Scoped to the decision, not to a template.
Every engagement ends in a written report. Its depth depends on what you are deciding and how much risk sits behind the answer. Three levels cover most matters — we will tell you honestly which one fits, including when the smallest will do.
The right question first, the right depth second.
It is easy to sell the largest investigation. It is more useful to work out what actually needs to be tested. A supplier being appointed for a twelve-month contract is a different question from a company being acquired outright — and the investigation should reflect that.
At intake we establish what you are deciding, what you already know, and what a wrong answer would cost you. That determines the level. If your matter can be resolved with a Rapid Screen, we will say so — and if it cannot, we will explain why the deeper work is warranted.
Timelines quoted here are indicative. They assume prompt access to the entity details and no complications in the record. If something emerges that changes the scope, we come back to you before proceeding rather than absorbing it silently.
Three levels of depth.
Rapid Screen
Built for Early-stage vetting, low-value appointments, short-term supplier or subcontractor arrangements, and any situation where you need a fast read on whether deeper work is warranted.
A focused check across the digital and corporate record. Enough to surface the obvious indicators — a trading identity that predates its current entity, a director with prior failures behind them, a website that has been rewritten — without committing to a full investigation.
This is the level most clients start with when they are unsure whether a concern is real. Sometimes the screen resolves it in your favour. Sometimes it produces enough to justify moving to a Standard Investigation, and you will know which within two business days.
- Corporate verification — ASIC and ABR checks on the entity and its officeholders
- Domain and SSL history — certificate issuance dates, registration age, hosting continuity
- WHOIS history — registrant changes and prior ownership where records exist
- Wayback Machine review — archived site captures for erased or altered content
- Red flag summary — indicators identified, each with its source
- Complete evidence pack — every document, extract and screenshot relied on
- Written report — typically 4 to 8 pages
Standard Investigation
Built for Acquisitions of small to mid-sized businesses, partnership and joint venture discussions, franchise appointments, significant supplier commitments, and matters where a concern needs to be either confirmed or put to rest.
Everything in the Rapid Screen, extended across the full entity network and corroborated through human sources. This is where patterns that no single record reveals tend to emerge — recurring officeholders, shared infrastructure between supposedly unrelated companies, a trading name that has outlived several legal entities.
The investigation is directed by what the earlier stages produce. If the corporate record looks clean, the enquiry moves outward to the digital and human layers. If it does not, we go deeper into the network before moving on.
- Everything in Rapid Screen, extended in scope and depth
- Entity network mapping — related companies, prior entities, shared officeholders
- Director network analysis — relationships between officeholders across entities
- Subdomain and infrastructure review — shared hosting, certificates, legacy systems
- Discreet third-party enquiry — 2 to 3 discreet approaches to former contractors, suppliers or staff
- Public CCTV and imagery — physical corroboration where publicly available and lawful
- Reconstructed timeline — corporate, domain and branding changes in sequence
- Claim-by-claim verification — each material representation tested against the record
- Complete evidence pack — every document, extract and screenshot relied on
- Written report — typically 15 to 30 pages with source references
Enhanced Due Diligence
Built for Material acquisitions, multi-entity or cross-jurisdictional structures, litigation preparation, insolvency investigations, government procurement above threshold, and any matter where the cost of getting it wrong is substantial.
The full method, applied without scope limits. Extended human intelligence, deeper network reconstruction, and jurisdiction-specific analysis where entities or individuals sit outside Australia.
At this level we also work to the requirements of the receiving party. Where findings may support legal action, the report is structured so that each conclusion is traceable to its source and each source is described precisely enough to be independently verified.
- Everything in Standard Investigation, extended without the practical limits
- Extended human intelligence — 5 or more discreet third-party approaches where productive
- Extended network reconstruction — deeper mapping across larger or parallel entity groups
- Jurisdiction review — entities or individuals outside Australia, with risk commentary
- Litigation-ready structure — findings formatted for evidential use and independent verification
- Interim briefing — verbal update partway through, so nothing material waits on the final report
- Direct discussion — a call to walk through findings and answer questions before you act
- Complete evidence pack — every document, extract and screenshot relied on
- Written report — typically 30 to 60+ pages, with an executive summary and full source appendix
“My supplier was substituting produce. What arrived looked like what I had ordered, but it was a cheaper grade grown elsewhere, sold to me at premium prices. Sentinel confirmed what was happening. I changed suppliers.”
MohammadFruit shop owner · Supplier investigation
Compare the three levels.
