Extract Key Financial Facts From Client Intake Questionnaire And Supporting Documents

Skill: Extract Key Financial Facts from Client Intake Questionnaire and Supporting Documents

2. Failure modes the skill is correcting

• Accepting a client-stated total without independently checking the underlying line items; client-prepared financial schedules often contain arithmetic errors that distort support, need, and liquidity analysis
• Failing to reconcile aggregate income against separately listed components; omissions or double counts can arise when wages, self-employment, rental, investment, or pass-through items are assembled from multiple sources
• Missing expense items that appear in a debt schedule or payment list but not in the monthly budget; this understates recurring obligations
• Treating inheritance or gifted-property appreciation as automatically separate without testing whether post-acquisition growth reflects passive market movement or active management
• Overlooking tracing requirements for retirement balances that began before the relevant relationship period; without a traced premarital component, the full account may be treated as shared or at least subject to dispute
• Ignoring retained business earnings as a financial fact relevant both to support and to value; distributions, retained cash, and owner compensation may tell different stories
• Using an unstable or undefined valuation date; asset values, debt balances, and account values can change materially across dates that are not expressly fixed

3. Legal frameworks / domain conventions that apply

• Income and expense verification: independently test the arithmetic in any client-prepared budget or questionnaire and carry forward the corrected number, not the stated one, into the memorandum
• Source reconciliation: where a stated aggregate figure does not match the listed components, identify the variance and the likely missing source document needed to resolve it, typically tax returns, account statements, or payroll records
• Debt-payment integration: a recurring loan obligation reflected in a debt schedule is part of the household cash-flow picture even if omitted from the expense section
• Separate-versus-shared property analysis: inherited or gifted property may begin as separate property, but appreciation may require further classification analysis if the growth is tied to post-acquisition management rather than passive change
• Tracing doctrine: where a retirement asset has a premarital or pre-relationship balance, the separate portion generally must be traced; if the premarital amount is unknown, the account may be vulnerable to treatment as shared or entirely unsegregated
• Business-income and retained-earnings analysis: support and valuation analysis may require looking beyond owner draws to the entity’s retained income, distributable cash, and compensation structure
• Valuation-date discipline: the memorandum should identify the date used for each material value and flag any mismatch between documents that use different dates or statement periods
• Governing authority: when citing a legal proposition, identify the rule, statute, regulation, or recognized doctrine supporting the proposition rather than stating the conclusion alone

4. Analytical scaffolds

1. Build a source map before analysis: list each intake document, questionnaire, statement, schedule, and email packet; note what financial field each source purports to support
2. Enumerate each party or account category separately before analyzing; do not merge different income streams, account types, or property sources into one pass if the source set distinguishes them
3. For every stated total, recompute the total from the underlying components and compare the stated number, the recomputed number, and the difference
4. For every recurring obligation, check whether it appears in more than one place in the source set and reconcile the placements rather than assuming duplication or omission
5. For each inherited or gifted asset, identify: original amount or basis, current value, appreciation pattern, and any facts indicating active management, rebalancing, or post-acquisition intervention
6. For each retirement account, identify any pre-relationship balance, any stated tracing methodology, and any documents needed to isolate separate from shared portions
7. For each business interest, identify revenue, compensation, retained earnings, distributions, debt, and any valuation date used; note whether the intake reflects owner income, entity income, or both
8. Flag every discrepancy with the source document basis, the corrected or unresolved figure, the legal or analytical significance, and the recommended next document to request

5. Vertical / structural / temporal relationships

• Intake questionnaires often summarize figures that are later corrected in emails, spreadsheets, or statements; reconcile the chronology before finalizing any number
• Bank statements are the primary cross-check for cash deposits, recurring withdrawals, and debt service patterns
• Tax returns, payroll records, and brokerage statements may be needed to validate income that is reported in aggregate but not in component form
• Asset values and account balances should be tied to a clearly stated date; if different documents use different dates, note the mismatch and its effect on comparability
• A monthly debt payment can appear as both a liability and a cash-flow item; the memorandum should reflect both relationships without double counting
• Retirement and inherited-asset issues are time-sensitive because classification can depend on when the balance was created, received, managed, or appreciated

6. Output structure conventions

• Single deliverable: a financial summary memorandum suitable for a divorce intake file
• Use a conventional memo shape: executive snapshot → verified income summary → verified expense summary → asset schedule → debt schedule → classification and tracing issues → valuation-date and source-reconciliation issues → recommended follow-up requests
• Present each figure with its source, the verification method used, and whether the figure is stated, recomputed, or still unverified
• Where multiple parties, accounts, or periods are present, present them in separate rows or subsections rather than collapsing them into a single narrative
• For each discrepancy, state the stated figure, the corrected figure if calculable, the variance, the source documents consulted, and the significance for support, division, or tracing analysis
• Include a brief authority note for each legal proposition or classification rule relied on, naming the controlling statute, rule, regulation, or doctrine where applicable
• End with a Recommended Actions section listing concrete follow-up requests, assigned to the appropriate party or professional role, and tied to the next practical milestone or prompt timing