Fraud detection simulation where students test earnings quality

An accounting fraud detection simulation is a timed activity where students investigate a set of published accounts without being told what is in them. In the Finsimco Accounting Fraud Detection Simulation, each student works eight years of a listed company's statements, finds the year reported earnings stop being supported by cash, runs five manipulation indicators, samples the transactions behind them, and writes a conclusion against management explanations that are entirely plausible. Unlike a ratio exercise, the answer has to be evidenced.

Undergraduate and postgraduate students on Financial Accounting, Auditing, Forensic Accounting, Corporate Governance or Financial Statement Analysis courses, and MBA programmes. Difficulty is adjustable, so the same company can be run with a single clear revenue recognition issue, or with a judgemental estimate, a related party transaction, a restated prior year and an audit committee demanding certainty for Masters and MBA cohorts.

Some. Students should be able to read an income statement and a cash flow statement. Accruals, manipulation indices, digit tests, sampling and materiality are explained and computed inside the activity, with worked examples in the tool tips.

Mid to late module, typically from week six onwards, once the statements have been covered. It also works as the applied session in an auditing module, because professional scepticism is very hard to teach from a textbook.

The Forensic Accounting simulation works an investigation that is already open, with a suspect population and a fraud to reconstruct. This one starts earlier, with nothing but published accounts and no indication that anything is wrong.

A case study describes a fraud that has already been found. Here each student works the accounts before anybody knows, tests the explanations in real time and writes a conclusion they have to defend. You get the screening work, the tests and the reasoning behind the call, rather than a written summary.

Most fraud teaching is a narrative of a case that was eventually uncovered, which makes the signals look obvious. The Finsimco Accounting Fraud Detection Simulation is different because the signals arrive alongside honest explanations. The growth story is true, the auditor did sign, and the student has to decide what the evidence carries. It suits modules that want detection taught as judgement under ambiguity.

It can sit alongside one or replace it. An assignment assesses ratio work. This makes students act on it, test the explanations and write a conclusion they can be held to.

They take the screening, testing and conclusion roles in turn, plot earnings against operating cash flow across eight years, identify the year the two separate, run five manipulation indicators, sample the revenue transactions behind them, test four management explanations, and write a conclusion limited to what the evidence supports.

Every student holds all three. Screening wants the anomaly, testing wants the evidence and conclusion wants a statement that will survive challenge. Nothing is submitted until all three are satisfied, so the student has to reconcile them rather than pick a favourite.

No. A conclusion that recommends escalation and one that recommends further specific testing can both be right. What scores badly is stopping at the chart, or writing an accusation the evidence cannot carry.

Single-player. Every student runs the same case independently, so there is no team formation, no minimum cohort size and no group-work marking to untangle. It runs equally well with one student or several hundred.

About three and a half hours with the default timings, and the timings are yours. Every stage can be lengthened or shortened from the professor panel, so the same simulation fits a longer block or a shorter slot.

Yes. It pauses and resumes without losing submitted data. Two configurations work well: two sessions, with Briefing and Screen and Test in the first and The Explanations, The Conclusion and the debrief in the second; or three sessions, one per working stage. Briefing can also be set as pre-reading if you would rather open on the screening.

Yes to all four. Because students work independently inside the platform, a remote or asynchronous run behaves exactly like an in-room one, which also makes it straightforward to set as homework. Delivery is covered across our simulations for universities.

As much or as little as you like. The simulation is self-running and coaching is optional. You control the timeline, can adjust stage timings, and can monitor student inputs live. See how a Finsimco session runs for the setup, controls and first-delivery support.