A suitable model for bankruptcy recognition by forensic accountants and auditors

Bankruptcy is a matter that must be determined by the court. According to the law, in order to prove bankruptcy, the merchant must present his financial and commercial documents to the court, and the court will issue his bankruptcy order after examination. This ruling contains contents that have many legal effects. Due to the specialization of the bankruptcy investigation process and the need to examine the financial books of the merchant, judges use the expertise of forensic accountants to make decisions and issue judgments, so forensic accountants have an important role in bankruptcy verification. On the other hand, professional standards and operating frameworks that forensic accountants use to perform expert duties have not been developed in iran. The purpose of this research is to provide a model that can be a guide for certified experts of the justice in this field. In this research, first by studying the conceptual foundations, 68 forensic accounting techniques related to the bankruptcy were extracted. Then by implementing the fuzzy delphi method and using a questionnaire, the opinions of 25 qualified elites in this field were collected regarding the mentioned techniques. Finally, 59 techniques, which according to elites, can be useful in the expert process, are identified and a model consisting of five parts "preliminary survey", "detailed investigation", "information gathering", "documents review" and "comprehensive data analysis" was presented. Forensic accountants can plan and implement the expert process in the field of bankruptcy by using the techniques presented in each of these sections. The results of this research can be used in the formulation of professional standards of forensic accounting in the field of bankruptcy and similar issues.