In this guide, we'll help you understand the overall process of using FraudFindr to investigate a financial exploitation case. This article is meant to provide a basic understanding of how to use FraudFindr. For more specific details, please browse the rest of our help documentation.

For each case, FraudFindr allows you to enter information about the victim and suspect, then import transactions from one or more bank accounts. When you run analysis, FraudFindr will compare the transaction data to the victim and suspect information and identify potentially fraudulent transactions or spending activity.

These analysis alerts will help you identify transactions that should be investigated further. The goal is to attribute every transaction to either the Suspect, Victim, or Unknown. Finally, you can generate a report with all your findings for that case.

Step 1: Create an Account or Join a Team

Your first step is to join an existing team or create your own team account. If you would like to create your own team, reach out to us at info@fraudfindr.com to get in touch with an account executive today.

If you're being invited to a team, you can click the link in the notification email to join that team.

Step 2: Add Team Members & Assign Roles

If you're the team owner or if you're authorized to manage team members, you can invite more people to your team and assign each person a unique role. User roles determine what that user is allowed to do in FraudFindr. Anyone can be a member of more than one team using the same email address.

Learn More About Managing Team Members

Step 3: Create a Case & Edit Details

Once you've setup your account and (optionally) added team members, you're ready to create your first case! Click "Manage Cases", then "Create New Case". Enter a name for the case (you can edit this later).

Next, add general case information as well as victim and suspect information. The information you add here will help FraudFindr identify potential fraud and bring it to your attention. Add as much detail here as possible before running analysis on accounts for this case.

You can save your progress and edit the case details at any time.

Learn More About Editing Case Details

Step 4: Add Bank Accounts & Transactions

Next, you need to import bank accounts and transactions and ensure the transaction data is 100% accurate. This is the most time-consuming part of a financial investigation. We provide two ways of adding bank accounts and transactions to each case:

1. PDF File Upload (Most Common)

2. CSV File Upload (Accurate)

You can add an unlimited number of bank accounts to a case.

Learn More About Adding Bank Accounts

Step 5: Normalize & Reconcile Transactions

For every bank account you add to a case in FraudFindr, you must:

• Ensure the details of every transaction are 100% accurate

• Make sure no transactions are missing

• Make sure no extraneous transactions exist by mistake

For each transaction, make sure the following fields contain accurate data:

• Date

• Payee/Payor

• Type

• Method

• Category

• Description

• Amount

While we do our best to ensure the data is accurate after import, it's imperative that you manually review each transaction and confirm that the data you've imported to FraudFindr matches the bank records.

We've created a reconciliation tool to help speed up this process. You can enter the start + end dates along with the starting + ending balances for each month in the period you're reviewing for that account. If the dates and balances in the summary tab match the bank records, great! If not, you'll need to identify and correct discrepancies until the starting and ending balances match the bank records exactly.

You can begin running analysis at any point during this process, but you may get a high number of analysis alerts if the transaction data is incomplete.

Learn More About Editing Transactions

Step 6: Run Analysis & Attribute Transactions

Once you've verified that the transaction data is 100% accurate, you can run analysis effectively. This is the true power of FraudFindr.

When you run analysis, FraudFindr will compare the bank account transaction data with the victim and suspect information and identify potential Fraud.

Analysis can be run on each bank account you add to a case.

The goal is to attribute every transaction in every bank account to either the Suspect, Victim, or Unknown. This helps FraudFindr generate a valuable and accurate report for each case.

Learn More About Analysis & Attribution

Step 7: Create a Report

Once all transactions have been appropriately attributed, FraudFindr will allow you to quickly and easily build a custom case report. It can also generate a PDF file for digital or printed distribution.

At any point during the investigation process, you can create notes which can then be optionally included in your report. This helpful feature can be used as a communication tool for your team or as a way to document findings along the way.