How to Run Internal Investigations on a Shoestring Budget

10 July 2025 by ROSS eDiscovery internal-investigations

Takeaway: Internal investigations are no longer limited to large enterprises with unlimited resources. Small and mid-sized organizations are now just as likely to face regulatory scrutiny, employee misconduct, or compliance-related issues that demand a structured internal investigation process. The challenge? Doing it all on a tight budget. In this article, we’ll break down what internal investigations are, the critical role of eDiscovery, the essential steps in an internal investigation, and practical tips for managing costs.

What are internal investigations?

Internal investigations are formal inquiries initiated within an organization to examine allegations of misconduct, policy violations, harassment, fraud, or compliance failures. Employee complaints, whistleblower tips, audit flags, or external regulatory inquiries can trigger them.

Whether it’s a compliance investigation or a workplace issue, the goal is the same: get to the truth, maintain objectivity, and document the process in a defensible way.

Understanding the nature and scope of internal investigations sets the foundation for everything that follows, especially when it comes to handling digital evidence. That’s where eDiscovery comes in.

Why eDiscovery matters in internal investigations

Today, most evidence in internal investigations is in digital form, including emails, chat logs, documents, and files stored in the cloud. Making eDiscovery a cornerstone of any successful internal investigation.

Effective investigative data preservation and defensible data collection are critical, especially when:

Preserving emails for internal investigations
Reviewing Slack or Teams conversations
Handling BYOD (bring your own device) environments

Without proper eDiscovery tools, investigations become time-consuming, error-prone, and legally risky. But here’s the good news: you don’t need enterprise-level platforms to get it right.

With digital evidence at the heart of modern investigations, let’s walk through how to conduct an effective and defensible internal investigation.

Steps in an internal investigation

Each internal investigation should follow a structured, methodical process to ensure accuracy, defensibility, and fairness. Here’s how to approach it:

1. Initial assessment

Before initiating an investigation, define the issue, assess the credibility of the allegations, and evaluate potential legal implications. Decide whether the situation warrants a full investigation. Assess the available information to identify the involved parties, the nature of the claim, and any supporting evidence. It’s also critical to establish when and where the incident occurred, whether it is ongoing, and its potential consequences.

2. Develop an investigation plan

Once you decide to proceed with the investigation, you need to create a detailed investigation plan. The plan should include the scope, goals (e.g., determining if misconduct occurred, assessing risk exposure, and supporting disciplinary action), identification of custodians, assignment of investigators, a timeline, and any necessary precautions to ensure fair treatment, confidentiality, and compliance.

3. Preservation of evidence

Preserving evidence is a crucial early step. You should issue a legal hold to prevent alteration or deletion of potentially relevant data. This can happen alongside planning and should cover both digital and physical information sources.

4. Data collection

Develop a data collection protocol tailored to your needs. For electronic evidence, determine the appropriate forensic method to use. This might involve your internal IT team or an external vendor. Maintain a detailed chain of custody for every file collected to ensure traceability and compliance with regulations. Keep in mind that regulators often require the preservation of metadata, and documents must be easily searchable by category (e.g., custodian, email fields, subject lines) once uploaded to a review platform.

5. Document review

With documents collected, the next step is a structured review. Following a structured review, particularly for large datasets, lets you be more organized and compliant. As per your structure, you can specify:

How documents will be identified as potentially relevant (e.g., keyword searches)
How will initial reviewers categorize them
How will findings be escalated to senior investigators
Methods to flag potentially privileged content

For instance, provide reviewers with a list of relevant counsel to help detect privileged communications. Without a rigorous privilege screen, there is a risk of disclosing protected information to regulators or litigation opponents, potentially waiving privilege.

6. Conducting witness interviews

Once you identify key documents and individuals, conduct interviews with fact witnesses. The goal is to gather context, confirm facts, and clarify details related to the documents. Interviews should be methodical, respectful, and confidential, helping to round out the investigative picture.

7. Reporting and remediation

At the end of the investigation, compile the findings into a written report. The report should have the following information:

Background of the allegation
Executive summary
Objectives, scope, and subjects
Methodology
Key findings and analysis
Conclusions
Recommended corrective actions or sanctions

Proper documentation not only supports internal decision-making but also prepares the organization to respond to potential legal or regulatory scrutiny.

