Protect Yourself — Prevent Embezzlement
U.S. employers lose more than $400 billion annually to misuse of assets, corruption, false statements, false overtime, petty theft, payroll abuses and other fraud. Common business fraud includes employee dishonesty, embezzlement, shoplifting, check and credit card fraud, vendor scams and Internet fraud.
No matter what size business you have, maintaining controls protects you. At Community Bank, we want to help you reduce your risk for embezzlement.
- If you behave ethically, most employees will follow your example.
- Make sure that different employees place and approve purchases.
- Have disbursements properly approved. Implement good check security practices, such as two signatures on all checks.
- Review complaints from customers, suppliers and staff members.
- Develop a documented system of internal fraud control procedures and ensure that external audits are performed regularly.
- Have bank statements mailed to a post office box or other secured place rather than to your office. Review cancelled checks, deposit activity, paying special attention to large or unusual transactions.
- Conduct thorough background checks on new employees.
- Segregate accounting responsibilities so that no single employee controls all facets of a financial function.
- Limit access to valuable physical assets including inventory, especially readily marketable items. Lock up your check stock paper.
- Insist that all employees take allotted vacation time. Many white-collar criminals avoid leaving work for extended periods of time in order to prevent discovery of their criminal activities.
- Before disposing of your computer, remove data by using a strong "wipe" utility program. Do not rely on the "delete" function to remove files containing sensitive information.
- And lastly, ask questions. If something seems wrong or out of place, investigate. Often there is a reasonable explanation; if not, keep asking questions until you discover the root of the problem.