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Employee Theft - What You Need To Know
Every year thousands of businesses lose millions of dollars to employee theft, embezzlement and fraud. As reported in the June 2010 Journal of Accountancy the most common loss from employee theft is between $100,000 and $499,999 and the second highest incident rate is over $1 million. Asset misappropriation comprised over 89% of employee theft and embezzlement. In addition, the majority of employee theft, embezzlement and fraud is perpetrated by accounting personnel. These are staggering numbers. Most small businesses think this can't happen to them but the reality is that no business is immune to employee theft. Several years ago I was engaged by a small group of co-owned restaurants to produce monthly financial statements. Upon my initial review of their accounting records I noticed a couple of unusual journal entries made by the previous accountant along with credit card transactions coded to office supplies that seemed excessive. To make a long story short, the general manager of the restaurants was using the company credit card to pay for his family vacations and other personal expenses and coded these purchases to office supplies and was also writing himself checks and coded them to employee loans (this is where the unusual journal entries were made by the previous accountant). Why did this happen? Why wasn't this discovered earlier? Are there steps businesses can take to reduce, or eliminate, employee theft, embezzlement and fraud? All very good questions. For employee theft to occur three elements need to be present - opportunity, motivation and rationalization. This is known as the fraud triangle and was first coined by renowned criminologist Donald Cressey. If someone was reviewing the credit card activity and cash disbursements for the restaurants on a regular basis the general managers embezzlement would have been discovered very early. Quite possibly this embezzlement would have never occurred since the element of opportunity would be missing. In addition, the outside accountant needs to have a dose of healthy skepticism when preparing financial statements or reviewing accounting records for any business. According to "How to Protect Your Company Against Fraud in Tough Times" by Amper, Politzner&Mattia; here are some fundamental elements a company should put into place in order to prevent fraud: (1) Strong internal controls - From the top down, policies and procedures should be in place. (2) An employee handbook with up-to-date job descriptions (3) A clear and regular reviewed employee code of conduct (4) An employee hotline for questions on all work-related topics (5) A separation/segregation of duties and well-defined roles (6) An active HR department For medium and large businesses these are valid recommendations but for most, if not all, small businesses these are difficult, if not impossible, to implement. For most small businesses the most effective and cost efficient method to protect your company against employee theft, embezzlement and fraud is to engage an outside CPA to review and/orprepare their monthly, quarterly or annual financial statements and accounting records. For information and how we can help protect your business from employee theft, embezzlement and fraud please email us atinfo@millingtonandcompanycpas.comfor a free consultation. ...read more
By Douglas F Millington, CPA LLC December 17, 2010
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