Forensic Accounting

Forensic Accounting Experts

A core competency for the firm, our forensic accounting experts work with our clients with reliance on our team’s professional, litigation, and expert witness experience. Members of our senior team are former Federal Law Enforcement officials with forensic accounting experience involving the FBI and FDIC to help solidify the firm’s expertise. From our office in the Metro Detroit area in Bloomfield Hills and our downtown Chicago office, our forensic accounting services cover a national client base.

Who We Serve:

• Attorneys
• Private and Public Companies
• Organizations
• Banks & Financial Institutions
• Government Agencies

How We Serve:

• We have provided forensic accounting expert support to attorneys in high profile accounting malpractice and accountants’ liability cases, including those pertaining to: auditing procedures, tax services, business valuations, economic damages analyses, and internal control failures. We work hand in hand with legal teams, providing analyses that document and retell the events which transpired. We also provide expert testimony to explain these technical details to the court.
• Outside of the courtroom, CCA team members provide forensic accounting services to numerous public and private organizations. In some instances, our services are employed reactively, such as in the event of fraud investigation. In others, our services are proactively utilized to develop robust processes and internal controls to deter fraud. These latter, proactive services allow organizations to identify and analyze key accounting procedures and record keeping methods. We seek to identify potential accounting transaction problems and issues before they happen.
• We are frequently engaged by companies to perform internal forensic investigations involving defalcation, collisional purchasing fraud, financial misrepresentations, and intellectual property rights violations. Our team provides these services in strict confidentiality: often, the subject of the investigation is unaware that an investigation is taking place. This helps prevent disruption of the business and provides management with facts to allow careful planning of remediation steps.

Example Engagement: Fishy Franchise Agreement

We were engaged by a current client to calculate the claim amount on the investments made into three separate franchisees. Client had signed three promissory notes to the franchises as loans due to his company. Based on the agreement, the franchise entities were to send in monthly payments to the client, in order to pay off the balance of the loan. Client advised us that he hasn’t been receiving the monthly payments and needed to calculate the amount owed to his company from the three franchise loans. 

We reviewed the promissory notes for terms of the agreement. Then, we created amortization schedules for each loan, based on the parameters listed in the note. We were provided brokerage account statements and forensically analyzed the investment amounts, as well as the loan payments. We were able to trace deposits to the corresponding franchise loan. These deposit payments were applied against accrued interest and principal, to calculate the note balance. Through our calculations, we were able to advise the client of the balance due on each of the loans, as of the date of the bankruptcy. Our analysis and claim amount calculations were included in the bankruptcy petition filing.