Investigation of the efficacy of internal audit on the prevention of accounting staff in five star hotel operations

Accounting errors and frauds can leave businesses financially challenging and even end the existence of the business. Especially in accounting literature, there is no doubt that fraudulent accounting processes are one of the most frequently discussed topics in recent years. It is possible to say that the scandals of the big companies such as Enron, Worldcom and Xerox, which undoubtedly caused a lot of confusion on the subject, are also influences. After financial losses such as Enron, Worldcom and Xerox scandals have surfaced, all parties concerned about what measures and what can be done in terms of prevention of accounting frauds in businesses have attracted attention and the work done on this issue has increased considerably. As mentioned above, comprehensive studies have been carried out in different fields concerning accounting scam. In this study, it was tried to examine the effectiveness of internal audit in order to prevent accounting frauds in five star hotel enterprises. The study consists of four parts. In the first part of the study, concepts related to auditing and accounting audit are discussed. Within this section, concepts of audit, definition of accounting audit, characteristics and types are among the topics studied. In the second part of the study, internal audit has been extensively reviewed. In this section, the concept of internal audit, its functions, purpose, importance, scope, reason for implementation of internal audit, internal audit standards, internal audit techniques and internal audit process are thoroughly examined. the third part deals with the hotel organization and the accounting organization structure of the hotel enterprises. In this section, general information about hotel management, accounting organization structure of hotel management and internal control in hotel management are examined. In the fourth chapter, which is the last part of the study, an example of application in the Istanbul region has been included on the examination of the effectiveness of internal auditing in terms of prevention of accounting frauds in five star hotel enterprises. Key Words: Accounting, Accounting Trick, Internal Auditing, Internal Control, Hotel Management.