Ranking the Factors Affecting Financial Fraud Probability, According to Audited Financial Statements

Abstract

Fraud is one of the key factors in decreasing the reliability of reports and financial statements, which in turn, has increased the risk and cost of business, reduced the investors’ confidence, and put the validity and integrity of the accounting profession into question. The purpose of this paper is to rank factors affecting the probability of financial fraud, according to Audited Financial Statements for 181 firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange for 9 years (2006 to 2014). Finally, the questionnaires prepared by experts were analyzed through analytic hierarchy process (AHP). As a result, we found that paragraphs related to overstated or understated income or assets have the highest priority in the factors affecting the probability of financial fraud, according to Audited Financial Statements.

Keywords

• financial fraud
• the independent auditor's report
• hierarchical model (AHP) fuzzy