By Jacqueline Stone. Jacqueline is a lawyer, venture capitalist and Faculty member with Cranlana Centre for Ethical Leadership, which works with leaders and organisations across Australia to grow their ethical capability.

Most accountants have a healthy respect for red flags. Unexpected transactions, unusual account activity and unexplained discrepancies tend to attract attention. Yet some of the most significant risks facing clients today are not hidden in spreadsheets. They are hidden in relationships.

Financial abuse is often discussed as a client-service issue, but it is also an ethical one. It sits squarely within the professional competence of accountants because it concerns autonomy, trust, vulnerability and the public interest. In other words, it concerns many of the things that ethics is designed to protect.

This can feel surprising, after all, the Code of Ethics is comprehensive. It sets out clear principles and obligations. Surely if we follow the Code, we have covered the field? Not quite.

Ethics is not just knowing the rules, it is recognising the human realities that sit behind them. When working with potentially vulnerable clients, professional competence and due care expands to encompass observation, curiosity and empathy. The nuance of human experience asks that we bring our judgement, values and compassion into the room with us.

The challenge of financial abuse is that it creeps up on you and the signs, if there are any, present as ordinary, everyday circumstances if you don’t know what you’re looking for.

An older client who suddenly seems disengaged from conversations they once led. A son or daughter who insists on answering every question. A client who appears reluctant to discuss decisions in front of another person. A long-standing customer who suddenly wants to transfer significant assets for reasons that are unclear. A series of transactions that make sense individually but seem less convincing when viewed together.

On their own, none of these circumstances prove anything. But to the ethically-aware professional, they can be enough to indicate that something is happening beneath the surface. Whether it’s a scam, coercion, undue influence, dependency or the gradual erosion of a person’s ability to exercise independent judgement, financial abuse takes many forms. Sometimes the issue is criminal. Sometimes it arises from deliberate exploitation. At other times it develops slowly within otherwise caring and stable family dynamics. This is where keen and caring professional judgement becomes crucial.

The ethical response is not to become suspicious of every family member or support person who attends a meeting. Most are acting entirely appropriately and provide essential support. Equally, it would be wrong to assume that older people, women or any other group are automatically vulnerable or incapable of making their own financial decisions. Ethical action requires a skill more sophisticated than suspicion: attention.

Attention looks like professionals avoiding labels and focusing on patterns. Has the client's level of participation changed? Are instructions inconsistent with previous wishes? Is someone attempting to control access to information? Does the client appear confused about decisions they are supposedly making? Are they being given genuine opportunities to speak freely? The goal is not to identify victims. It is to remain alert to circumstances where a client's autonomy may be under pressure. Importantly, effective responses begin long before concerns arise.

Like many ethical risks, financial abuse is easier to prevent than to manage after the fact. Practice design matters. This may include discussing decision-making arrangements during client onboarding, identifying potential risk factors, documenting unusual instructions, establishing escalation pathways and creating clear communication protocols. Firms should also make their expectations explicit. A culture that communicates zero tolerance for coercion, intimidation or inappropriate influence creates a stronger foundation for both clients and staff. Sometimes small procedural choices make a significant difference.

For example, it can be useful to speak directly with the client without others present, particularly when significant decisions are being made. It may be appropriate to carefully explain consequences, alternatives and risks in plain language and then confirm the client's understanding. It is also worth ensuring everyone is clear about a fundamental question that can occasionally become blurred in family settings: who exactly is the client? It sounds simple but in practice, it can unearth complications.

Accountants often work with couples, families, business groups and long-standing personal relationships. The person providing instructions, attending meetings or paying invoices may not necessarily be the person whose interests require protection. Clarity about the client relationship is therefore not merely administrative, it is an ethical safeguard.

There is also a more difficult question that professionals sometimes prefer to avoid: can you appropriately manage this client? Recognising potential financial abuse may require skills that sit beyond the resources or expertise of some practitioners and concerns about capacity, coercion, family violence or complex safeguarding issues may require specialist advice from other professionals.

The temptation in professional services is to see ourselves as problem-solvers. Yet some ethical situations are less about solving and more about recognising when others are better placed to help. Knowing your limitations is not a weakness. It is a hallmark of professional competence.

At its heart, financial abuse reminds us that accounting is a profession built on trust. Behind every balance sheet, tax return or financial plan sits a person whose interests deserve respect. The directive is not to treat everyone as vulnerable but to ensure that when vulnerability does appear, we are capable of recognising it, by practicing attention and care.

As long as there are clients experiencing financial abuse, accountants must do more than notice numbers that don't add up. It is their responsibility as ethical agents to lift their eyes up and notice the relationships that don't, either.