Our focus is on providing quality profit recovery services for local Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Northern Ontario businesses. To do so, we deliver services (and limited products) in two areas: field services and technical (administrative) services. These generally are considered under the umbrellas of investigations and forensic bookkeeping or accounting.

Below, we answer a few of your most frequently asked questions.

Click on each item to read the answers.

What is forensic bookkeeping?

How does your service differ from theft & fraud investigations and forensic accounting?

What are the advantages and drawbacks of each approach?

Why should I choose your company–a small business–instead of larger, national accountants or investigative security firms?

What is your business’s background?

How much does your service cost?

What if I don’t to use all of your services? Can I focus just on select components?

What components make up your forensic bookkeeping services?

Forensic Bookkeeping

Forensic bookkeeping and forensic accounting involve the specialized system of investigating financial records to uncover theft, fraud, financial issues relating to inventory shrinkage and frailties in operating efficiency that include payroll, supply management, stock handling and other aspects of business operation. With thirty-five years+ as a corporate investigator and nineteen+ as a small business counsellor for the BDC (Federal Business Development Bank), federal/provincial Small Business Assistance program and contractor to numerous community development corporations, I and my team bring significant experience to helping you recover and protect your profits.

How our service differs from theft & fraud investigations and forensic accounting

We approach profit recovery from two sides: from the technical side that accountants use, relying on cues and clues within your bookkeeping. However, that often misses the more practical side in the field. This is where knowing how your business operates, how employees, customers and suppliers interact with your operation and what real-life vulnerabilities you may have. Field operations include cameras, a walk-through evaluation, mystery shopping, undercover work, spot checks and other hands-on methods. Our bookkeeping component looks at the most likely vulnerabilities, dependent on your business size and type, to determine where we should begin our focus. This dramatically minimizes costs to you. For instance, a ten-person trades operation may cost as little as $275 for a quarterly forensic bookkeeping program, while camera surveillance, using two cameras for two weeks, may be less than $400. In addition, we guarantee that you will recover at least two times the cost of our services within three months.

The advantages and drawbacks of each approach

Forensic bookkeeping does not allow the accountant to view your business in action. It can only draw inferences based on comparisons with normal business operations. However, it provides a quick and accurate statement about your ideal versus actual profitability, allowing you to then focus on detecting and responding to the actual cause of shrinkage.

Investigations only spot overt acts or indicators of possible acts. It is a reactive approach, rather than evaluative. However, investigations allow for concrete proof and quick response to prevent further loss.

Why you should choose us, instead of larger, national accountants or investigative security firms

Working with a local company means that you are working with someone who has more intimate knowledge of the marketplace. As well, we bring many decades of experience with small and medium-sized local businesses. Our philosophy is not built around quick turnaround and template solutions. Rather, we choose, like a craftsman, to spend time “getting it right,” rather than looking for maximum profits for ourselves. And, our fees are exceptionally low, because we have minimal overhead.

Our background

Along with the support a CMA/CPA, we bring nearly five decades in small business assistance expertise and investigative background in western Canada. We have concluded more than 11,200 apprehensions for theft and fraud, worked with over 190 small businesses to increase their profitability, contracted to five community development corporations to build viable, successful rural operations, conducted 63 seminars on profit recovery and loss prevention and recovered over $3m in business shrinkage for our clients.

Fees for service

First, our fees for forensic service are guaranteed. We warranty that we will recover at least two times the cost of our work within the first three months.

Second, our fees are exceptionally low because of the business and investigative model we use to minimize time spent versus effective responses.

Typically, investigations via camera surveillance are under $600, whereas forensic bookkeeping programs cost less than $300. See our products and services pages for specific costs.

Note that purchases of equipment do not qualify for “guaranteed results” offer.

Components selection

You choose, in consultation with us, which of the components of the forensic bookkeeping program that you want us to complete. Fees are adjusted accordingly.

What the forensic bookkeeping program includes:

Yields Analyses

For both restaurant/hospitality along with general retail, service industries and manufacturers, yields analyses provide effective tools to assess where your profits are being siphoned. We provide a comprehensive set of analyses tailored to your business with each quarterly, monthly or annual analysis.

