I am often asked the question: “Why do we need to use a forensic accountant? What’s wrong with our normal accountants?”

The answer, quite simply, is that there’s nothing wrong with your normal accountants when they are preparing your year-end accounts, tax returns etc. That’s where their experience lies. And it’s that experience – coupled with their knowledge of your business – that enables them to prepare these documents correctly and submit them to the relevant parties.

Our experience as forensic accountants is somewhat different. We operate in the space between the legal and accountancy professions. We combine skills learned from our accountancy training with knowledge of the law as it applies to formulating quantum in a legal case.

Marrying these skills enables us to pull together rafts of relevant documentation into a reporting format a) that the Court will readily understand, and b) that fits the prevailing legal framework. This ensures the losses presented conform with rules established over years of quantum-based case law.

This doesn’t necessarily exclude input from your own accountant. They may be able to furnish us with important knowledge or information. But presenting losses in the cogent and accepted format we adopt plays a vital role in moving a case forward from a legal perspective and expediting settlement.

We often get involved in cases where an extended circular correspondence between the claimant, their insurers, and their accountants has gone precisely nowhere. The cost and frustration this causes could often have been avoided by drawing on the legal knowledge of a specialist forensic accountant.

There’s more to it than that, of course, but – in a nutshell – that’s why you need a forensic accountant!

Author – Forths Forensic Accountants