Q: What are Cost Verifiers’ billable rates?
A: Our rates vary per person engaged and per services rendered. Contact us for a free consultation. Billable rates will be provided upon submittal of a written proposal for viable assignments. We have found through client feedback that our fees are reasonable and cost effective.

Q: Why do I need a cost expert?
A: The Cost Verifiers’ independent expert opinions are corroborated by establishing reliable facts in proving damages on a project. Our focus on cost and damages provides assurance of a detailed and thorough cost analysis and presentation.

Q: Where can Cost Verifiers perform work?
A: Cost Verifiers has successfully completed assignments in many U.S. states and in foreign countries. Work is performed at the client’s, or law firm’s offices, at the project site, or at the Cost Verifiers member offices throughout the U.S. Our technology facilitates our effective and efficient work efforts.

Q: How are the data corroborated?
A: Cost Verifiers compares relationships among the data. Cost Verifiers validates the data for a particular cost type and then compares that data to other data or documents for reasonableness. This is the essential corroboration process that makes the data much more reliable. For example, we verify labor costs and hours and then compare that data to validated equipment hours.

Q: What are contemporaneous documents and why are they important?
A: Contemporaneous documents are the project documentation that are prepared at, or near, the time the construction activity took place. Many times it is considered the best source of evidence for the cost incurred. For example, timecards and daily logs are usually prepared immediately after the activity took place. These are useful to show what labor costs were incurred on the project.

Q: How does Cost Verifiers initiate engagements and plan and execute work?
A: First, we meet with counsel and the client as necessary, inquire of the parties and assess any possible conflicts of interest and execute an engagement letter. Next, we develop our scope of work with counsel, assign staff, and prepare the necessary document requests which usually start with the contract, cost reports, original estimate and change orders. We continually keep in contact with counsel and the client to keep you apprised of our efforts and to adjust our scope of work as necessary.

Q: What if the case strategy needs expertise beyond cost and damages? Can Cost Verifiers provide this?
A: Yes, our network of experts includes not only accountants but other professionals such as licensed engineers, construction managers and schedulers. We can provide a much broader range of expert services but, as the Cost Verifiers name suggests, we target the cost and damages scope of work and then adjust as necessary.

Q: How does Cost Verifiers establish the important link between entitlement and damages?
A: The contemporaneous documents used to establish entitlement, analyze the schedule and assess impacts on the project are many times the very same documents used by Cost Verifiers to verify and corroborate costs and quantify damages. These documents would include not only cost accounting records such as cost reports, invoices and time cards, but also daily logs, meeting minutes, construction schedules, original and revised estimates, QA/QC reports and other pertinent documents.

Q: Why can’t our current CPA do this work?
A: The CPA who has previously prepared the financial information or tax returns is generally a source of information for Cost Verifiers. However, litigation often requires an objective viewpoint and additional work that is beyond the scope of preparing financial statements and tax returns. The opposition may question the objectivity of the professional who provides recurring services such as tax return or financial statement preparation or attestation work.