Perspective of professionals on forensic accounting: Gaziantep province example

With the development of technology, businesses have entered a war of competitive advantage against each other. As a result, situations such as cheating and corruption often come to the fore. Forensic accounting is needed to detect fraud, corruption and other financial crimes. Forensic accounting is an important branch of science for judicial authorities in terms of detecting financial crimes, fraud and corruption. Law and accounting act together in the field of forensic accounting. In order to carry out forensic accounting in a healthy way, many areas of expertise such as accounting theories, auditing, crime research, evidence collection, statistics, intelligence, criminology, psychology, apart from traditional accounting, support forensic accounting studies. The aim of the study is to determine the perceptions of accounting professionals and lawyers operating in Gaziantep province towards forensic accounting. For this purpose, in the first part of the study, the basic concepts of forensic accounting are explained. In the second part, the error and fraud element of forensic accounting is examined and the role of forensic accounting in the prevention of fraud is explained. In the third part, the perspectives of lawyers and accounting professionals in Gaziantep province on the field of forensic accounting were determined. A face-to-face questionnaire was applied to 341 lawyers and 325 accountants. As a result, it has been determined that lawyers and accounting professionals do not have sufficient knowledge about the forensic accounting profession, they are insufficient in the judicial sense and there is a great need for the forensic accounting profession. Keywords: Forensic Accounting, Forensic Accountant Profession, Cheat, Lawyer, Accountant.