate some of the key concepts discussed in the morning.

Business fraud happens.  This program will help accountability professionals manage the risk of fraud effectively and proactively, and give them the tools they need to keep senior management and governance officials apprised of the importance of constant vigilance regarding fraud risks and the need for proactively managing fraud risk.