Our services complement the professional services offered by other financial and industry experts, certified public accountants, and attorneys. Our industry experience is broad and includes aerospace, agriculture, apparel, automotive, banking, biotechnology, broadcasting, construction, environmental engineering, government, health care, insurance, lumber, manufacturing, newspaper, retail, technology, and transportation. A Vancouver-based private school needed financial statements to accompany a significant funding request. We assisted its accounting staff in posting, reconciling, and classifying financial records and transactions to a general ledger in a format acceptable to the school’s outside accountant. We reconciled tuition payments and accounts receivable; reviewed cash and analyzed discrepancies between bank reconciliations and the general ledger bank balances; performed a fund balance analysis; recorded other bank account data; analyzed stock transactions; prepared beginning balance and current year workpapers (reconciled to adjusted trial balance); drafted a statement of functional expenses; and drafted a management letter. Our work enabled the school’s outside accountant to proceed with preparing audited financial statements. The school received its funding. As a result of loss of funding, a start up company risked closure just as their product was to be released. Management and several key employees chose to defer their pay for a period of several years. We reviewed payroll records and state unemployment records for several years to verify the amount of deferred pay due to these employees. For a corporation with several affiliate companies involved in global agricultural commerce, we performed a fraud examination. We identified over 300 instances of falsified check activity apparently committed by one of the accounting staff. The examination included interviewing accounting personnel, reviewing accounting system reports and records, and performing a detailed review of bank statements and canceled checks for a six-year period. We prepared a detailed report of findings, which served as the basis for a formal complaint filed in the Superior Court for the State of On behalf of an ophthalmology practice with multiple office locations, we interviewed personnel to understand accounting internal controls in place during a multi-year period throughout which millions had been embezzled from the company by one of its accounting staff. We were retained to provide an expert opinion about the internal controls and how they factored into the embezzlement.
Asset tracing
The family of an estate trust was concerned that the family member acting as executor was misappropriating funds. We documented the movement of monies from several targeted accounts and traced withdrawals from those accounts to other accounts of interest based on information provided by legal counsel for the estate. Our work clearly established that the executor had used a portion of the estate's funds for his personal benefit and was used as the basis to negotiate the executor's repayment to the estate. Much to the relief of the family members involved, the case settled out of court.
Business process and internal control review
We investigated the risk of theft for a leading west coast apparel manufacturer that discovered one of its key finance employees had a record of criminal theft. We interviewed accounting, human resource, and internal technology personnel to identify and understand existing business and internal control processes, tested the processes, and recommended improvements.
Contract audit
We performed royalty audits for a publicly traded biotechnology company at the sites of its licensees. Prior to each audit, we interviewed our client management to discuss contract specifics and areas of potential concern. During each audit, we interviewed licensee management and employees responsible for tracking data relevant to royalty reporting; analyzed the royalty reports and verified payments submitted to our client; tested invoice sales detail for reporting integrity and product bundling and allocation issues; and submitted our findings to our client in a report format we standardized at the onset of the project.
Expert witness testimony
For an automobile accident claim that went to trial, we analyzed detailed payroll records, deposition testimony, and opposing expert reports to determine whether the actual hours worked and gross wages paid to a claimant in an automobile accident supported his claim. The documents we analyzed included periods before and after the date of loss. We prepared detailed schedules of our findings and trial exhibits for the attorney, and provided expert witness testimony at trial.
Financial investigation
We reviewed supporting documents for a multimillion dollar industrial construction project, for which one of the business partners alleged foul play. On the basis our of review, we recommended a comprehensive accounting was necessary to resolve concerns about project funding and excess profit to the general contractor who was also a partner in the venture. A neutral third party performed the accounting, which failed to conclusively settle the matter. We performed additional investigative work that included analyzing documents from a database of more than 60,000 records; documenting our findings in two reports; developing the financial damages model that was ultimately used to settle the case; and assisting the case attorneys with witness depositions.
Financial statement reconstruction
Forensic accounting
A large public school district was informed by a national insurance company that the insurer significantly under billed the district. The insurer sought a significant retroactive premium payment. Acting as an independent neutral consultant, we verified the insurer’s calculations and associated supporting documentation, and reviewed the internal controls in the insurer’s actuarial department for integrity. We concluded the insurer’s calculations were correct and documented our accounting approach and findings in a detailed report.
Litigation support
Special projects
Independent neutral experts for the plaintiff and defendant
In the case of a multimillion dollar construction contract dispute alleging breach of fiduciary, we read and analyzed 14 expert reports and the deposition testimony of multiple witnesses. In addition, we analyzed multiple years of accounting data and construction contracts, and interviewed the financial and engineering experts representing both parties. We provided a peer review report of our findings, which led to a settlement between the disputing parties.
In another case, a national insurance provider alleged its client misrepresented its actuarial calculations and projections on which the insurer relied in entering into a contractual agreement to provide the client employee life insurance coverage. We managed the process of collecting paper and electronic documents that spanned a 15-year period, creating a database of more than 250,000 records, analyzing the records and obtaining additional information as needed to determine the insurance eligibility of past employee recipients, and identifying discrepancies. We documented our procedures and findings in a report. Our findings reduced the multimillion dollar claim to a fraction of the amount and the dispute settled without going to court.
Expense report review
An international manufacturer of automobile accessories was concerned about the expenses being claimed by its high-level management personnel. We audited the expense reports of selected executive and management employees to identify questionable expenses based on criteria identified by our client. We documented potential patterns of abuse for each of the subject employees and trended our findings. Our client and its legal counsel used our deliverable to methodically follow up on each finding and take corrective action.
New business concept planning
For a regional native Alaska corporation, we worked with management and board members to establish a plan, budget, and timeline for implementing a shared services accounting center to serve all subsidiaries of the corporation. We developed facility, staffing, and economic analyses; accounting best-practice process flow charts; job descriptions; a client service handbook; an implementation schedule; and a board presentation.