You’re getting divorced and the process is overwhelming. You have an attorney (or maybe you’re interviewing lawyers and getting ready to choose one), but you don’t know the right money questions to ask. This tool will get you started with ten really important questions you should ask your attorney about …
Lifestyle is not simply a measure of the past, present, and future spending of the parties jointly and individually. It requires an analysis of the funds available to pay for this lifestyle, and earned and unearned income usually generates those funds. Earned income generally includes income that is generated by …
I never thought this was something we’d have to tell an expert witness: The attorney who retained you to provide your expert opinion can’t write your report for you. Attorneys often want to have input on the the expert’s report. Whether it’s correcting typos, making clarifications, or suggesting additional items …
Attorneys and accountants are told that they need to blog if they want to get clients. Blogs are a magic marketing tool. If you blog it they will come. It’s way more complicated than that. About 40% of my revenue comes from attorneys who find me using Google. It’s because …
Companies engaged in financial statement fraud sometimes use creative phrases to legitimize or cover up what they’re doing. Examples include: Aggressive accounting – We’re following the rules, but pushing the limits to make the financial statements look as good as possible. Earnings management – We’re doing our best to “manage” …
Companies rely heavily on reports about questionable behavior from employees, customers, vendors, or other outside parties. Tips are the most common way that fraud is detected by companies, so any credible tip should be taken very seriously. How does a company evaluate the credibility of a tip? Generally, it does …
In a corporate fraud investigation, the most abundant source of information about the fraud will likely come from internal records of the company. Remember, of course, that the internal records will be not only be paper records, but will be digital as well. In fact, the volume of digital records …
If you’re familiar with the process of a financial statement audit, you know all about audit work programs. They’re basically the checklists and guides that auditors use to make sure they follow all the required steps for auditing the financial statements. Because these audits are fairly standardized, the work programs …
Yesterday my friends over at MckFacts informed me that our pal Jennifer McKinney was recently in bankruptcy court again. Back in 2012, Jennifer and her (soon-to-be ex-) husband Israel McKinney filed bankruptcy and eventually had it denied because of their attempted fraud on the court. The primary problems were a …
How do I come up with a fixed fee for a forensic accounting engagement? I’ve been doing fixed fees for almost 23 years, so I’ve developed a pretty good formula. With a fixed fee, a client is paying for a result, rather than buying my time. In most of my …