Risk of Fraud

 Are you worried about the risk of fraud occurring in your business? Fraud can take shape in many different forms, and the Australian Institute of Criminology estimates that fraud costs Australia $8.5 billion dollars annually.  

At Bush & Campbell, our experience is that fraud is occurring more often in recent years than ever before. Fraud can occur in any business and the financial consequences can be detrimental, especially in small businesses. 

In a recent survey it was identified that 43% of fraud cases result in no funds being able to be recovered, and that 75% of all frauds are carried out by an internal person within the organisation.

How do you stop fraud?

While there is no foolproof method of preventing fraud, a business can implement certain internal controls that can minimise the risk of fraud occurring, and also attempt to identify a fraud in the event of one occurring.

Examples of common situations that can lead to fraud

  • Allowing employees to access and edit areas of the accounting system that are not relevant to their position, such as the receptionist accessing the payroll module,
  • Storing multiple electronic EFT tokens in the same location where they can be accessed by one person (i.e. stored together in a drawer in the office),
  • Allowing cheque signatories to sign a number of blank cheques to be used at a later date. 

How can we help?

At Bush & Campbell, we have a specialised audit team who are experienced in assessing each individual business and indentifying where an entity is most susceptible to fraud. Our team can be engaged to undertake an internal control review, including an assessment of your entities' current control environment, and provide practical suggestions for ways to strengthen those controls. In addition, we can specifically tailor our engagement to any particular areas of your concern you may have, or we can use our professional judgement to identify the areas with the highest level of risk.

Please contact our office if you would like to discuss Bush & Campbell undertaking an internal control review at your organisation.

Q22015, Taxation & Accounting, Audit & AssuranceCristy Houghton