Payments and controls analytics for your CAS clients

The gap

Companies with 20 to 150 employees rarely have internal audit. Often one or two people can create a vendor, change its bank details and release a payment. Year-end work isn't designed to look at every payment made during the year.

What the analysis is designed to look for

All of the period's payments, vendor changes and approvals, not a sample:

• Vendor bank-detail and master-data changes followed by a payment
• Payments without a matching bill, and one-time payees
• New and reactivated vendors
• Voids, deletions, reissued checks, credit notes, and edits to approved bills
• The same user on incompatible steps, where the client uses an approval workflow
• Bills split under approval limits, where the client uses approval limits

Every result is an exception requiring explanation, not a conclusion. Most will have an ordinary explanation. Your team and your client decide which ones matter.

What your firm receives in the pilot

• Draft findings for your sign-off. Each exception with a risk rating, its likely cause and a recommended control fix.
• An evidence workbook in Excel. Each exception is traced to the exact rows of the client's own export, so your team can check it in the accounting system.
• A note on what the data could not show.
• A walkthrough call with your team.

Before any data is sent, I confirm which checks the pilot will run on that client's system. A version branded with your firm's name is in development.

How it works

1. You choose one client and obtain their consent.
2. Standard exports from the accounting system are sent through a secure upload link. No cleanup is needed.
3. My software maps the files and runs the checks. Every number is calculated from the data, never estimated by AI. I personally check each exception before anything reaches you.
4. You receive the draft findings and the workbook, and you decide what, if anything, goes to the client.

You own the client relationship and final sign-off. I don't contact your client unless you ask me to, and I don't make management decisions for them. No contingent fees.

What this is not

This is advisory analysis. It is not an audit, and it provides no assurance on financial statements or internal controls. It is not designed to find every error or irregularity. I am not a US CPA, and Tracewell Advisory is not a CPA firm.

Data handling

• A written data handling policy is shared and agreed before any data moves.
• Full data files are processed with my own software and are not sent to AI models.
• Each client's data is stored separately. Retention and deletion terms are set in the pilot agreement.

About

Tracewell Advisory is run by Lucas Kulisz. I come from accounting, and I write the analytics myself, in Python. Based in Japan: work is delivered asynchronously, and calls are held in your morning or late afternoon, in English or Spanish.

If you run client accounting services and want to talk about the pilot, write to lucas@tracewelladvisory.com.