Something in the records does not reconcile. A transaction pattern looks wrong. A grant acquittal will not add up. A departing employee has left questions behind. Before anybody can decide what to do, somebody has to establish what actually happened — in a form that stands up when it is looked at again by an auditor, an insurer, a regulator or a court.
Connect Australia conducts that review through in-house capability and independent specialist partners, and organises the result into an evidence trail rather than an opinion.
What we review
- Financial records, transaction histories and reconciliations.
- Decision records: minutes, approvals, delegations and authority trails.
- Processes and controls, and where they were bypassed in practice.
- Grant and program acquittals against funding conditions.
- Contract performance and supplier arrangements.
- Document and correspondence sets across systems, mailboxes and drives.
How the work is organised
- Define the question. A review without a defined question expands indefinitely and costs accordingly.
- Secure the material. Establish what exists, preserve it, and record how it was obtained.
- Reconstruct the sequence. Build the chronology from primary documents, not from recollection.
- Identify what the records show and what they do not. Being explicit about the limits of the evidence is what makes findings usable.
- Package the findings. Organised so management, the auditor and any appointed adviser can act on the same material.
Where our work stops
Connect Australia does not provide legal, tax or financial advice and is not a law practice, tax agent or financial adviser. We work with your preferred provider or, with prior disclosure, can introduce an independent partner for you to assess and choose. Findings are prepared for management decisions, remediation and review by your appointed advisers. We are not auditors and do not issue audit opinions. Where conduct may be criminal, or where litigation is contemplated, engage a lawyer early — legal professional privilege depends on how and by whom the work is commissioned.
Common questions
Will the findings be privileged?
Not automatically, and this matters. If privilege is likely to be important, the engagement should be structured through your lawyer from the outset. Raise it at the fit check and we will flag it before any work starts.
Can you work with our auditor?
Yes. In practice the two pieces of work complement each other: an organised evidence trail makes the audit cheaper and the audit findings often narrow the review.
We suspect an employee. How do we handle it?
Carefully, and with advice. Employment law, privacy obligations and the risk of tipping off all bear on the sequence of steps. Get your employment lawyer involved before anyone is interviewed or any access is revoked. We coordinate the evidence work around that advice.
Start with a confidential fit check
The first conversation is short and costs nothing. We want to understand the decision you are facing, the deadline attached to it and whether this is work we should be doing at all. You do not need to send documents at that stage.
If the matter is a fit, the next step is usually the $850 initial strategic consultation, which includes up to one hour of pre-reading and a one-hour meeting.