Fraud · Leakage · Financial crime
The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners estimates that a typical organisation loses close to 5% of its annual revenue to fraud. Much of it is concealed within ordinary invoices, vendor records and approvals that are rarely questioned. TRACE analyses your own data and identifies where value is being lost, and how much.
Source: ACFE Report to the Nations
The principle
TRACE was built on a single conviction: a finding is only as valuable as your ability to stand behind it. Many fraud and AML tools hand over a number while hiding the reasoning, which leaves you exposed the moment someone asks how you know. TRACE takes the opposite view and shows its work. Every finding is explained in plain language, quantified in money, and traced to the exact transaction that produced it, so whatever the question, there is always an answer behind it.
What it finds
The forms of leakage that hide within ordinary numbers, which standard accounting software does not surface:
The same invoice paid more than once, under a slightly altered reference.
Payments held just beneath an approval threshold to avoid sign-off.
A single purchase divided into parts to remain below authorisation limits.
Vendors that receive payment yet never appear on the approved-supplier list.
Recurring service contracts that inflate steadily beyond the value of the work.
Stock recorded in the accounts but absent from the floor, quantified precisely.
If any of these raises a question about your own operations, that is precisely the purpose.
Beneath the surface
Some of the costliest losses never look like losses. A duplicate payment, an inflated contract or a supplier that should not exist can appear as entirely ordinary, correctly recorded transactions. Everything balances; nothing seems out of place. Finding them takes more than a routine look: a forensic examination of every transaction at once, and the patterns between them. That is what TRACE is built to do.
“Do the numbers add up?”
Everything balances and reconciles. The records look exactly as they should.
“Do the numbers hold up?”
A duplicate payment, a padded contract, a supplier that should not exist. Easy to miss one at a time, and quietly costly over a year.
Between those two questions is where the money goes.
Across every transaction, not a sample, TRACE shows exactly where money is leaking and how much it is costing you.
Each finding arrives with a clear, prioritised action, mapped to the point in your process where the control belongs.
The aim is a lasting control that stops the same loss recurring, not a one-time patch you have to repeat.
Who it is for
Provide the invoice, vendor and stock records you already maintain. Receive a board-ready report that shows where value is being lost, and which issues to address first.
Independent case reviews, alert triage and SAR/SMR drafting support. Every case is prepared to an audit-ready standard, mapped to your jurisdiction, with the reporting deadline tracked.
Why the name
The name reflects the method, and the method is what lets any conclusion hold up. Every finding is integrity-hashed, cited to the regulation behind it, and attributed to a named reviewer, never treated as an accusation. The reasoning can be followed from the headline figure back to the single source record that produced it. So whatever is asked of a finding, by a board, an examiner or a regulator, the trail is already there to answer it.
The practice
TRACE Risk Advisory is led by Himaja Prabhala, its Principal Consultant, specialising in fraud, financial crime and operational risk. Every engagement is handled personally and owned from start to finish, so the person examining your numbers is the person accountable for what they find. No hand-offs, no black box.
Designing solutions that add real value
or email prabhalahima4@gmail.com