Suspicion Without Documentation Changes Nothing
You can feel it before you can show it.
Money leaving a business with no explanation that holds up. A spouse who claims the finances are straightforward but cannot produce a single document that proves it. An estate being administered by someone who controls the records and has every reason to minimize what is in them.
The feeling is not the problem. The problem is that in a courtroom, in mediation, or in a settlement negotiation, a feeling without documentation behind it is worth nothing. At Maris, we turn financial records into findings.
Most Irregularities Do Not Announce Themselves
Forensic accounting is the examination of financial records specifically for use in legal disputes, investigations, and court proceedings.
It is not a financial review run at a faster pace. It is a discipline built for situations where the output has to survive legal scrutiny.
Every bank statement and tax return for every year under review gets parsed line by line. Inflows reconciled against outflows. Transfers traced forward and backward across every account.
Patterns that only emerge across multiple years and multiple accounts become visible when someone is specifically looking for them. That is what separates an investigation from a review.
undocumented
until now
The question is not what the numbers show. It is what the numbers were designed to hide.
Hidden Money Rarely Disappears Completely
A spouse who successfully conceals $200,000 in marital assets walks away from a divorce with money that was legally yours. Not a theoretical amount. A permanent transfer of wealth, locked in by a settlement agreement signed before anyone looked closely at the records.
Hidden asset investigations work because money leaves traces. Undisclosed account transfers. Purchases in credit card records that never appear in declared assets. Business income that routes through an entity before quietly redirecting elsewhere. None of it is invisible once someone is looking at the full record.
That is the work of a hidden asset investigation. Maris documents it as a divorce forensic accountant, producing a final report that shows what was declared, what the records actually show, and where the two diverge.
That document becomes part of the legal record. It does not go away after the conversation.
Where This Kind of Work Applies
We work with individuals, business owners, and attorneys across Everett, Seattle, and Snohomish County who are past the point of suspicion and need something they can actually use.
Our forensic accounting services cover:
- Fraud detection and asset misappropriation analysis
- Hidden asset investigation in divorce proceedings
- Business dispute and partner conflict analysis
- Records reconstruction and financial statement examination
- Expert witness testimony and court appearances
- Estate and trust dispute auditing
- Due diligence for significant business or investment decisions
Financial disputes rarely arrive in neat categories. If the situation is more complicated than the list suggests, that is usually when this kind of analysis matters most.
The Report Has to Hold Up
Anyone can review documents. What they cannot do is explain, under cross-examination, why a specific transaction constitutes a financial irregularity under established accounting standards.
A forensic accounting firm at the CPA level produces findings grounded in accounting principles, tax law, and reporting requirements. The analysis explains what the numbers mean within the framework a judge will apply. That is a different product than a financial summary.
When attorneys bring a forensic accountant in Seattle from a CPA firm into litigation, the tax picture and the forensic narrative are one argument. Not separate opinions assembled under deadline.
Engagements are priced at $9,200 per year analyzed. Court appearances at $4,800 per appearance. Both confirmed before work begins.
The Situation Does Not Need to Be Clean Before You Call
Most people who contact us arrive mid-situation. The documents are incomplete. The timeline belongs to someone else. The situation has been building longer than they wanted it to.
That is a normal starting point. The records do not need to be organized before the first conversation.
Once the engagement begins, the picture changes. Not because the dispute resolves. Because for the first time, the financial record has a documented shape. That shift tends to be immediate.
Contact Maris & Associates CPAs. We will walk through what the engagement would involve for your specific circumstances and tell you exactly what documents we need to begin.