ACC 691 is SNHU’s Detection and Prevention of Fraudulent Financial Statements course. It centers on financial statement fraud: motives and pressures, revenue recognition schemes, analytical red flags and prediction models, reserve manipulation, asset overstatement, governance and audit committee oversight, the auditor's role, concealed liabilities and disclosures, restatement and investigation, and prevention programs. Every module below opens a full sample paper or takes a free request for one; searches like "acc 691 module 3", "ACC691 sample paper" and "ACC 691 milestone example" land on this page.
What ACC 691 is really about
ACC 691 is SNHU's graduate course on detecting and preventing fraudulent financial statements, and it rewards linking a scheme to the accounting rule it violates, the evidence that reveals it and the control that would have stopped it. Strong work quantifies the misstatement, explains how the scheme hid in the numbers and avoids hindsight by asking what a reasonable reader could have seen at the time.
The samples on this shelf share one composite company, a Nasdaq-listed maker of commercial ovens, fryers and refrigeration for restaurant chains, based in Wisconsin, with about $640 million of revenue, which missed its own guidance after a large customer delayed orders and then spent six quarters disguising the shortfall. The company and its figures are illustrative.
What ACC 691’s modules ask for
Across ten modules, ACC 691 typically asks for discussions on motives, reserve manipulation and auditors' responsibilities, assignments on revenue schemes, asset overstatement and concealed liabilities, three final project milestones on red flag analysis, governance failures and quantifying the restatement, and a final project designing a prevention program.
Where students lose points in ACC 691
The most common ACC 691 deduction is describing a scheme without the specific accounting rule it broke, which makes the analysis read like a news story. The second is hindsight: treating every red flag as obvious when, at the time, each had an innocent explanation. Graders also mark down restatement figures that are not reconciled by period. Naming the rule, the evidence and the period for each misstatement fixes most of these.
The ACC 691 drawers
ACC 691 Module 1 Discussion example
An opening post on why executives falsify financial statements, told through a composite Wisconsin maker of commercial kitchen equipment that faced a $28 million revenue shortfall against its own guidance when a restaurant chain delayed a remodel program: earnings targets and equity pay as pressure, weak board oversight as opportunity, the belief that the gap was temporary as rationalization, how small first steps grow, and what research on enforcement cases and executive surveys shows, with Dechow, Sloan and Sweeney, Graham, Harvey and Rajgopal and Dorminey, Fleming, Kranacher and Riley. Full sample paper, read it free.
ACC 691 Module 2 Revenue Schemes Assignment example
A revenue schemes assignment analyzing two schemes at a composite Wisconsin kitchen equipment maker: $19 million of bill-and-hold sales recorded without customer requests, segregation or readiness, tested against the four ASC 606 criteria, and $14 million shipped to dealers in the last two weeks of a quarter with 180-day terms and side letters granting returns, which should have been constrained as variable consideration, with the red flags, the evidence that exposed each scheme and the overstatement of $27.4 million of revenue and $9.0 million of gross profit, with the FASB revenue update, Dechow, Ge, Larson and Sloan and Kieso, Weygandt and Warfield. Full sample paper, read it free.
ACC 691 Module 3 Milestone One example
The first final project milestone reads the 2024 annual report of a composite Wisconsin kitchen equipment maker the way a skeptical analyst could have before anyone confessed: receivable days jumping from 46 to 71, earnings of $52 million against operating cash flow of $18 million, a warranty reserve that shrank as sales grew, other assets swelling with capitalized engineering, and a Beneish M-score of about -1.59 against the -1.78 cutoff, set beside flat plant hours and headcount, with Beneish, Brazel, Jones and Zimbelman and Hogan, Rezaee, Riley and Velury. Full sample paper, read it free.
ACC 691 Module 4 Discussion example
A discussion post on reserves used to smooth results at a composite Wisconsin kitchen equipment maker: $6.2 million of warranty and inventory reserves built up quietly in a strong 2023 and then drained across five weak quarters, followed by the incoming chief executive's proposed $48 million restructuring charge that would have written off far more than the facts supported, asking where judgment ends, with Healy and Wahlen, Elliott and Shaw and Nelson, Elliott and Tarpley. Full sample paper, read it free.