A quick reference for what is included at each level. Scope can be adjusted at intake where your matter calls for it.
| Technique | Rapid Screen | Standard | Enhanced |
|---|---|---|---|
| ASIC & ABR verification | Included | Included | Included |
| SSL certificate history | Included | Extended | Extended |
| WHOIS history | Included | Extended | Extended |
| Wayback Machine review | Included | Extended | Extended |
| Subdomain enumeration | — | Included | Extended |
| Entity network mapping | High level | Included | Extended |
| Director network analysis | High level | Included | Extended |
| Discreet third-party enquiry | — | 2–3 approaches | 5+ approaches |
| Public CCTV & imagery | — | Included | Extended |
| Reconstructed timeline | Summary | Full | Full |
| Claim-by-claim verification | — | Included | Included |
| Jurisdiction review | — | — | Included |
| Litigation-ready formatting | — | — | Included |
| Complete evidence pack | Included | Included | Included |
| Verbal briefing | — | On request | Included |
| Data retained after delivery | None | None | None |
The anatomy of a Sentinel report.
Structure varies by level, but every report follows the same logic: what you asked, what we found, how confident we are, and what we suggest you do next.
Executive summary
The findings that matter to your decision, in the order they matter. Readable in five minutes without reading the rest.
Scope & sources consulted
What we were asked to test, and every source category we drew on. So you know both what was covered and what was not.
Reconstructed timeline
Corporate events, domain changes, site rewrites and officeholder movements placed on a single sequence. Patterns become visible here that no single record shows.
Claim-by-claim verification
Each material representation made to you, marked confirmed, contradicted, or unable to be verified — with the evidence behind each outcome.
Red flag findings
Indicators identified, ranked by severity and by how directly they affect your decision. Each one carries its source and a confidence rating.
Confidence assessment
How strong the corroboration is behind each finding. Single-source material is labelled as such and never presented as settled fact.
Practical next steps
Questions worth putting to the vendor, conditions worth attaching, warranties worth seeking, or areas warranting deeper investigation.
Complete evidence pack
Every document, extract, screenshot and record we relied on — delivered alongside the report so that each finding can be independently verified. Nothing is withheld.
An anonymised example report is available — based on a real investigation, showing exactly what lands on your desk. Every section, every table, the full evidence index.
You receive the report. You also receive everything behind it.
Our findings are only useful if you can check them. Every engagement includes the full underlying evidence — not a summary of it, and not a list of sources you have to take on trust.
Most due diligence output is a report and nothing else. You are asked to accept the conclusions because the firm says so. That is not verification — it is a promise.
We work the other way. Alongside the written report, you receive the raw material it was built from: registry extracts, archived captures, certificate records, ownership history and timestamped screenshots. Everything is placed in a private portal, and nothing is destroyed until you have downloaded every file and confirmed receipt. The evidence pack is then yours to keep, hand to your lawyers, circulate to your board, or check yourself — because after your confirmation, it no longer exists anywhere else.
If a finding cannot be supported by something in the pack, we do not report it as a finding.
You should never have to take our word for it. The evidence comes with the report.
Sentinel Due Diligence- ASIC extracts — company summaries, officeholder histories and document listings as retrieved
- ABR records — registration status, trading names and GST history where applicable
- WHOIS history records — registrant changes and ownership timelines across the domain's life
- SSL certificate logs — issuance dates, issuing entities and certificate transparency extracts
- Archived web captures — Wayback Machine pages showing prior content, branding and claims
- Timestamped screenshots — every live page, image or record we relied on, captured with date and time
- DNS and infrastructure records — nameserver history, hosting data and subdomain findings
- CCTV and imagery references — where used, with source, location and date of capture
- Interview notes — anonymised records of third-party conversations, with dates and what was established
- Correspondence log — where third-party contact occurred, so you know what was asked and when
Verify it yourself
Every finding in the report can be traced to a document in the pack. Check the registry extract, open the archived capture, read the certificate log. The work stands on its own.
Hand it to your advisers
Lawyers, accountants, boards and compliance teams can review the raw evidence directly, without a second enquiry to us and without relying on a summary.
Use it if the matter escalates
If findings later support a claim, a regulatory referral or a dispute, the underlying evidence is already assembled, dated and traceable to its source.
On confidence and completeness
Where a finding rests on a single source, the report says so, and the evidence pack contains that source. Where a claim made to you could not be verified either way, it is recorded as unverified — not omitted and not presented as a finding.
Some material is subject to privacy or legal restrictions, and where a source cannot lawfully be reproduced in full, we describe it precisely enough to be independently located and explain why the extract is limited. That is rare, and it is always disclosed rather than left for you to discover.
