Imagine receiving all of your financial records when you get a divorce, including years of bank statement. These include tax returns, credit card statements and brokerage reports, as well as payroll statements, and other business financial records.
Technically, you now have information.
You might have a few practical answers.
The matrimonial court case isn’t always difficult because financial records aren’t always available. The difficulty lies when you need to find the documents that provide the answers to the most important questions and when they are not available.
Begin with the question and not the Spreadsheet
The process of financial discovery for a divorce forensic accountant in New Jersey will differ from those who organize papers.
If the dispute involves income available for assistance. A tax return review can be useful, but business owners or highly compensated professional may receive money through several channels. Distributions, bonuses, salary and other types of compensation may require more analysis, depending on the circumstances.
If there’s a query about assets that may not have been disclosed, various records could be relevant. Banking activity, transfer patterns or spending patterns as well as movement between accounts are all factors that can help you develop an overall financial picture.
The goal isn’t to gather every document imaginable. It’s about obtaining the documents that are required to address specific financial queries.
Business Ownership Changes the Discovery Process
Privately-owned companies can be an excellent option to add to the matrimonial searching process.
Performing business valuation for divorce in New Jersey requires appropriate financial information about the company. In the event of an engagement the appraiser may require historical financial statements, tax information or ownership records, as well as other documents that are relevant to studying the business and creating an opinion on the value.
Incomplete information may cause issues.
If, for instance, you just look at revenue and ignore expenses, it’s impossible to determine the complete story of the company’s financials. Looking at a single performance year can also be misleading.
SJS Forensics assists counsel by identifying relevant documents, helping formulate targeted discovery requests, and reviewing materials produced for exactness and completeness.
The existence of financial variances does not necessarily mean that there is something buried
Divorce is an emotional process, and a transaction that is unfamiliar can raise suspicions.
It’s sometimes difficult to tell where a transfer has been completed. A significant withdrawal may have an ordinary reason. A seemingly normal set of transactions might be worth a closer look when considered in context.
The objective analysis is crucial, because forensic accounting cannot start by assuming that there has an error.
The records should be the starting stage for analysis.
Mediation can be more productive with Better Information
Financial experts are usually involved in courtroom testimony but a more thorough analysis could be conducted much earlier. The ability to clarify issues such as business value, income or separate property prior to mediation helps define the actual dispute.
SJS Forensics combines forensic accounting expertise with a settlement-oriented mindset and can be a mediator to assist in resolving complex financial questions.
When testimony is necessary, an expert witness accountant in matrimonial litigation will be able to understand the underlying analysis and explain the reasoning clearly to attorneys, judges, mediators and other non-accountants.
The goal is to reduce the Unknowns
Even a simple divorce can comprise a myriad of financial transactions accumulation over a lengthy period of time. This doesn’t mean that you’ll get financial clarity just by recording the documents. The records must be examined to see what they establish, what is still unanswered, or what additional information is required.
That’s the practical value of an forensic analysis of financials. It’s not a goal to make divorce complicated by adding additional paperwork. It’s to take a complicated financial position and slowly decrease the number of unanswered questions.