fraud prevention
The best scenario when it comes to fraud is with prevention and deterrence. Often times the best of internal controls are beaten either through complacency, or circumvention by people in a position of opportunity.
Focusing mainly on theft and embezzlement, any organization's internal controls, financial policies and accounting procedures can fall victim to the deliberate acts of an employee, resulting in substantial loss to the organization.
The primary defenses every employer should consider against the risk of theft by an employee include:
- Document and distribute policies regarding fraud
- Know your employees
- Perform background checks
- Establish sound internal controls with checks & balances
- Segregate employee duties to minimize opportunities
- Document your financial policies & accounting procedures
- Rotate financial responsibilities periodically
- Periodically sample policies & transactions for compliance
- Periodically review internal controls & revise as needed
- Establish a means for employees to report potential problems
- Maintain adequate employee dishonesty insurance coverage
With nearly twenty years of experience in selecting, implementing, documenting, and evaluating internal control systems, we can pro-actively assist organizations within most industries by objectively reviewing their current systems of internal controls, financial policies and accounting procedures.
Our experience includes closely held businesses and not-for-profit organizations, with a major emphasis on small to mid-size healthcare practices. Having investigated many employee embezzlements perpetrated against physicians and dentists, we strongly believe medical practices remain a primary target victim of embezzling employees.