History Main / ForensicAccounting

* ''Film/TheDarkKnightSaga'':

* In the U.S. in general, Federal Law enforcement is redicolously good at doing what they do, with most having a 90% conviction rate on all cases, but the best of the best at this level are the [[IntimidatingRevenueService IRS]] and the Secret Service, both agencies that deal exclusively with money crimes (the former is Tax related, the latter was originally Counterfeiting). In fact, the Secret Service was tasked with Protecting the President of the United States (just about the only thing they do in fiction) because they were so damn good at stopping Counterfeiters.

* In the second ''Film/RushHour'' movie, Carter's advice to Lee regarding the case; "Find the rich white guy."

* An available core character skill of the GUMSHOE System (used in games like ''The Esoterrorists'', ''Mutant City Blues'', ''Trail Of Cthulhu'' and others). A given because the system is built to facilitate (and encourage) roleplaying detective work.

* In ''Film/TheAccountant'' the protagonist is one, though he generally works for criminals to find out whose been pilfering their ill-gotten gains. The investigator after him finally gets a break by using the same trope to discover his money-laundering fronts.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Gangbusters}}''. In ''Magazine/{{Polyhedron}}'' magazine #15 adventure "The Vesper Investigation". The attic of Mr. Dane's house has old accounting ledgers. If a PlayerCharacter uses their Accounting skill while reading the ledgers, they can find out that Mr. Dane embezzled $240,000 from a Syndicate account. This is an important clue as to why Mr. Dane's house was ransacked and why he disappeared.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Light Novels]]
* In Volume 10 of ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline,'' Asuna, Sinon, Leafa, and Yui figure that their best hope of finding out [[spoiler: where the Rath Corporation has taken Kirito after his poisoning by Johnny Black]] is to do a deep dive analysis of Japanese government spending since they've had no success otherwise due to its extreme secrecy and almost non-existent presence on the Internet. Yui eventually discovers an oddly large budget allocated for a Japanese underwater mining ship anchored near the Izu Islands, roughly 200 miles south of Tokyo. [[spoiler: Said ship is indeed where Kirito was taken, and it is actually an advanced vessel hosting a network of quantum computers for the purposes of military AI creation, being done in secret to avoid American surveillance.]]
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** ''Magazine/TheUnspeakableOath'' magazine #18 article "The Chapel of Contemplation". If an Investigator makes an Accounting roll while searching the file system in the office, they discover a list of the title organization's income and expenses. These include many unspecifed (money received from blackmail), payments for a safe deposit box (where a valuable Mythos book is kept) and a large butcher's bill (from purchasing animals for sacrifice).

** ''Shadows of Yog-Sothoth'' adventure "Devil's Canyon". While examining the papers in von Varnstein's office, if one of the {{PC}}s makes an Accounting roll he can discover an order for special camera lenses, a clue that tells the {{PC}}s that the camera lenses they discover later are important.

*** Adventure "The Dreamer". While searching Herbert Whitefield's office the {{PC}}s can find bills and receipts. If one of them makes an Accounting roll he can determine that Whitefield is deeply in debt and late on all his payments - a clue that gives him a motive in the disappearance of his client Paul [=LeMond=].
*** Adventure "Mountains of the Moon". If the {{PC}}s break into the NWI mining office's administration building and Johnathan Harris' office they can find the site's business records. A successful Accounting roll will discover that even though the operation is performing at peak efficiency, it's still losing a phenomenal amount of money. This is an important clue that the purpose of the site is not to make money and that there's something unusual going on.
** ''Cthulhu Now'' adventure "The Killer Out Of Space". If a PC makes an Accounting roll while examining the books (accounting records) at Buddy's Best Wrex he realizes that they aren't correct. The books are actually false: Buddy keeps the actual books at home.
** ''Dreamlands'' adventure "Pickman's Student". While going through Blakely's papers a {{PC}} can make an Accounting Roll. If he succeeds he finds receipts for four of Blakely's paintings, with the addresses of the people who bought them. Since the {{PC}}s must find the paintings in order to succeed this is a vitally important clue.
** ''Horror on the Orient Express''. Successful Accounting rolls are useful twice: while examining Makryat's account books they reveal that he bought and later sold a special train set, and while studying the Gremanchi Doll Work's records they show how the Conte ordered the purchase of the Left Leg and later used it.
** ''The Asylum and Other Tales'' adventure "The Asylum". In Dr. Freygan's bedroom there's a wall safe behind a ConcealingCanvas. It holds an account book listing the asylum's income and expenses. If a {{PC}} makes an Accounting roll he will realize that there's no way the asylum's income could cover its expenses. This is a clue that Dr. Freygan is making money another way: by helping bootleggers smuggle alcohol.

