In 2001, ACCA surveyed 1,250 of its practising firms in the UK to determine the incidence of fraud that they had encountered. On average, these firms had 215 clients, so the report covered 260,000 UK companies. The principal cause of fraud was found to be personal gain by management and it often involved manipulation of records to disguise, suppress or alter transactions. [This is below the level of director and in the interest of the company director.] In these cases, management overrode financial controls to let fraud be effected. In 45 per cent of cases, it was external auditors who detected the fraud.