Asset Tracing
When suspicions of fraud arise during an administration or liquidation, the number of professionals in the team can grow quickly. It is often thought that forensic accountants simply get thrown reams of bank statements and are asked to make sense of them. But in reality there are a variety of other ways for the forensic accountant to add value.
There are typically three stages at which forensic accountants can assist the asset tracing and recovery process:
collection of information
support of other professionals
analysing financial data.
Collection of information
If forensic accountants are not involved in the collection process, important documents can be overlooked. For example, debtor information without the correspondence that reflects side agreements does not tell the whole story.
For example, we investigated a securities fraud case in which a US technology company altered the terms of its contracts with customers through side letters. This meant that sales were being recorded prematurely and gave a misleading impression of the company's financial performance. The forensic mindset can usefully point to such sources of information, but this must happen before they are lost.
John Holden, head of Forensic Technology at Smith & Williamson, estimates that 70% of information never makes the transition from electronic media to paper. This makes it all the more important to capture a forensic copy (image) of the computer systems. Even if the digital information is not used straight away, it is secured for the future and may avoid the need to store large quantities of hardware.
Support of other professionals
Despite the volumes of paper and digital data stored in a business, a lot of useful information is known by staff, but never written down. Smith & Williamson's Forensic Services team employs three former police officers with extensive interviewing experience. They are trained to elicit leads during formal interviews and informal conversations that may otherwise be missed.
Analysing financial data
One of the most useful...
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