Payroll

We examine payroll performance, looking for data manipulation that may reveal fraud potential, along with performance evaluation compared to business norms.

Supplier/Client Patterns

This is an area where many frauds occur, either through collusion, direct manipulation or creation of false transactions (supplier, refund/rebate, dummy clients, etc.). We evaluate prior period p[erformance against current patterns, labour ratios compared to industry sector standards.

Energy Management Issues

While we do not conduct a full energy audit, we assess energy costs relative to available ideals and recommend ways to reduce energy costs.

C.O.G.S.

Possibly the most significant category in forensic bookkeeping, because it encompasses so many other areas of operation and has the potential for the greatest risk. Cost of goods evaluations explore both your markup/margin strategies versus industry averages, reveal potential shrinkage due to theft, fraud or error, indicates what items perform poorest or best, indicates vulnerabilities in supply lines, and many other areas of concern.

Taxes

Our analyses look at your tax submissions to see if there are areas you have neglected. While regular accountants look for accuracy in entry of data, they do not look at potential problem areas or areas where you can minimize taxes. This includes income tax, GST and PST.

Fixed & Variable Expenses.

Fixed expenses my appear to be immutable, but often there are areas where you can use fixed costs more effectively to reduce per unit investment. Variable costs are areas of discretion that fluctuate and often are not closely monitored.

Capital Expenditures

While capital expenditures generally are immutable, we provide location services for upcoming investments, helping you find the best items at the best price.

Operating Cost Efficiencies

This ties into variable expense management, but takes a broader look at operations, providing coordinated recommendations.

Live Monitoring / Camera Surveillance

Camera surveillance consists of live monitoring and review of data saved on micro-SD or Cloud, when you purchase our camera system packages. There are several aspects to this monitoring, as follows:

Theft/fraud detection
After-hours entry and security
Risk evaluation package
Three-month blocks of monitoring

Mystery Shopping

Our mystery shopping program often is integrated with other elements of our services, including as a precursor to theft and fraud investigations. We provide recording and transcripts of our encounters. Cost is $35 per shop, regardless of quantity. The client reimburses us for any outlays and purchases, where those purchases are returned. Where consumables are purchased as part of the mystery shop, client reimburses us 75% of cost, so that the client recovers most of his food cost.

Theft/Fraud Analyses

A central part of our service package is our theft & fraud analysis, involving camera surveillance, vehicle monitoring, site surveillance and undercover personnel (if required).Camera surveillance provides the most accurate and cost effective technique, with a two-week monitoring program generally less than $700 (depending on number of cameras, business type and hours of operation)

Inventory Management (year-end, quarterly)

Our inventory management program, conducted yearly or quarterly, includes counts, price checks, yields analysis and shrinkage analysis,

Guaranteed Results!

We guarantee that we will recover at least three times the price of your purchase price for services (includes all forensic bookkeeping service packages, but excludes standalone camera surveillance, mystery shopping and ongoing monitoring)

Check out our unique services package! Scroll down.

Forensic Bookkeeping

Stock room management

Point-of-sale, money management, cash

$150/Month. Up to 4 cameras included. (3-month initial contract)

Note: We provide services that are specific to local Canadian business. While we occasionally work with larger national corporations, we do not accept American clients. Our specialty is corporate theft & fraud detection or prevention systems. We do not do personal investigations. Our live (in-person) services are available only in Manitoba, Northern Ontario and Saskatchewan

