Shareholder disputes in closely held Indian companies often begin with a suspicion: a co-founder is drawing money through a related company, minority shareholders are being diluted, profits are vanishing into “consultancy fees,” or a family business is being run as one branch’s private account. When the dispute reaches the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), suspicion […]

Most companies think of the statutory audit as something that happens in May and June. In practice, a smooth audit is the result of work spread across the whole year: planning before the year starts, interim checks mid-year, a clean year-end close, and a tight sequence of Board approval, AGM and MCA filings after it. […]

For most CA firms, audit work does not arrive evenly. Statutory audits, tax audits, CARO reporting and bank or group reporting deadlines bunch into the same few months, and the firm has to staff for that peak. Hiring permanent articles and qualified assistants for the busiest months leaves them underused for the rest of the […]

When a payment goes out without approval, a bank reconciliation sits unreviewed for months, or one employee can both create a vendor and release money to it, the problem is rarely just an accounting error. It is a control gap. The Companies Act, 2013 addresses these gaps through a set of provisions on internal financial […]

A finance manager notices that one vendor has been paid twice for invoices with almost identical numbers. A whistleblower email alleges that a purchase head is favouring a company owned by a relative. Stock counts keep falling short. Each of these could have an innocent explanation, or could point to something more serious. A forensic […]

Picture a Pune-based manufacturer that has grown from one plant to three, from 60 employees to 400, and from a handful of suppliers to more than 200. The accounting team still closes the books every month, but approvals now happen over WhatsApp, vendor details change without a second check, stock differences are written off at […]

Every business decision, whether it is a loan application, a new investor, a tax filing or a partner payout, depends on financial records that are accurate and complete. When numbers stop adding up, the cause is often an honest error or a weak process. Sometimes, though, it points to something that needs a closer look. […]