Frauds and errors in financial statement

Financial statement fraud has become a serious problem for accounting regulators in recent years. Disclosure of financial statement fraud has resulted in huge losses in the market value of the affected stock and lawsuits directed against both the companies involved and the auditors of such companies. The implications for all companies' management, internal and external audit are clear: every organization is vulnerable to fraud, and all companies, especially corporate executives must know what financial statement frauds are and know how to detect them or, at least, when to suspect them. Article looks what financial statement fraud is, analyses various fraud and errors classifications, and what may be the motivation to commit them. According to works by various authors, defining fraud is the easy part. The research show that generally accepted definition of financial statement fraud is the deliberate misrepresentation of the financial condition of an enterprise accomplished through the intentional misstatement or omission of amounts or disclosures in the financial statements in order to deceive financial statement users. In other words, mistakes are not fraud. In this article a comprehensive error classification system has been established. This classification will help managers, accountants and auditors find errors and frauds, clarify their reasons and origin, evaluate their impact on the results of activity more objectively and foresee specific means of prevention. And finally article analyzes why fraud happens. A useful model for this question is the "fraud triangle" described by SAS 99 and 240 IFAC, 3 CS model and red flags. The models help managers predict possible deceits