This question has been edited 23/06/2022

Hi, I work in the FIDS team at EY and came through the Assurance (Audit) graduate programme so let me know if there is anything specific you want to ask about the link between the two, the similarities and differences or anything else you can think of!

Hi David,

Thanks in advance for your help in answering further questions!

I have previously discussed with an accountant working in Forensic Services without auditing experience. In terms of investigation, I thought that it is carried out on something that audit cannot manage to shed light on. However, throughout the conversation, I realised that it’s due to their different foci. Whereas audit is done by sampling from a significantly large scale of data focusing on the whole company’s financial reporting, fraud investigation drills deep into specific area where clients raise concern of. Besides, something like bribery is actually out of the scope of what auditing can unveil. May I know if this is the case?

Since many parties are involved in the process of investigations and dispute resolution, who usually leads the team? The legal or the accounting firm? And how the cooperation between the two is, especially during negotiation and mediation?

Even though auditing experience is not necessary for doing the job well in FIDS to uncover the truth, I believe there’s always benefit of broader knowledge and experience. How do you see the advantage of having auditing experience? And what can be done to achieve that if FIDS team is joined right away instead?

Please excuse me for such a lengthy enquiry as I would like to have a thorough understanding for a better informed career choice. Thank you very much for your time!

Best regards,
Carmen

Hi Carmen,

That is a great set out questions – You clearly already have a detailed understanding about forensic accountancy!

Regarding the relationship with audit, you are exactly right that the key difference is the focus of an investigation compared to an audit. The actual testing that we carry out on an investigation is often similar to the work that would be undertaken on an audit e.g., analysing accounting trends or reviewing invoices against goods dispatch notes.

However, in an investigation, we are searching for specific discrepancies or unusual transactions that indicate something is not quite right. In an audit, we are testing whether the whole balance is true and fair within an agreed materiality level. So the focus of an investigation is much more detailed and requires an increased level of scepticism (over and above the scepticism required to be an auditor).

I am therefore extremely glad that I spent almost three years in our audit team before transferring to FIDS. I believe that audit provides you with an in depth understanding of the building blocks that form a set of financial statements and how they fit together. Once you have this, and the very desirable chartered accountancy qualification, you can apply your understanding to whatever area interests you, including forensic accountancy.

For this reason, we don’t currently offer graduate positions in our FIDS team. Instead we offer an assurance-wide scheme in which graduates are based in the audit team but may have the opportunity to experience FIDS projects. This hopefully gives our graduates the best of both worlds – A thorough understanding of how businesses work and a chance to experience a variety of the different things that EY can do.

Regarding our relationship with lawyers, who leads the team really depends on the individual situation. We work most effectively when we work collaboratively with the lawyers (and any other advisors) and have a clearly communicated shared purpose – This always leads to the best outcomes for our clients.

However, if you were to push me for an answer, I would suggest that the most common structure is for the lawyers to have overall control (under instruction from the client) with the forensic accountants providing leadership and input on areas within their areas of expertise.

I appreciate my response is a bit wordy but I hope it helps inform your career choice – Good luck!

That's a great question Sean as not all employers use strengths-based assessment. Before the call, you will be invited to attend a webinar which will coach you around how to perform well at this type of interview and how to prepare. Before that however, there are lots of good resources online which will tell you more about how to understand your strengths and how to sell them at interview. Good luck!

This is my contribution to the discussion

Am I able to add to this discussion????

Am I able to post anonymously v2

here is a video, during the process of it

here is a video, after but Video input still open with the previous video but got a error message when submiting. and it only submit text message

replies again