What belongs in an anti-fraud case log
The minimum fields that keep an audit committee from losing the thread of an open fraud file.
A fraud allegation that lives only in email will fragment. Someone forwards a subset, someone else renames a folder, and by week three the audit committee cannot tell whether fieldwork has started.
We keep a case log with at least: case identifier, allegation summary in neutral language, entities in scope, current status, evidence register references, interview calendar, and the name of the engagement lead. Status values are few and deliberate — planned, fieldwork, review, closed, referred — so nobody invents a private vocabulary.
Evidence entries record what was obtained, from whom, on which date, and where the original sits. That sounds pedantic until counsel asks whether a spreadsheet is a live extract or a screenshot emailed by the suspect’s colleague.
Interview records note attendees, language used, and whether a translator was present. In Hong Kong engagements we frequently move between Cantonese, Putonghua, and English in the same week; the log should say which.
If you are opening a matter internally before calling us, start the log on day one. Retrofitting dates from memory is how timelines unravel in findings memoranda.