Fraud in the Workplace | Miki's Hope

Fraud in the Workplace

Monday, December 3, 2012


One of the easiest ways to prevent your employees from committing fraud is to follow one of the basic accounting principles. That principle is separation of duties! So what is this you ask—it is simple actually. The person who handles the bills you owe should never be a signer on your checking account—neither should the person who handles the receipts you get from your clients. Where I work (and it did take a while since we didn’t always have enough employees in the accounting department) one person is in charge of paying the bills and doing wire transfers to those who require it-we now have 2 in the cash in section-one creates the bills to the client-the other records the checks. I as bookkeeper sign the checks and do the bank reconciliations. So who checks on me? Our outside accountant is not only a CPA he also has a MBA in fraud management. He calls himself a forensic accountant.

Now, what about internet sales? That is a tricky one---we have recently found out that when you sell overseas—the bill to and ship to HAVE to be the same. If they are not and it was fraudulent there is NO WAY the bank is going to refund your money—it happened to us ONCE—immediately I told everyone from accounting to shipping to NOT ship and to contact accounting. We now require a signature be faxed to us before we will ship to another country where the bill to and ship to differ!!

Obviously if you work for a small company it is almost impossible to separate duties. Just make sure that the person signing the checks is not the same as the person doing the bank reconciliations. If you are a one person business and you have to do it all yourself just remember that the IRS is getting better and better at detecting fraud. Paying a CPA to look over your books once a year will be well worth the money!!





All opinions expressed are my own honest opinions. For more information please check my Disclosure Statement.

18 comments :

Unknown said...

Wow, really? Paying a CPA is one of those things you probably don't want to do, but know it is totally worth it~ like paying car insurance. :)
Thanks for the reminder!
Tiffany

Mama Luvs Books said...

All this stuff makes me nervous. I hate doing things incorrectly. I need to educate myself more on this!!

Amanda Tempel said...

Gah, nobody likes to think about stuff like that going on, it's sad, what people do.

Great information though - I'm sure it would be really helpful to someone.

Terra Heck said...

Thanks for sharing. It's informative. In this day and age, people have to be extra vigilant about how they conduct business or make purchases.

Happy Gardening, Kim said...

sorry but this is over my head at this morning...just glad I work at home!

ReviewsSheRote said...

good information!

Unknown said...

I had no idea!

LOVE MELISSA:) said...

It is very good information. All the stuff above makes me so nervous too!

Mama to 5 said...

wow! That's crazy!

Mudpiesandtiaras said...

That is nuts! I never would have thought of all that

Mandee said...

Wow, great post. Interesting to think about.

Mandee said...

Wow, great post. Interesting to think about.

Alicia said...

That is such important information to remember. Checks and balances is a good thing!

Jenny said...

Interesting.

hippie_mom said...

This is the hard part of running a small business. We may not know it all, but trust is a huge issue. Thanks for the tip!

Audrey said...

I run a small business and you are so right. Checks and balances are incredibly important as are third-party reviews of the books.

Jessica said...

A really helpful post with good info! And, I love the term "forensic accountant"! lol

Rondi said...

Great information! Thank you as always :)

 
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