Finance and accounting

Court expert: analysis of data derived from accounting records

The following areas of expertise are often treated as overlapping:

• analysis of data derived from accounting records,
• finance and accounting,
• accounting,
• bookkeeping.

In many cases, experts from these fields may indeed answer the same types of questions. For example, an expert in any of these areas — analysis of accounting data, finance and accounting, accounting, or bookkeeping — will be able to provide an opinion on the moment when bankruptcy prerequisites occurred or on the financial condition of a company. Similarly, when it comes to determining the result of a given transaction, each of these experts would be competent to comment.

On the other hand, when it comes to assessing the reliability of a company's financial statement, this task is more likely to fall within the competence of experts in accounting, bookkeeping, or finance and accounting.

Experts in all the areas mentioned above are frequently appointed in cases involving so-called “Swiss franc loans.”

Examples of issues that may be subject to expert opinion in the field of finance and accounting include:

• assessment of whether the accounting records of entity X were properly maintained;
• estimation of lost income resulting from medical leave after an accident in the case of a self-employed person;
• determining whether the documents submitted by a company applying for a loan accurately reflected its financial situation (e.g., whether liabilities were correctly presented);
• calculation of income generated from business activity in a given period;
• identification of amounts and dates of transfers made from a company’s account to an individual or another entity without an economic justification (e.g., funds transferred to a private account by an employee without justification);
• calculation of the outstanding loan balance owed by a borrower to the bank as of a specific date;
• calculation of what the mutual settlement between the borrower and the bank would be if the loan had been treated as a domestic currency loan from the outset;
• assessment of whether employee X, who received cash payments from clients, correctly deposited the funds to the company’s cash register;
• verification of whether a claim for unlawful use of real estate was recorded in the accounting records of company X, and if so, based on what document;
• calculation of the operating costs attributable to apartment X in a given period;
• assessment of whether payments to the renovation fund for property X were properly accounted for and recorded.

Court expert: management accounting

According to the definition proposed by the International Federation of Accountants, management accounting is a system for collecting, aggregating, classifying, analyzing, and presenting financial and non-financial information that supports a company’s management in decision-making and performance monitoring. It is, therefore, a distinct area of accounting, separate from financial and tax accounting.

Examples of issues that may be subject to expert opinion in the field of management accounting include:

• the impact of a given event on a company’s financial condition;
• the result achieved on transaction X / implementation of contract X;
• the margin earned on a specific transaction;
• comparison of margins achieved with various contractors;
• comparison of pricing practices used in transactions with different business partners;
• assessment of whether a specific economic event (e.g., implementation of an investment project, execution of a contract) caused financial loss;
• calculation of the damage resulting from a particular economic event;
• evaluation of the decision-making process regarding the implementation of a given economic undertaking, particularly of an investment nature;
• assessment of whether there was a sound economic rationale for initiating a particular project at the time of its commencement;
• assessment of whether the payment of a dividend by a company was indeed unfeasible from the perspective of maintaining the company’s liquidity.