Press Release
Soren McAdam Christenson LLP
Certified Public Accountants and Business Advisors
Contact: Roger Wadell, Partner
909.798.2222
PR Contact: Ron Burgess
909.798.5737
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 7, 2008
It May Not be as Exciting as CSI,
But Forensic Accounting Can Have Huge Impacts on Business
Most business managers are familiar with the TV hit series CSI. However, only a few are acquainted with forensic accounting – a specialty in the accounting profession. Forensic accounting combines the special skills of accounting and auditing with investigative skills, providing high quality litigation and investigative accounting services.
The purpose of litigation services is to provide assistance to the trier of fact to understand the evidence. To most of us, this means to determine what is fact that can be useful as evidence. In certain situations, a forensic accountant may be asked to decide certain facts in a dispute. This might be by court appointment (as a special master) or by agreement of the parties to the dispute. Investigative accounting can include the investigation of employee theft, securities or insurance fraud.
Behind the scenes of big legal news stories, such as prosecuting executives in cases such as Enron, is a team of forensic accountants who systematically review and unravel the numbers’ trails left in journal entries, purchase orders, contracts and “other bank accounts.” This thorough process leaves no stone unturned, and delivers results that are sustainable during adversarial proceedings.
Forensic accountants analyze, interpret, and summarize complex business and financial issues in a way that is clear and understandable to lawyers, clients and juries. They often develop spreadsheet models and create reports and exhibits to assist in the analysis and presentation of financial evidence.
Forensic accountants are called in for criminal investigations, personal injury and wrongful death claims, business interruption insurance claims, shareholders disputes or partnership issues, as well as for the calculation of damages in commercial litigation.
Soren McAdam Christenson LLP is one of the few firms in the Inland Empire that has a qualified Forensic Accountant. Dave Tuttle is the partner in charge of the audit practice, often an integral part of large investigations. Many litigation matters require a business valuation. Examples include marital dissolutions, dissident shareholder suits, or gift and estate tax litigation. Tuttle, a Certified Valuation Analyst, has the skills and experience to provide services of this nature.
Fortunately, forensic accounting services are not often needed by most businesses, although it is one of the fastest growing areas of accounting specialty. Many times Tuttle is called in by attorneys, insurance companies, banks or other CPA firms to assist their clients.
It also helps that Tuttle has significant real-world experience when performing forensic accounting services. Once, when consulting with an attorney whose client had been sued by a construction contractor for lost profits, Tuttle was able to demonstrate that the claimed profits on jobs in backlog would not result in the profits for a single year, but that most of the profits would be eliminated by the overhead of several future years; by comparison to historical job performance, the amount of profits on a job-by-job basis were not likely to be achieved.
The reputation of the accounting industry doesn’t normally include an investigative sleuth, but circumstances do occur where digging into the numbers can reveal powerful outcomes. It may not be CSI, but, to Dave Tuttle, it’s still a thrill to follow the numbers to a crime or mistake.
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