← Back to home

Burry vs the field exam

A field exam samples the book. Burry reads every row.

Side by side: what each one checks, how often, what it costs, and where each one stops.

Burry doesn’t replace the field examiner, and this page won’t pretend it does. The exam counts the inventory and sits with the controller. Burry does the part in between: it ties every reported row to the bank statement, every month, on the reporting you already receive.

At a glance

Field examBurry
How much of the bookA sampleEvery row
How oftenOnce or twice a yearEvery cycle, usually monthly
WhereOn site, days at a timeOn the reporting you already receive
What it ties toThe borrower’s own ledgersThe bank statement
How longDays on site, then the reportFirst read in two days; then minutes
What you getA report and an opinionEvery row tied, flagged or unverifiable, with the rows behind it
What it costsAbout a thousand dollars a day per examiner, plus travelA flat retainer, a small slice of the collateral you monitor
What it can’t doRead the whole bookCount the shelf

The checks

The things that go wrong in a book, and who looks for them.

Field examBurry
Totals that don’t footOn the sampleEvery row
Invoices with no cash behind themOn the sampleEvery row, against the bank statement
The same invoice counted twiceIf it lands in the sampleEvery row, every cycle
Balances that move with no transaction behind themOn the sampleEvery row
Money that leaves by one door and comes home by anotherOnly if someone goes lookingEvery account you have statements for, as far back as they go
“Acme Corp” and “ACME” — one customer or twoBy eyeMatched on the record, every match shown
What wasn’t checked, listedIn the scope notes, if at allYes — the unverifiable list, before the read starts
Physical inventory countYesNo
Appraisal, lien review, the borrower in the roomYesNo

What the exam does that Burry can’t

Anything that isn’t in the paper: the half-empty warehouse, the controller who can’t answer a straight question. And a fabrication small enough to hide inside the normal noise of an honest book won’t show up on bank data alone; it needs the underlying invoices, credit memo by credit memo. Keep the exam.

What Burry does that the exam can’t

Read all of it, every time. An examiner at a thousand dollars a day samples; that’s the ceiling of a person with a spreadsheet, not a fault. At Tricolor, the indictment says, the payment ledgers were retyped during the audits. First Brands’ examiner walked the money after the fact with seven million dollars and ran out before he was done. Burry reads every row against the bank statement each cycle, names the money that leaves by one door and comes home by another, and tells you which statements it never got.

What it costs

The exam bills by the day, per examiner, plus travel, and the loan agreement usually caps how often you can call one. Burry is a flat monthly retainer, a small slice of the collateral you monitor — no seats, no per-loan meter. The first product is one live name from your portfolio, read for a month at a flat fee, first read back in two days. I’ll name the number when you write; most credit agreements already carry a field-exam line and a monthly monitoring fee.

Questions lenders ask

Does Burry replace the field exam?
No. The examiner counts the inventory, walks the floor, sits with the controller and forms a view. Burry does none of that. It does the analytical leg — the tie of every reported row to the bank statement — every month instead of once or twice a year. Keep the exam; Burry is the read in between.
Is Burry a manual audit?
No. Nobody types the book in and nobody reads it by hand. You upload the borrower's reporting as it comes — borrowing-base certificates, agings, ledgers, bank statements, invoices — and Burry reads all of it and returns the findings with the rows behind them. There is no template for the borrower and nothing for your team to set up or staff.
How long does a read take?
The first read on a new borrower comes back in two days. Every cycle after that, in minutes.
What does it cost?
A flat monthly retainer, a small slice of the collateral you monitor. No seats, no per-loan meter. The first product is one live name from your portfolio, read for a month at a flat fee. Ask and I'll name the number; the loan agreement usually already carries a field-exam line and a monthly monitoring fee.
Does Burry say fraud?
Never. Every row comes back one of three ways — tied, flagged, or unverifiable — with the rows, the matches and the source documents behind it. What a flag means, and what you do about it, is your call.
What does the field exam catch that Burry can't?
Whatever isn't in the paper: inventory that isn't on the shelf, a controller who can't answer a straight question, the feel of the place. Burry reads the reporting and the bank statements. A fabrication small enough to hide inside an honest book's normal noise needs the underlying invoices, credit memo by credit memo — and when that's the case, Burry says so rather than guessing.
Can I run it on a new deal, or during a workout?
Yes. Send whatever reporting and statements you have; Burry lists what it received and what's missing before the read starts. On a workout it walks the money across every account you have statements for, as far back as they go.
Who sees the borrower's files?
The files sit on Cloudflare, nobody but me sees them, and they're deleted when you say so. The raw data is never touched; every finding points back to the row it came from.

Keep the exam. Add the read in between.
Or just write. eyoel [at] getburry.com