Question

There are situations in which a client requests an oral report from a forensic accountant. Client motivation should be considered when an oral report is requested. Discuss a situation in which a client might request an oral report instead of a written report. In your response posts, discuss the risks associated with oral reports and recommend ways to handle the situation proposed by your peer. Support your initial posts and response posts with scholarly sources cited in APA style.

Answer 1

Oral Presentation skill is one of the many important skills that accounting professionals must possess. If you work at a public accounting firm, you are likely to have some client interaction which could range from initial meeting to discuss the client’s finances to networking in order to get new business. You need to be able to present yourself verbally very well, both in person and over the telephone. You must be able to articulate and explain complex financial issues in simple, layman’s terms and answer questions clearly. In addition, some accounting jobs require presentation in front of groups of people, such as boards of directors, legal and financial regulators or professional membership organizations.

In other words Oral presentation is an important skill for a forensic accountant to possess, due to the fact, client interaction will occur frequently during the course of engagement. With this being said, the forensic accountant must be able to effectively present information verbally and clearly explain complex financial issues in layman’s terms at any point in time at the request of clients to groups of individuals, such as boards of directors, legal and financial regulators and so forth.

When a client request an oral report, it is important to consider potential reasons for doing so, such as confidentiality, competitive gain or even cost effectiveness.