# Detect tampered and deepfake Annual Report > Financial statement fraud is found in the arithmetic before anything else: totals that no longer tie out, a balance sheet that stops balancing, notes whose components do not sum to the figure printed on the face of the accounts. An annual report is the one document in a business pack where the fraud is not about identity. The company is real and the accounts are its own, with revenue, margin, or the cash position raised to clear a covenant or win a credit line. **Canonical URL:** https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/annual_report **API document class:** `annual_report` **Last updated:** 2026-10-07 --- ## What a genuine annual report contains An annual report opens with the directors' report and the auditor's report, the latter carrying the audit firm's name and registration, the signing partner, and the place and date of signing. The financial statements follow: the balance sheet, the statement of profit and loss, the cash flow statement, and the statement of changes in equity, each showing the current period against the prior year. Behind them sit the accounting policies and the numbered notes that break each face figure into its components, with the reporting period stated as a year ended on a specific date. No other document in a KYB pack is this heavily constrained by its own contents. Assets must equal liabilities plus equity. The profit reported for the year must appear in retained earnings on the balance sheet. Closing cash on the cash flow statement must equal the cash line on the balance sheet, every note must sum to the face figure it supports, and the prior-year comparatives must match the accounts filed last year. Raise a revenue figure and at least three of those relationships break at once. ## How annual report forgeries are made ### Revenue inflation with a broken tie-out A turnover figure is raised on the face of the profit and loss without the notes behind it being adjusted. The revenue note then fails to sum to the headline, and the profit that should have flowed into retained earnings does not appear there. ### Balance sheet plugging After an asset or liability is altered, the difference is absorbed into a vague line such as other receivables or sundry balances so the statement appears to balance again. The plug is usually a suspiciously round number with no supporting note, or a note that exists but does not add up. ### Auditor sign-off transplant An audit report, firm letterhead, and partner signature are lifted from a genuine set of accounts and attached to unaudited or altered ones. The signing date sometimes lands before the year end it certifies, and the transplanted page carries different font metrics from the statements it accompanies. ### Reporting period relabelling A strong year's accounts are relabelled as the most recent period so a lender assesses old performance as current. The comparatives then describe a year that does not precede the one now claimed, and the auditor's signing date sits a year away from where it should. ### Retyped page insertion One page is rebuilt and dropped back into the PDF. The reset page frequently carries different leading, a marginally different typeface, or its own producer string in the file structure, and its table grid no longer aligns with the identically formatted pages around it. ### Statements produced by a model Full accounts generated so that every total foots, every note ties, and the balance sheet balances. Arithmetic finds nothing here. What separates them is that the pages were never printed or scanned, and the type and layout carry generation characteristics rather than production ones. ## What TamperCheck checks on an annual report TamperCheck runs 200+ forensic checks across three layers and returns a risk score from 0 to 100 with plain-English findings tied to specific regions of the document. These three carry the most weight on this document class. ### Table structure integrity Inserted and deleted rows leave structural artifacts behind: inconsistent spacing, misaligned columns, and formatting the visible table no longer accounts for. ### Signature forgery analysis Signature regions are assessed for ink consistency and for how the stroke sits on the page, which distinguishes a genuine pen stroke from a pasted image of one. ### Reference and document number checks Document, account, and reference numbers are checked for issuer format conformance and against every other place the same value appears on the page. ### And many more checks The three above are the layers that carry the most weight on an annual report. Every upload runs the full suite of 200+ checks regardless of document class, spanning file structure and metadata, pixel-level forensics, font and text rendering, optical and print characteristics, provenance signals, AI-generation signatures, and many more checks. ## Who verifies an annual report, and why Lenders, investors, and procurement teams assessing counterparty health. In each case the document is being used to unlock money, access, or a legal status, which is exactly what makes it worth forging. ## How to verify an annual report in 4 steps 1. **Re-add the statements.** Recompute the totals on the balance sheet and the profit and loss rather than reading them. Confirm assets equal liabilities plus equity, and that the profit for the year reappears in retained earnings. Most falsified accounts fail at this step, because editing one figure requires correcting several others. 2. **Tie the notes to the face and the cash flow to the balance sheet.** Each numbered note should sum to the figure it supports on the face of the accounts, and closing cash on the cash flow statement should equal the cash line on the balance sheet. Discrepancies point directly at the figures that were changed. 3. **Check the comparatives and the auditor.** Set the prior-year column against the accounts actually filed for that year, and confirm the audit firm, its registration, and the signing partner exist and were engaged for the period. Check the signing date falls after the year end and before the filing. 4. **Analyse the file behind the numbers.** A well-executed edit keeps every total correct. TamperCheck examines table structure, type rendering, and page-level consistency across the report, returning a risk score from 0 to 100 and naming the figures that were altered, at $0.50 per document. ## Frequently asked questions ### How do lenders detect falsified financial statements? Lenders recompute the statements rather than reading them, testing whether the balance sheet balances, the notes tie to the face of the accounts, and the cash flow reconciles to the cash line. They then compare the figures against bank statements, tax filings, and the prior year's accounts, and check that the audit firm and signing partner were genuinely engaged for the period. ### How do I check if an annual report has been edited? Work through the tie-outs first, since most edits break at least one: totals that do not foot, a note that no longer sums to its face figure, retained earnings that do not absorb the reported profit. Then look at the document itself for a single page with different leading, a different typeface, or a table grid that does not align with the pages around it. ### Can edited numbers in a PDF annual report be detected? Yes. Replacing a figure in a PDF leaves the substituted glyphs with a different rendering history from the digits beside them, and in a scanned report a different compression profile as well. Per-region analysis compares each cell against its neighbours in the same table, which is how a single changed number in a column of hundreds is isolated. ### What is the most common way annual reports are falsified? Raising revenue and profit on the face of the profit and loss while leaving the supporting notes untouched. It takes one edit, it produces exactly the number a covenant or a credit application needs, and it reads correctly to anyone who does not turn to the notes. It also breaks the relationship between reported profit and retained earnings immediately. ## Related document types - Articles of Incorporation: https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/articles_of_incorporation - Business Registration: https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/business_registration - Company Extract: https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/company_extract - Board Resolution: https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/board_resolution - GST Certificate: https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/gst_certificate - Trade License: https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/trade_license --- Try TamperCheck now: https://tampercheck.ai/dashboard · Docs: https://tampercheck.ai/docs · Pricing: https://tampercheck.ai/pricing