If you are the type of business owner who looks over your shoulder, checking whether or not your employees are committing fraud is a sign that you are experiencing embezzlement. It has been found that 28% of small business owners have experienced embezzlement over the years. This is alarming because before fraud can be committed, an employee has to earn a business owner’s trust. Embezzlement is costly as it results in paying penalties and interest on underpaid or unpaid bills and taxes.

There are three factors that can lead to fraud:

-Rationalisation
-Opportunity
-Pressure

Bookkeeping reduces the risk of embezzlement. Also, you need to check reports regularly even if they are delegated to to a bookkeeper. Since you are the business owner, you will be the one who will get assessed interest and penalties especially for missed tax payments. The ATO will chase you for the unpaid taxes.

How to ensure your employees do not commit fraud?

Unfortunately, frauds are discovered when it is too late. The good news is you can limit opportunities for theft with these following steps:

Run a background check on your employees

Anyone can pretend to be a great employee and even fake credentials. Business owners must make it a habit to run a background check before deciding on hiring a bookkeeping. You will never know an employee’s reputation unless you take time to know them.

Delegate tasks and responsibilities

It is difficult to monitor signs of fraud if you delegate responsibilities to one person. Responsibilities must be separated or assigned to different people so you can easily check if there are traces of fraud.

Check transaction history

More often than not, fraud is committed through checks and credit card. These transactions will only be discovered if you check the transaction history. Business owners must take the time to set up automatic payments, review reports, pay bills electronically, avoid signing blank checks and use secure checks.

Monitor payroll, accounts receivable and payable

Aside from monitoring reports, it is also important to monitor accounts receivable, accounts payable and payroll. Accounts receivable refer to open invoices while accounts payable refers to unpaid bills. Payroll must also be monitored such as the deductions, commissions, wages, overtime and timesheets.

It takes time and effort to ensure fraud is kept at bay, but it is even more expensive to let fraud go unnoticed. Aside from penalties and interest, your company may also run the risk of going out of business because of cash flow problems.

Published On: September 26th, 2017 / Categories: Bookkeeping / Tags: , , /

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