ACC 691 Module 5 Asset Overstatement Assignment example
An asset overstatement assignment on two schemes at a composite Wisconsin kitchen equipment maker: $21.2 million of fryer and oven redesign work booked as capitalized controller software across 2024 and 2025 although most of it was research that ASC 730 requires to be expensed, and $7.6 million of finished goods counted twice by recording transfers between two plants as in transit at both ends, with the rule each broke, the effect on assets and profit, how count sheets and project codes concealed it and which controls failed, with Kieso, Weygandt and Warfield, Dechow, Ge, Larson and Sloan and the COSO fraud study by Beasley, Carcello, Hermanson and Neal. Full sample paper, read it free.
ACC 691 Module 6 Milestone Two example
The second final project milestone asks why a board missed six quarters of misstatement at a composite Wisconsin kitchen equipment maker: a chief executive who also chaired a board where four of seven directors had personal ties to him, a three-person audit committee with one financial expert that met four times a year for ninety minutes, an internal audit group that reported to the CFO, a hotline routed through the general counsel and a director's question about receivables that was never followed up, with a governance redesign and Klein, Abbott, Parker and Peters, Farber and Agrawal and Chadha. Full sample paper, read it free.
ACC 691 Module 7 Discussion example
A discussion post asking why a competent audit team signed two clean opinions at a composite Wisconsin kitchen equipment maker: confirmations sent only to the twenty largest restaurant chains and none to dealers, bill-and-hold support accepted from letters dated after year end, an inventory count observed at one plant out of two and a capitalization memo tested for arithmetic but not substance, set against the auditor's fraud standard and research on skepticism, with Nelson, Hurtt and DeFond and Zhang. Full sample paper, read it free.
ACC 691 Module 8 Concealed Liabilities Assignment example
A concealed liabilities assignment on a composite Wisconsin kitchen equipment maker whose CFO guaranteed $22 million of its largest dealer group's bank line without board approval so the dealer could pay for loaded inventory, never recorded or disclosed it, and then hid $3.2 million of supplier invoices at the 2025 year end: the guarantee tested against ASC 460 and ASC 450 as the dealer slid into default, the probable loss of $8.5 million, the unrecorded payables, the disclosure the notes should have carried and the procedures that would have found each, with Kieso, Weygandt and Warfield, Hogan, Rezaee, Riley and Velury and Beasley, Carcello, Hermanson and Neal. Full sample paper, read it free.
ACC 691 Module 9 Milestone Three example
The third final project milestone pulls every scheme at a composite Wisconsin kitchen equipment maker into one restatement: $27.0 million of overstated pretax income in 2024 and $30.8 million in 2025 across revenue, reserves, capitalized engineering, double-counted inventory, the hidden guarantee and held invoices, reconciled quarter by quarter, carried to net income and earnings per share, classified as irregularities rather than errors and weighed against what restating firms lose in market value, with Hennes, Leone and Miller, Palmrose, Richardson and Scholz and Karpoff, Lee and Martin. Full sample paper, read it free.
ACC 691 Module 10 Final Project example
The final project hands the board of a composite Wisconsin kitchen equipment maker a plan to keep its books honest after the restatement: a fraud risk assessment ranked by scheme, pay redesigned away from single-year guidance with a working clawback, an independent chair and a stronger audit committee, internal audit reporting to the committee, quarterly analytics on receivable days, reserves against claims, capitalized hours and plant transfers, a hotline that reaches the committee chair, an investigation protocol and a two-year rollout with costs, with Erickson, Hanlon and Maydew, Feng, Ge, Luo and Shevlin, Schrand and Zechman and the COSO and ACFE fraud risk guide. Full sample paper, read it free.
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Using a ACC 691 sample the right way
Read an ACC 691 sample by finding, for each scheme, the rule it broke, the number it moved and the evidence that exposed it. When all three are present, the sample shows the analysis this course grades. For ACC 691, send the case, the guidelines and the rubric, and the first custom sample comes back free within 24-48h.
ACC 691 questions, answered
What does ACC 691 cover?
How financial statements are falsified, the motives and red flags, prediction models, governance and auditor roles, investigations and restatements, and how organizations prevent and detect financial statement fraud.
How is ACC 691 different from ACC 646?
ACC 646 introduces forensic accounting and occupational fraud broadly; ACC 691 focuses on financial statement fraud by management and its detection, governance and restatement.
Does ACC 691 use real fraud cases?
Courses often draw on SEC enforcement cases, while assignments apply the lessons to a case company; the samples here use one composite company throughout.