Summary on Trap Doors and Trojan Horses - Essay Example

Fraud can involve as little as $1 to millions of dollars depending on the players involved, as characterized by most fraud activities involving large corporations like banks and investment firms. Trap Doors and Trojan Horses is a book authored by Larry Crumbley, Lawrence Murphy Smith and Laura Davis DeLaune that details the intricacies of fraud involving large corporations and firms. The book is written as a novel that portrays what is regarded as mundane auditing or accounting process in an extremely creative and interesting manner that captures the reader’s attention.

The technique used to write the book helps shed light onto the inner workings of high level fraud in the corporate world, and the players involved. This paper seeks to provide a summary of the book by highlighting the key concepts and components addressed by the book. Fraud in the accounting world is best investigated and found out by accountants who are professionally trained and certified with what is referred to as a certified public accountant (CPA) accreditation. According to Crumbley, Smith and DeLaune (7), CPAs are able to carry out what is referred to as an audit of firm’s annual or quarterly financial statements that serve to provide an opinion of the fairness of the statements in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).

The accounting profession is guided by a strict code of conduct and ethics that should be adhered to continuously in order to maintain the integrity of their work and that of their clients. This is because auditors play a critical and vital role that requires them to be vigilant and objective in ensuring that a company’s shareholders’ interests are protected. Auditors also function to ensure that corporate and governance management act within their mandated responsibilities and duties to ensure that a firm’s daily operations are verified (Crumbley, Smith and DeLaune 8).

Some of the world renowned accounting and auditing firms include KPMG, PricewaterCoopers, Deloitte and E & Y (8). In an organization, fraudulent behavior can be discerned through the observation of deviant or peculiar habits especially those that are related with money and transactions. Fraudulent employees and clients can easily be detected by observing their spending behaviors or tendencies, and looking for out of the way spending habits. According to Crumbley, Smith and DeLaune (12), an employee in one division of Coca Cola spent a considerable amount of money to buy his wife a bass boat.

The wife cashed a check which she very well knew that her husband could not afford to have such an amount of money. The woman confessed that her husband made his work computer play songs that it should not been playing. This led to the suspicion of fraudulent behavior in the division involving this particular employee. This called for a forensic audit on the division’s financial statements and movement of dollar amounts within and without the division. Overspending or under-spending monies are other ways of detecting suspicious behaviors of fraud perpetrators.

This is so in the sense that if an individual deviates from their normal spending habits, it is usually a sign inconsistent and suspect financial behavior. Observation of these suspect financial behaviors can lead fraud investigators to establish a precedent that warrants them to launch