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Fraud & Security
Protect your business from insider fraud
What is insider fraud?
This is fraud committed by employees or someone within your company. It usually depends on three elements:
- Pressure or motive - a person can be driven by financial difficulties, addictions, trying to maintain a certain living standard or organised crime involvement.
- Rationale - employees convince themselves what they’re doing is justified. For example, thinking they aren’t paid enough or that the company can afford it.
- Opportunity - an employee sees a chance and takes it. The opportunity often occurs due to lack of internal controls, access to financial systems where it’s not needed, or abuse of authority.
Insider fraud will often start with small amounts. Once carried out without detection, the amounts are likely to increase.
What to look out for
To avoid insider fraud you can:
- Carry out pre-and post-employment screening checks on all staff, including right to work, qualifications, references and criminal records.
- Restrict and monitor access to sensitive information and systems.
- Ensure employees are not sharing confidential information and system log-in information with employees that shouldn’t have access.
Actions you can take
- If your business uses eQ, control what employees can access and do on the system by regularly reviewing user roles and privileges.
- Audit your cheque stocks regularly. Check for missing cheques and other anomalies that might be signs of employee fraud.
- Document the settlement of invoices and transactions and keep these regularly updated.