In our experience, this occurs most often with investment accounts. Some financial institutions apply security features to PDF files, which can help to prevent manipulation. Techniques such as using screen capture software to take an image of the document and then editing and resaving it can be used to change an electronic file.

Even PDF files that are not in text format can still be edited through other means. Adobe Acrobat contains an OCR feature, and there is other software available on the internet. Even if the original PDF file is scanned as an image in bitmap format, a process known as Optical Character Recognition (OCR) allows users to convert the PDF into text format. If the employee has access to the electronic statements, it would be incredibly easy to change the payee name from a department store to a less questionable vendor, such as an office supply store. For example, imagine a case of employee embezzlement in which an employee uses a company credit card for personal purposes. Today, bank records can be easily manipulated using Adobe Acrobat Pro software, which doesn’t require converting the file to a different format. The files were then converted back to PDF format.

In some cases, we found that statements were manipulated using software that cracks open PDF files and provides editing tools that were used to change amounts, dates, and descriptions of various transactions. This practice is becoming increasingly common as companies are encouraged to go paperless. How Portable Document Format Files (PDFs) Are Manipulatedīank and credit card statements are often downloaded by accounting personnel from bank websites in PDF format, in lieu of receiving hard copies via mail. Financial statement fraud can involve virtually any account on an entity’s books and records. In some cases, deposits were altered to reflect greater cash inflows, and the balances were manipulated such that they rolled forward, helping the manipulations go unnoticed. Both the descriptions and amounts were changed for electronic payments, such as wire transfers and debit card transactions reflected on statements. We identified bank statements in several of our investigations that were electronically manipulated to reflect deceptive and fraudulent statement entries. In fact, bank records can tell a powerful story.

Bank records are of particular interest and importance to forensic accountants and receivers, as they reflect an entity’s actual financial history.

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