Gold Magazine April - May 2013, Issue 25 | Page 60

ACCOUNTING

The One
And Only

Forensic Accounting is becoming a specialist area for which there is growing
demand. At present, approximately 2,000 accountants worldwide are Certified in
Financial Forensics but only 18 of them are working outside the USA. One of them
is Rakis Christoforou who is now on a mission to encourage more of his colleagues
to obtain the qualification which, he says, has a significance that goes far beyond
the narrow world of accountancy. By John Vickers, Photograph by Jo Michaelides

A

s a job description,
“Forensic Accountant” sounds like
a combination of
exciting, mysterious
detective work and…,
well, accounting. For
Rakis Christoforou,
who recently became the first Cypriot to
be entitled to describe himself as Certified in Financial Forensics, that’s exactly
what it is. “It certainly requires more than
a little detective work,” he says, “because
we have to look behind the numbers,
to check what has really happened in a
particular case. We don’t look only at
financial statements and accounts. Forensic accountants need to check agreements,
minutes of meetings, correspondence,
messages. Things are not always what they
seem”.
The Forensic Accountant (the ‘forensic’
part is key – meaning that he/she will

be looking for evidence to be brought
before a court of law and, Christoforou
notes, “we always work with lawyers”)
may be called upon to investigate a case
of financial statement fraud or to implement systems to prevent such a situation
from arising. “We also work as mediators
in financial disputes; we are associated
with business valuation (I have also recently qualified as an Accredited Business
Valuer) and may be called in when companies are discussing a merger or acquisition. Directors are frequently tempted to
overstate a company’s assets in order
to sell at a higher price and we have a
very important role to play there. We
also become involved in bankruptcies,
reorganisations and even family disp ]\ˈ