Recognising Cases of Money Laundering and Financial Crime from the Perspective of Accounting Firms. Case Company X and Company Y
Turovska, Jekaterina (2020)
2020
All rights reserved. This publication is copyrighted. You may download, display and print it for Your own personal use. Commercial use is prohibited.
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2020052915357
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2020052915357
Tiivistelmä
The topic of this Bachelor’s thesis is the recognition of cases of money laundering and financial crime from the perspective of accounting firms. The research was performed in two big Finnish accounting firms at the end of the winter and beginning of the spring of 2020. The thesis aims to research indicators which alarm accountants about criminal and money laundering activities in companies and methods accountants use to discover these activities. The thesis gives recommendations to accountants who work in outsourced accounting.
The thesis involves theoretical and empirical parts. The theoretical part discusses different types and signs of financial fraud in accounting, how it appears in accounting documents and what preventive measures Finnish legislation currently has towards criminal activities in business. The theoretical part discusses Finnish accounting standards.
The empirical part of the thesis uses qualitative research methods. In order to complete the empirical part of the thesis, a series of interviews was performed with accountants in companies X and Y. The interviews helped to identify practices companies use in order to discover and prevent criminal and money laundering activities.
Results in the empirical part revealed the red flags of criminal and money laundering activities that accountants in case companies get while doing accounting for their clients. Knowledge about criminal and money laundering activities recognition methods was gained. Case companies provided information on how they spot and deal with criminal and money laundering activities in spring 2020 and their future vision about the topic. The research question was answered, and based on the gained results, recommendations to accountants were given.
The thesis involves theoretical and empirical parts. The theoretical part discusses different types and signs of financial fraud in accounting, how it appears in accounting documents and what preventive measures Finnish legislation currently has towards criminal activities in business. The theoretical part discusses Finnish accounting standards.
The empirical part of the thesis uses qualitative research methods. In order to complete the empirical part of the thesis, a series of interviews was performed with accountants in companies X and Y. The interviews helped to identify practices companies use in order to discover and prevent criminal and money laundering activities.
Results in the empirical part revealed the red flags of criminal and money laundering activities that accountants in case companies get while doing accounting for their clients. Knowledge about criminal and money laundering activities recognition methods was gained. Case companies provided information on how they spot and deal with criminal and money laundering activities in spring 2020 and their future vision about the topic. The research question was answered, and based on the gained results, recommendations to accountants were given.