Financial forensic utilizes accounting, auditing, and investigative skills to analyze a company's financial statements for possible fraud in conjunction with anticipated or ongoing legal action.
Forensic accountants analyze the financial statements of companies and individuals to look for tax fraud, money laundering, insider trading, scams, market manipulation, and other financial crimes. The goal is to discover these crimes, report them, prevent them if possible, and prosecute the individuals responsible. If financial theft has taken place, financial forensics is also used to recover any stolen funds.
Financial forensics is significantly used by intelligence agencies.