FORENSIC ACCOUNTING IN FINANCIAL FRAUD CONTROL IN DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT: A RESEARCH ON INDEPENDENT AUDITORS

Abstract

The technology, which takes on different structures and featureswith each passing day, has left enterprises to interact more with digitalenvironment. While processing the business data in digital environmentresults in positive outcomes, such as saving on time and costs forbusinesses, it has also caused a new fraud technique to come intoquestion, which is a negative effect. This technique is called financialfraud. It has led a new profession to come into prominence in financialfraud control performed in digital environment, where 3M theory andcompetence element play a significant role in the realization of financialfraud. Developments in technology have caused sophisticated caseswithin businesses to increase and strategic decisions to become moresignificant, and as a remedy for these causes, allowed forensic auditreports and forensic accounting to become prominent. In this study, ithas been tried to investigate whether core-competencies andcharacteristics are effective in financial fraud audits in digitalenvironment. For this purpose, a survey has been applied to auditors ofaudit companies that have the authority to issue transparency reportsat KGK, and as a result of the survey, it was concluded that the corecompetencies and characteristics of the auditors evaluated as forensicaccountants were close to forensic accountants abroad but there wereno forensic accounting software against financial frauds performeddigitally and the transactions were made on audit software duringfinancial fraud audits. On the other hand, it was observed, in theresearch data, that the accounting profession was in development inTurkey, there was not enough infrastructure provided, and forensic accounting was also effective in internal audit and quality financialreporting.