Exceptional Value

What We Do	Your Benefits
Up to 4 cameras installed.	We provide a mix of covert (hidden) and overt (obvious) cameras, as required and agreed by client. This allows you to choose how, where and when we monitor your employee and supplier activity.
No cost for cameras during contract period.	For the duration of your agreed-upon contract, we will provide teh cameras and installation at no cost to you. That means no investment needed if you decide that you no longer want the coverage we provide.
Mix of covert (hidden) and overt (visible) cameras as required	Using hidden cameras for key areas of vulnerability increases the likelihood that we will detect activity, while unconcealed cameras offer a strong deterrent effect.
12 hours per month live monitoring	We use split screen observation, with up to 16 cameras running simultaneously. That allows us to monitor up to four clients, thus reducing cost per client while not diminishing quality of service.
Initial evaluation of site	Before we install cameras, we do a 28-item evaluation of your site (essentially, a risk analysis) to determine likely areas of loss. This assists us in focusing on problem areas when we begin monitoring.
Weekly review of all data	At the end of each week, we provide a summary of what we have observed (both positive and negative) to enable you to respond quickly to emerging issues.
Instant alerts for all problems detected	If we observe an incident occurring live, we immediately notify you and provide a snapshot of the activity.
Monthly report of problem activity with recommendations	At the end of each month, we provide recommendations for improvement and risk mitigation.
Live coverage of all key areas	Live coverage can be tailored to your preferences. You will be able to guide us as to when we should focus our attention on specific areas. As we familiarize ourselves with your flow of operations, we can augment your ideas with ideas of our own.
Potential to tie into your existing camera systems	Many existing cameras can be tied in and coordinated with our installations, with only minor modifications.
You may purchase cameras at end of contract period	At the end of any three-month contract period, you may purchase the cameras outright.
You may terminate service at end of each contract period	Our agreements with you are for three-month blocks. You may terminate after the first three months by giving five days notice. At any time after the initial three months, you may terminate at the end of each consecutive month.
You supply Internet access	You are responsible for internet connections. We will set up cameras using innocuous labels, so that anyone accessing the internet using your WiFi will not know the origins of the camera feed and will not be able to access them. Of course, you will have access to the camera feeds at all times.

Generally, businesses recover less than 1/10 of the amount that is stolen by employees or suppliers. The perpetrators often do not have access to enough money to repay what they have taken. Businesses that opt to proceed with criminal charges also discover that the courts frequently do not order restitution and when they do, they do not order repayment of what you lost. That is where our exit interviews excel.

While we have great success on exit interviews, we rarely recover the full amount taken. Still, our restitution rate is five to seven times what the court manages to collect.

This leads to the obvious conclusion: it is better to prevent than to detect. Prevention eliminates problems before they occur.

We recommend that you begin with a brief checklist so that we can evaluate your risk potential for theft and fraud. It costs nothing. For a few dollars more, we can do a forensic analysis of your financial and inventory handling processes, to identify and respond to vulnerabilities.

In the majority of instances, we can set up systems and methods to eliminate much of the risk.

Security devices are only a part of the solution. Who will watch the cameras? Who will apprehend suspects? How will they know what to look for? We answer all those questions for you.

Many businesses already have security cameras, but no one monitors them. We provide a unique monitoring program that is neither an investigation service nor a security/alarm system. Yet, it provides all the benefits of both. And we can use your cameras to develop a remote monitoring program that will cost you as little as $80 per month for 12 hours of live monitoring, along with a monthly review.

This is ideal for a convenience store, a small warehouse, a business with a one- or two-person office.

We can provide you with recommendations of the best systems to install. We prefer not to be the retailer of any equipment line (although we do offer a limited array). In that way, we can be objective about what we feel is the best approach for you to take. Many quality cameras can be purchased for under $100, with an additional $60 in peripheral costs.

We use your weekly time allotment to develop recommendations to improve your security, as well as to identify suspicious activity. If we detect deviance, we can notify you immediately.

We also conduct regular spot checks at your establishment, looking for vulnerabilities to correct.

So what is the advantage of our program over regular floorwalkers, security services, alarm monitoring and regular accounting?

Two things: cost and benefit. We get results in a very efficient manner, relying on decades of experience and a knowledgeable CGA who specializes in identifying fraud risks. Because we offer very short shift (3 hours per week in a 3-month contract) programs that still cover the equivalent of 30 hours a week with our Cloud recording and motion-detection systems, you are getting comprehensive service for minimal cost.

Consider the benefits to your company and then consider the risk of having potential theft occurring routinely in your operation.

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