** Variation: The ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Up The Long Ladder" has this scene:

** In the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "The House of Quark", Quark analyzes Grilka's finances and determines that D'Ghor has been trying to destroy her House by manipulating them into bankruptcy. This backfires because he's dealing with Klingons, who are completely uninterested in following his financial explanation, and demand that the accusation be settled with a TrialByCombat.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''. The Scoobies track down Faith this way, by finding the apartment the Mayor has rented for her. In the ''Series/{{Angel}}'' spin-off, Team Angel use the same method to track down where Wolfram & Hart have stashed Darla.

* This is also how they brought down [[UsefulNotes/TheMafia Joe Massino]], boss of the Bonanno crime family. Jack Stubing, an FBI agent assigned to investigate Massino's operations, was aware of the measures Massino had taken to avoid scrutiny compared to his contemporaries at the time. He therefore decided to go after Massino with a rear-guard action. He convinced his bosses to lend him a pair of forensic accountants normally used in fraud investigations, believing that they could easily pinpoint conspirators in the family's money laundering schemes. Stubing believed that the threat of long prison sentences would be sufficient to get anybody to turn informer, and thus make it easier to trace how the money flowed back to Massino. Ultimately, they managed to get a few of Massino's associates to squeal on him in 2003, including Salvatore Vitale, his underboss. Vitale was already incensed that Massino was plotting to kill him off, so he decided to squeal on his brother-in-law.

* UsefulNotes/AlCapone was finally sent to prison for tax evasion rather than booze smuggling or murder. Nobody was willing to testify against him for his violent crimes, but it was fairly obvious his lavish high-profile lifestyle was well in excess of what his declared income could ever support.
* This is how they also brought down [[UsefulNotes/TheMafia Joe Massino]], boss of the Bonanno crime family. Jack Stubing, an FBI agent assigned to investigate Massino's operations, was aware of the measures Massino had taken to avoid scrutiny compared to his contemporaries at the time. He therefore decided to go after Massino with a rear-guard action. He convinced his bosses to lend him a pair of forensic accountants normally used in fraud investigations, believing that they could easily pinpoint conspirators in the family's money laundering schemes. Stubing believed that the threat of long prison sentences would be sufficient to get anybody to turn informer, and thus make it easier to trace how the money flowed back to Massino. Ultimately, they managed to get a few of Massino's associate to squeal on him in 2003, including Salvatore Vitale, his underboss. Vitale was already incensed that Massino was plotting to kill him off, so he decided to squeal on his brother-in-law.

* In ''Series/TheWire'' tracing dirty money is one of the specialties of detective Lester Freamon, who also instructs his fellow cops in the art. This police work usually meets a stern opposition from the higher-ups, since drug money funds political campaigns, but the few times he can use it, he compares it to a BoomHeadshot.
-->'''Lester:''' You follow drugs and you find drug addicts and drug dealers, you follow the money and you don't know where the fuck it's gonna take [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7M71wmwWRo you.]]

* ''Series/Daredevil2015'': The Nelson & Murdock gang ultimately use this sort of accounting to identify where Leland Owlsley has hidden away a corrupt detective who could testify against Wilson Fisk.

* Forensic accounting is a common tool used by law enforcement agencies in real life, particularly in regards to organized and white-collar crime. Wiki/TheOtherWiki has additional information [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic_accounting here]].

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law Benford's Law]] is often used in Forensic Accounting. In many datasets (electricity bills, street addresses, stock prices, population numbers, death rates, lengths of rivers) 1 occurs as the leading digit about 30% of the time, 2 about 17% down to 9 about 5%. This was first observed by Simon Newcomb who noticed that early pages of the log table books (which contained numbers beginning with 1) were more worn that later pages. Thus account books that deviate from this are worthy of closer investigation

* Forensic accounting is a common tool used by law enforcement agencies in real life, particularly in regards to organized and white-collar crime. TheOtherWiki has additional information [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic_accounting here]].