Golden Gate University
Certificate in Forensic Accounting - Golden Gate U.
Starting in 2009, Golden Gate pursued a new graduate specialty certificate in forensic accounting. The school had been working for some time to get the certification to move forward, and just recently the American Institute of CPAs authorized a specialty credentialing in forensic accounting, called the Certified Financial Forensic. The requirements for calling yourself a CFF is continuing education. Golden Gate offers a lot of this in its training program.
The courses you can take in Golden Gate's program include bankruptcy, economic damages, shareholder and stakeholder disputes, lost profits and insolvency. The certificate program addresses each of these, paying particularly close attention to the lingo you would be expected to know if you took the stand in a forensic accounting trial. So you can see how this course is geared to both attorneys and accountants working (or intending to work) in the accounting field.
The academic requirements for Golden Gate's certificate are pretty straightforward: 18 units of forensic accounting courses with a B or better (recognize, of course, that some of the courses have pre-requisites that can increase the number of courses you'd have to take). Here's how the courses break down:
Both Fraud Auditing and Introduction to Financial Forensic Accounting are required, accounting for 6 hours. That leaves 12 elective hours, to be selected from forensic accounting and family law, economic damages, allegation of audit failure, expert witness and testimony, intellectual property, mergers & acquisitions, construction claims, forensic valuation, and financial statement investigations. The program can give you a heads-up about course times, or the possibility of just taking one or two courses for information's sake, without pursuing the certificate. Call at 415-442-6559.