Revenue Accrual Quality as an Indicator of Financial Statement Fraud

摘要

This study was conducted to address the need for additional financial statement fraud detection techniques. Accruals were chosen as the focus of this study due to the high likelihood of financial statement manipulation using accruals. Using the Dechow/Dichev accrual quality model, this study tested whether or not accrual quality can be used as an indicator of financial statement fraud. The study concluded that the Dechow/Dichev model found non-fraudulent financial statements to have higher quality accruals than fraudulent financial statements. In addition, accrual quality of non-fraudulent financial statements was found to be significantly different from the accrual quality of fraudulent financial statements. Therefore, accrual quality may be considered an indicator of fraudulent financial statement activity.