You confirm receipt. Then we destroy everything.
Our retention policy is deliberately aggressive. Your report is delivered through a private portal with a seven-day access window, and nothing is destroyed until you have confirmed the download completed. Once you do, the report and everything behind it is overwritten — unrecoverable by anyone, including us.
Most firms hold client files indefinitely. Investigations, evidence, correspondence and contact details accumulate in a database that grows more valuable to an attacker every year. The firm carries that risk on your behalf, and you carry it too — because your name, your matter and your findings sit in someone else's system long after the engagement ends.
We take the opposite position. Your report is placed in a private portal — never sent as an email attachment. You receive a link with a seven-day access window, view the report and evidence pack, and download them as PDFs to your own system. Then the portal asks you one question: did you receive your report?
On your confirmation, the report, the evidence pack, the engagement file, your contact details and every working document behind them are overwritten and permanently destroyed. The destruction cannot be reversed. The only record that survives is your tax invoice — which carries no investigation details, no entity names and no findings.
Nothing is destroyed until you have the files. After that, there is nothing left to breach.
Sentinel Due Diligence- Report placed in your private portal — seven-day access window
- Access link sent — tied to your login, cannot be forwarded
- You view and download — report and evidence pack as PDFs
- Portal asks: did you receive your report? — you select yes or no
- Yes — everything is overwritten immediately, unrecoverable
- No — portal locks, nothing destroyed, contact us to resolve
- Your final report and complete evidence pack
- The engagement file and scope documentation
- Your contact details and intake information
- Interview notes and third-party correspondence logs
- All working files, drafts and intermediate research
- Email threads relating to the matter
- Every backup and copy on any system
- Tax invoice only — retained for five years as required by Australian tax law
- No entity names, no investigation details, no findings
- Not linked to any engagement record, because none exists
Nothing to breach
A firm that holds no client investigation data cannot lose it. Our security posture is not built on defending a database — it is built on not having one.
Nothing to compel
Where a counterparty or third party later seeks our records of an investigation, there are none to produce. Your matter remains yours.
Nothing to leak over time
Files that are not held cannot surface years later in a breach, a sale, a staff departure or a change of firm ownership.
If the seven-day window closes, nothing is lost
If you do not download and confirm within the seven-day access window, the portal locks automatically — but nothing is destroyed. The material is held until you contact us, and we will issue fresh access on request. Material is only ever destroyed after a confirmed download.
Once you have confirmed receipt and we have destroyed the material, we cannot reissue a report, resend an evidence pack, or reconstruct findings from a previous engagement. A lost report at that point means a new investigation, scoped and charged as a fresh matter.
This is not a limitation we apologise for. It is the direct consequence of holding nothing — and holding nothing is the protection you are buying. The confirmation step exists precisely so that nothing is destroyed until you have the files safely. After that point, please treat your copy as the only copy: store it durably, back it up, and share it only with people you intend to have it.
Your responsibility once delivery is made
From the moment the report reaches your system, security and retention of the report and its evidence pack are entirely your responsibility. How you store it, who you share it with, how long you keep it and what happens if it is disclosed are matters within your control, not ours.
We recommend treating the evidence pack with the same care as legal advice — restricted access, secure storage, and a deliberate decision about who inside your organisation actually needs to see it.
What we need from you to begin.
You do not need all of this to make an enquiry. What you have shapes where we start — not whether we can start.
- Entity identity Company name, ACN or ABN, and trading name where different
- Key individuals Directors, principals and anyone you understand to be involved in control
- Digital assets Website address, and any associated domains you are aware of
- Physical presence Known premises, operating locations or sites
- The decision you are facing Acquisition, appointment, partnership, credit, sponsorship or dispute
- Your timeline When you need to decide, and whether that timeline is fixed or negotiable
- What you already know Any checks already run, and what they showed
- What concerns you Specific discrepancies, inconsistencies or matters you want tested
On scope changes
If the investigation reveals something that materially changes the picture — an entity network larger than expected, a jurisdiction we had not been told about, a pattern requiring human enquiry beyond the agreed scope — we will come back to you before proceeding. We do not absorb scope changes silently, and we do not present them as a fait accompli after the work is done.
Where a matter can be resolved at a lower level than initially quoted, we will tell you that too.
Tell us what you need, and we will tell you what it takes.
Send through the entity and the decision you are facing. We will come back with a recommended level, an indicative timeline and a fixed scope — before you commit to anything.
Send a Confidential Enquiry[email protected]