How to Prepare for an Economic Examination: Documents to Gather

An economic examination is only as strong as the documents behind it. You can be entirely right on the merits of a dispute, yet if the paperwork is thrown together in a hurry, contradicts itself, or is half missing, the conclusion comes out cautious, hedged with a dozen caveats, and easy to shake at a hearing. That is why preparation starts not with calculations, but with something plain and tedious: assembling a complete, tidy set of documents.

We at LPF have worked since 2018, and we have seen this play out many times: a party brings in a box of papers with a “sort it out” and half of what is needed is either filed somewhere else or simply never existed in writing. Time goes into searching rather than analysis. This article is about doing the opposite: gathering documents so that an expert can get straight to the substance instead of doing archaeology.

One boundary up front. When we value something within such a package, that is a management-level calculation for a decision or a negotiation, an argument in a dispute. It is not a formal report from a certified state-appointed appraiser. Different tools for different tasks, and it is worth not mixing them up.

Start With the Question, Not the Paper

The most common mistake is collecting “everything, just in case.” The volume is intimidating and the value is low. First you need to state clearly what the examination is meant to answer: was there a loss and how large, does the price match the market, where specific funds went, was a debt calculated correctly. The question decides which documents matter at all.

Once the question is clear, it is easier to cut the noise and spot the gaps. A starting reference point:

• The subject of the dispute — what exactly you are proving: a loss, an overpayment, a shortfall, the movement of funds.
• The period — precise “from” and “to” dates the data must cover.
• Parties and roles — who dealt with whom, and on what basis.
• The outcome you want — a figure, confirmation of a fact, or a rebuttal of the other side’s calculation.

The Core Set: What to Gather Almost Every Time

Whatever the type of dispute, there is a core of documents without which an economist cannot begin. The key rule is source records, not retellings. An internal note saying “we worked out that we’re owed a million” is not evidence; the evidence is the documents that add up to that million.

• Contracts with all attachments — specifications, amendments, disagreement protocols, not just the signed form.
• Primary documents — delivery notes, acceptance acts, invoices, payment orders, bank statements for the relevant period.
• Accounting data — turnover and balance sheets for the disputed accounts, counterparty ledgers, accounting registers.
• Substantive correspondence — official letters, claims, agreements on price or volume, where they affect the calculation.
• Case materials — the claim, the response, any conclusions from the other side, and the ruling appointing the examination with its list of questions.

If a document is missing, that is no reason to “fill it in.” It is better to honestly record the absence: often the very fact that a document is missing says something in the dispute too.

Organize It So Someone Can Actually Enter the File

Gathering is half the job. The other half is presenting it so that a person seeing it for the first time can find their way around. A pile of unsorted scans costs extra days of work and raises the risk that something important simply gets lost.

• A timeline — a short sequence of events with dates and a reference to the relevant document.
• A register — a simple list: document name, date, number, page count, original or copy.
• Readable copies — full scans, no cropped edges, with visible signatures, stamps, and amounts.
• One naming logic — files named so their contents are clear without opening them.

What to Do About Gaps and Contradictions

There is no such thing as a perfect file. Somewhere an act is missing, somewhere the amount in a contract does not match the statement, somewhere there are two versions of the same document. That is normal — the point is not to hide these spots but to show them to the expert straight away. Then we build them into the logic of the conclusion, instead of running into them at the hearing when it is too late to fix.

• Flag the known weak spots — where a document is missing and why, where the figures diverge.
• Show where the data came from — so every number can be traced back to a specific paper.
• Do not “tune” documents toward a desired result — a contradiction the other side spots does more harm than an honestly admitted gap.

An honestly assembled file with acknowledged gaps almost always produces a sturdier result than one that looks neat but has been “cleaned up.”

If you are preparing for an economic examination and are not sure exactly what to gather for your particular question, write to us. We at LPF will help you build a document list around the substance of the dispute, point out where gaps typically hide, and tell you honestly what in your existing papers already works in your favor and what is worth chasing down.