Following this structured sequence ensures thoroughness and defensibility. However, executing these steps cost-effectively is the next big challenge.

Let’s see how to manage costs during internal investigations

Running an internal investigation on a shoestring budget is entirely possible with the right strategy and tools.

Focus on scope: Don’t cast the net too wide. Start with a narrow scope and expand only if necessary. Each additional custodian or data source increases costs.

Prioritize early case assessment (ECA): Utilize keyword filters and deduplication to eliminate irrelevant data early, thereby reducing the volume to be reviewed.

Use cloud-based eDiscovery tools for review: Manual review is the most expensive part of eDiscovery. Invest in platforms that let you perform complex searches, tag relevant documents, and generate productions and reports easily. Additionally, cloud-based platforms like GoldFynch offer affordable pricing, no setup fees, and predictable costs.

Leverage internal resources: If external counsel is not required, use trained internal HR or legal team members to run interviews and handle reviews.

Let’s understand how GoldFynch can help with internal investigations

GoldFynch is designed for small and mid-sized teams who need powerful eDiscovery without the bloated cost or complexity. Here’s how GoldFynch enables you to run corporate internal investigations efficiently:

1. Simple and fast uploads

Upload your data in minutes using GoldFynch’s drag-and-drop functionality. In case you have large volumes of data, you can utilize their FTP upload feature. Learn more about how to upload data to GoldFynch here.

2. Automatic document processing

GoldFynch automatically processes various file types, indexes them, makes them searchable, and extracts metadata, making your eDiscovery process smoother and more efficient.

3. Advanced search features

You can use the application’s advanced search functionality to easily zero in on relevant data for your investigation. The platform’s advanced relevance engine enables users to efficiently sort through documents, emails, and images. The search function features include slop searches, word stemming, and stop word removal to enhance the quality of your searches.

4. Collaborative document review

GoldFynch’s browser-based approach enables you to view your files securely from anywhere, without the need to download any software. It ensures you always have access to the latest version of the document. You can also share bundles of files with your team members for a collaborative review using the review-set function. Thereby saving time and ensuring compliance.

5. Flat, transparent pricing

Pay based on the size of your case, not per user or document. No hidden fees. Perfect for teams seeking guidance on conducting an internal investigation on a limited budget.

6. Secure and compliant

Data is encrypted, backed up, and hosted securely to meet compliance investigation data retention requirements.

Internal investigations don’t have to break your budget

With a structured process, smart scoping, and affordable eDiscovery tools, even small teams can conduct professional, defensible investigations, regardless of whether it’s an HR complaint or a compliance investigation. When it comes to affordable and robust eDiscovery, GoldFynch checks all the boxes.

Looking to streamline your internal investigation process without overspending? Try GoldFynch for free.

GoldFynch, a cloud-based eDiscovery service, offers everything you need to collect, preserve, and review data efficiently. Try it for free and discover how easy and affordable internal investigations can be.

It costs just $27 a month for a 3 GB case: That is significantly less than most comparable software. With GoldFynch, you know what you’re paying for exactly – its pricing is simple and readily available on the website.
It’s easy to budget for. GoldFynch charges only for storage (processing is free). So, choose from a range of plans (3 GB to 150+ GB) and know upfront how much you’ll be paying. It takes just a few clicks to move from one plan to another, and billing is prorated – so you’ll pay only for the time you spend on any given plan. With legacy software, pricing is much less predictable.
It’s simple to use. Many eDiscovery applications take hours to master. GoldFynch takes minutes. It handles a lot of complex processing in the background, but what you see is minimal and intuitive. Just drag-and-drop your files into GoldFynch and you’re good to go. Plus, it’s designed, developed, and run by the same team. So you get prompt and reliable tech support.
It keeps you flexible. To build a defensible case, you need to be able to add and delete files freely. Many applications charge to process each file you upload, so you’ll be reluctant to let your case organically shrink and grow. And this stifles you. With GoldFynch, you get unlimited processing for free. So, on a 3 GB plan, you could add and delete 5 GB of data at no extra cost – as long as there’s only 3GB in your case at any point. And if you do cross 3GB, your plan upgrades automatically and you’ll be charged for only the time spent on each plan. That’s the beauty of prorated pricing.
Access it from anywhere. And 24/7. All your files are backed up and secure in the Cloud.

Want to learn more about GoldFynch?

Try GoldFynch for Free Schedule a Demo