Investment accounting and derivatives, handled by a specialist.
Technical accounting advisory for banks, broker-dealers, funds, and corporate finance teams — investment securities, derivatives, fair value, and hedge accounting under ASC 320/321/323, ASC 820, and ASC 815.
Trained at PwC and Deloitte in San Francisco auditing banks, broker-dealers, hedge funds, mutual funds and venture capital funds, then in-house at Wells Fargo Bank and Standard Chartered Bank.
CPA licensed in California · Available nationwide, remote or on-site
Investment and derivatives accounting is the work most finance teams have no one for.
Hedge accounting, from designation through close
Derivatives and hedge accounting under ASC 815 — designation, effectiveness testing, the entries and schedules, and the disclosures that go with them. Hedge accounting fails on the record behind it more often than on the economics, so the documentation gets written to the standard your auditors will test against.
A fair value conclusion is being challenged
The question might be a leveling judgment, a Level 3 classification you need to support, or fair value disclosures your audit team has started pushing back on. If the position needs an independent valuation, that's a valuation specialist's work — I handle the accounting and disclosure around their conclusion, and I've been on the other side of that conversation.
The portfolio outgrew the spreadsheet
Classification and impairment under ASC 320/321/323, equity method positions, or a treasury portfolio that has grown past what anyone internally was hired to account for.
Where I go deepest — and what else I take on
Investment Accounting & Derivatives
Classification, impairment, fair value leveling and disclosure, hedge designation and effectiveness — ASC 320/321/323, ASC 820, ASC 815.
Technical Accounting Advisory
Position papers and memos on revenue (ASC 606) and leases (ASC 842) — for companies that need a documented conclusion.
Internal Controls & SOX
Control design, documentation, testing, and remediation — whether you're a year from your first SOX cycle, running the annual program, or working through a deficiency.
Implementation & Audit Support
Standard adoptions run end to end, and hands-on support through audit season.
You get the senior person. That’s the whole model.
At a large firm, a partner scopes your engagement and a first-year associate does the work. I built this practice the other way around. When you hire Kari Lim Professional Corporation, the CPA who assesses your issue is the CPA who researches it, writes the memo, and sits across from your auditors to defend it.
That comes from years auditing financial institutions at PwC and Deloitte in San Francisco, then working inside them at Wells Fargo and Standard Chartered. It means faster answers, no ramp-up you pay for, and documentation written by someone who knows what an auditor will push on — because I have been on that side of the table.
Not sure whether your issue needs a memo or a conversation?
Most don’t need either yet. Request a free 30-minute call and I’ll tell you plainly what the situation calls for, what it’s likely to cost, and whether it’s something you can handle in-house.