Forensic data analytics
Ranked red flags drawn from all your transactions rather than a sample, and a monitoring routine you can keep running.
Red-flag analytics on full populations of transactions, vendors, employees and communications, run once or as continuous monitoring.
Sampling finds what it happens to pick. Fraud and leakage hide in the exceptions: a duplicate vendor, a split purchase order, a journal posted at midnight, a discount that only one dealer receives. Analytics on the full population finds them systematically, and the same tests can run every month.
We start from fraud scenarios mapped to your processes, then build tests on your ERP, payroll, expense, sales and distribution data: duplicates, exceptions, large variances, unusual timing and patterns that break from the norm. Where policy and the law allow, lexicon-based review of e-mail and chat adds context to the transactions.
Every red flag is ranked, and the transactions behind it are listed so your team can follow up. The tests can be handed over as a continuous monitoring routine with dashboards and alerts, so detection does not depend on someone remembering to look.
You want to find fraud, leakage or policy breaches across all your data rather than a sample, or to monitor for them continuously.
Signs we see most often
- 01Audits rely on samples and you want assurance over every transaction.
- 02You suspect ghost vendors, ghost employees or duplicate payments.
- 03Discounts, credit notes or schemes vary in ways nobody can explain.
- 04Journal entries, access rights or approvals bypass normal controls.
- 05You want early warning rather than finding fraud after the loss.
- 06A fraud has been found and you need to know whether it happened elsewhere.
Scoped in writing, run by one accountable team.
Every engagement starts with agreed questions, a reporting line and a confidentiality protocol. The steps below are how this service usually runs; we adapt them to your matter.
- 01MapMap fraud scenarios to your processes, systems and data.
- 02ExtractExtract and validate data from ERP, payroll, expense, sales and distribution systems.
- 03TestRun tests for duplicates, exceptions, variances, timing and patterns.
- 04RankScore and rank red flags by risk and value.
- 05ReviewReview flagged transactions with your team and investigate where needed.
- 06MonitorHand over dashboards and alerts for continuous monitoring.
Ranked red flags with the transactions behind them, and a monitoring routine you can keep running.
- A library of fraud scenarios mapped to your data
- Ranked red flags with the transactions behind them
- Findings and recommended control fixes
- Dashboards and alerts for continuous monitoring
- Documentation of every test, so results can be repeated
The law and frameworks this work is aligned to
- COSO and ACFE Fraud Risk Management Guide on data analytics for fraud detection
- Aligned to the ICAI Forensic Accounting and Investigation Standards
- Companies Act, 2013 s.134(5)(e) on internal financial controls
- RBI Fraud Risk Management Directions, 2026, on data analytics and early warning signals, for regulated entities
- DPDP Act, 2023 for the lawful processing of employee and customer data
References show the standard the work is built to. They do not imply accreditation or endorsement by the bodies that publish them.
This is a summary of the service. For a deeper understanding of how it would work for your organisation, please reach out to us.
Talk to a BDI partnerWhere this service meets BDI's technology.
The platforms below record, monitor or act on the work this service produces.
Questions clients ask before we start.
Do you need access to our systems?
We need extracts of the relevant data. Your IT team can provide them for processing in a secure environment, without direct access to your live systems.
Will there be many false positives?
Some, at first. Tests are tuned with your team so that the red flags that remain are worth investigating, and each one is ranked by risk and value.
Can e-mail be monitored?
Only where your policies, employee notices and the law allow it. Lexicon-based review is designed with your legal team and applied proportionately.