Principles of Audit Surveillance

The logic and language of auditing for fraud. This book is a revised and condensed version of the groundbreaking classic in which Cardwell introduces a comprehensive system for detection and deterrence of "inside theft." Inside theft is the fraudulent transfer of value from owners, undertaken by employees for their own benefit or that of their accomplices. Audit surveillance, but one component of this system, is a strategy centered on the books and records of the firm that uses incisive tests of limited scope to detect the evidences of inside theft. In short, it is a risk-based application of the common sense notion that to detect something, one must test for it. Includes both broad accounting theory on employee fraud as well as procedures used by auditors in the detection of complements, fraudulent credits, and certain forms of conversions; such as tests of reasonableness, verification methods (corroborative procedures), conversion surveillance, and oral inquiry.