Forensic audit & Risk Advisory
Most growing businesses cannot justify a full-time forensic audit team, but carry the same exposures. Siddhartha Agrawal, FCA, brings over 30 years of independent audit expertise to identify control gaps before they turn into losses.
Operational Process Audits
We conduct comprehensive reviews of your core business processes to identify hidden inefficiencies, process gaps, and margin leakages. We audit the Procurement-to-Pay workflow, examining purchasing authority limits, vendor master listings, and payment remittances to verify control compliance.
We audit the Order-to-Cash loop, reviewing sales discounts, accounts receivables collections, credit approvals, and invoice generations. Additionally, we audit payroll allocations and branch operations, giving management clearer visibility over distributed cost centers.
Fraud Risk Assessment & Mitigation
We map your internal vulnerabilities and construct a robust risk defense registry. We audit system access privileges across TallyPrime and QuickBooks Online, ensuring strict Segregation of Duties (SoD) is maintained so that transaction makers are never transaction approvers.
Our team creates a prioritized Corporate Risk Register, classifying threats from low to critical, and designs simple, low-cost control adjustments to mitigate every identified risk. We deliver a confidential, comprehensive report detailing findings and practical remediation timelines.
Physical Stock & Vault Verification
We perform on-site physical stock counts and vault audits to reconcile physical inventory balances against your digital ledgers, preventing stock shrinkage and theft. This is particularly critical for high-value retail operations like jewellery showrooms and automobile dealerships.
We audit spare parts warehousing, track vehicle warranty claims and manufacturer credit records, and build custom warranty escalation logs to capture outstanding reimbursements. We verify stock movement transfer invoices, eliminating inventory leakage across branches.
Audit Scope and Control Reviews
Forensic audits provide growing businesses with the rigorous process oversight, risk mitigations, and fraud assessments of an in-house audit team at a fraction of the cost of a full-time hire. Proactive internal reviews ensure that operational problems are caught and remediated before statutory audits.
Our audit team, led by CA Siddhartha Agrawal, FCA, conducts deep reviews of your core business processes (Procurement-to-Pay, Order-to-Cash, and Payroll). We physical verify high-value inventories (such as vehicle showroom chassis, precious jewelry, or machinery weights) against digital TallyPrime or QuickBooks Online assets registers.
We identify internal control weaknesses, construct a prioritized Corporate Risk Register, and design simple, low-cost control adjustments to mitigate every identified risk node. This comprehensive oversight ensures that your business remains fully compliant with MCA regulations and CARO 2020 reporting standards.
How This Works in Practice
Challenge: An automobile dealership chain with multiple showrooms noticed recurring discrepancies in parts inventory values and suspect margin drops, but lacked an forensic audit function to locate the issue.
Approach: Siddhartha Agrawal, FCA, conducted a forensic risk assessment. We audited physical parts inventory across warehouses, reconciled warranty claim filings, and mapped parts discount records to CRM entries.
Result: Identified important control gaps around sales discounts, parts matching, and warehouse segregation of duties, then helped document practical remediation steps and approval controls.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How does forensic audit differ from statutory audit?
Statutory audit is a mandatory, backward-looking review focused solely on financial statement accuracy. forensic audit is a proactive, forward-looking review of processes and operational controls designed to catch problems before they become crises. We support and coordinate with your statutory auditor.
2. How frequently are forensic audit reviews conducted?
Engagements are typically structured quarterly or semi-annually. We also offer one-time forensic or process-specific diagnostics for businesses wanting an immediate control health check.
3. Do we receive a formal report of findings?
Yes. Every audit concludes with a detailed, confidential report outlining identified control gaps, risk levels (Low, Medium, High), root-cause analysis, and practical remediation recommendations with timelines.
4. Can you coordinate audits across multi-location businesses?
Yes. We specialize in multi-branch retail and automobile dealership chains, organizing systematic physical audits, branch petty cash reviews, and centralized control checks.
5. What qualifications does the auditor hold?
All audits are planned and executed under the direct guidance of Siddhartha Agrawal, a Fellow Chartered Accountant with over 30 years of ICAI-qualified accounting, statutory audit, and risk advisory experience.
6. What is the cost structure for an forensic audit?
Audits are priced as fixed-fee projects based on showroom count, warehouse locations, transaction volume, and operational complexity. Contact us for a diagnostic review.
Review Your Control Gaps Before They Grow
Book a focused 30-minute diagnostic review with Siddhartha Agrawal, FCA, to assess segregation of duties and operational checks.
Book Audit Diagnostic Session