Volume 2 (2022): Issue 2 (December 2022)

Considering the burning problem of corruption and non-transparency of public enterprises in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH), the paper aims to investigate whether the Beneish M-score model can be used to predict inaccurate financial statements. Where, the cause of inaccurate financial statements are intentional or unintentional errors.

On a sample of 200 financial statements of public enterprises and related audit reports issued by the Audit Office of the Institutions in FBiH, we made a link between the Beneish M score model with its partial indicators (DSRI, GMI, AQI, SGI, DEPI, SGAI, LVGI, TATA) and four types of opinions: positive, opinion with distraction, negative and refraining from giving opinions. The research was conducted using descriptive statistics and an artificial neural network with the “scaled conjugate gradient backpropagation (trainscg)” algorithm for pattern recognition and classification. The research results show that it is possible on the basis of 8 partial indicators (DSRI, GMI, AQI, SGI, DEPI, SGAI, LVGI, TATA) i.e. 24 balance sheet position for their calculation, predict the auditor’s opinion on the quality of financial statements of public companies with an accuracy ranging between 98 and 100% in repeated procedures. The results of the research have their practical usefulness and can serve to researchers, creditors, customers, suppliers and state auditors in planning resources and priorities for performing financial audits at public companies in the FBiH.

Aware of the danger that the risk of money laundering and terroist financing has on the whole society, and with the aim of increasing awareness of the effective fight against the same risk in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), the paper deals with the research of mechanisms for managing the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing activities.

The research of this work will be focused on determining the degree of application of the requirements of the legislative and institutional framework for the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing by those obliged to apply law. Also, the paper points to the cooperation of state institutions with entities of the BiH, and examines the degree of compliance of the BiH system with international standards related to the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. In order to assess the management of this risk as efficiently as possible, the paper will cover financial and non-financial money transfer systems, and indicate the level of measures taken in this fight by the competent institutions. For the purposes of research in the paper, the data published by the competent institutions through their reports/publications will be used, with a special focus on the data published by the Banking Agency of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina as the legal entity that reported the largest number of suspicious transactions in the analyzed period. The results of the research indicate that there is no concern regarding the management of the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing in BiH, and that the risk can be quantified in the category of moderate risk.

COVID-19 is behind us, that is, it no longer poses a direct threat to the normal functioning of higher education. Nevertheless, the answers to the challenges in teaching, brought with it by COVID-19, have become an integral part of the curriculum of higher education institutions. When it comes to online teaching in accounting courses, additional creativity was expected from the teaching staff to successfully transfer knowledge. This was a particularly difficult challenge for those institutions and teaching staff who had not previously applied online teaching and online tools in the teaching process.

The research was conducted on students of the Faculty of Economics of the University of Mostar (EF Mostar, FEM) and students of the Faculty of Economics of the University of Split (EF Split, FES), who took one or more accounting courses in the pandemic academic year 2020/2021 and partly in the academic year 2021/2022. The paper tried to offer answers to the questions about the degree of student satisfaction with online teaching, what are the advantages and disadvantages of this kind of teaching, and in which aspects there is room for improvement when considering the teaching of accounting courses in the context of online teaching.

This paper investigated the opportunities for public sector improvement by digitalization Financial Management and Control (FMC) system in the Western Balkans (WB) countries. Optimizing business processes within public sector through the digitalization of the FMC system offers opportunities for public sector improvement.

The idea is to analyze the existing legal solutions on FMC system in the WB countries and evaluate the current level of digitalization of the system to find the abilities for improvement FMC. The data obtained through an interview with management persons in the Ministry of Finance of the WB Countries and key experts who worked on behalf of the EU as expert consultants on EU-funded projects. Also, we use secondary data collected by exploring literature and OECD reports. Since the database is limited, we use descriptive statistics to analyze the data and the case-study method. The digitalization of the entire system presented only at the entity and state level in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The research showed that the development of a quality FMC system can be enabled by the digitalization of the entire system. The main contribution of this paper is its focus on digitalization of FMC system, since there is limited research paper on this subject.

This paper is dealing with one of the major challenges confronting the development of forensic accounting primarily legislation to combat fraudulent practices in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The focus of our research is corporate and practice in the finance and banking sectors, since business operations are becoming more complex, especially with the recent developments in information and communication technology and as a consequence of the global pandemics of Covid-19 and the looming economic crisis. This has changed the nature of corporate fraud and fraudulent practices. This study has a primary goal to investigate the theoretical aspects of the integration of forensic accounting and corporate law and related regulation as tools for combating corporate and cyber fraud. In that sense, forensic accounting with a more than strong backing in the legislative aspects is strongly geared towards the minimization of the cost of employed capacities for forensic accounting activities to mitigate and eventually eliminate cyber fraud.

The study also explores the effect of integrating forensic accounting and management control systems on banks’ reputations and the huge loss of revenue resulting from cyber fraud. The study develops a conceptual model to show the relationship between forensic accounting, the management control system, and cyber fraud in the banking sector. A legal context analysis methodological research approach was employed to express the relationship amongst the variables considered in this study to reduce corporate and public sector fraud, minimize cost and improve the reputation of corporate and public government sectors. Preliminary research in the formulation of clear conclusions gives an idea of the feasibility of combining the components of forensic accounting, corporate and related laws and regulations, management control systems, and corporate reputation to combat business fraud. This was validated in some general conclusions which resulted in an acceptable, logical, and feasible model of forensic accounting solidly founded in corporate law and structure. Some of the findings are that the speed and ease of convergence process symbiotic integration of forensic accounting and corporate law is the best solution that is feasible and suitable for achieving the set objectives. Our initial conclusion and recommendation are that the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia should introduce legislation that would ensure strict corporate disclosure standards, requirements, and norms as this would defend companies’ critical assets as well as its anti-fraud programs.