There are a number of calculations and variables that determine the total liability to the government entities. In addition, the process of selling pharmaceuticals typically involves sales and shipments to a direct customer (typically a wholesaler) and then sales and shipment to an indirect customer before the pharmaceutical goes to the end consumer. There are also a number of transaction types that must be taken into account to determine the actual price per unit in which the pharmaceutical was actually sold.

Usually these transactions are in their own systems. Each of these systems is optimized for execution of individual transactions. Extracting large sets of data typically require specialized tools and system specific expertise.  Extraction of data is very resource intensive.

Following the document flow across systems also requires an understanding of how to link transactions.  Again, this requires specialized resources.  Investigations are usually performed one transaction at a time.  This is very time consuming.