Tarang for Forensic Audit

Forensic audit work usually starts from the same position: the records exist, and they cannot be relied on. The bank statement is the document neither side authored, which makes reconstructing from statements the backbone of the engagement — and the part that consumes the schedule.

What the engagement needs from a tool

• Completeness you can assert. Before any figure goes into a working paper, you need to know the statement is the whole statement. The running balance the bank printed is the test, and it is applied to every row rather than spot-checked.
• Grouping that reflects entities. A pivot on narration text counts one supplier as six and merges two unrelated people who share a common name. Grouping has to happen on a resolved party, with the analyst able to correct it.
• Related-party movement separated. Transfers inside the group are not revenue and not expenditure. Counted on both sides, they inflate every number in the file.
• Traceability. Six months later, someone will ask why a row was excluded. The answer has to exist in the file, not in somebody's memory of a spreadsheet.

How the work goes

1. Import the period's statements for every account in scope. Each file is verified; the ones that do not reconcile are listed with the reason, which is usually a missing page and occasionally a filtered export.
2. Establish the counterparty universe. Who this entity actually transacted with, consolidated, ranked by money moved, with bank-generated entries kept separate from real payments.
3. Scrutinise cash. Deposits and withdrawals separated from transfers, grouped by branch and city, with onward attribution where the balance supports it.
4. Test the related-party picture. What share of receipts came from inside the group versus outside, per account and for the whole case — often the single most informative number in the engagement.
5. Follow specific amounts. Where a particular receipt or payment matters, it is traced forward through proven transfers with the portion that can be attributed stated at each hop.
6. Export. Sections come out as CSV for working papers and as a printable report, both produced from the same analysis the screen showed.

The reconciliation point, stated plainly

A statement whose balance chain does not close is not a statement you can reconcile a ledger against — and the difference between "the client's books are wrong" and "this PDF is missing page four" is the difference between a finding and an embarrassment. That check runs first, for exactly this reason.