Top 5 Practical Tips To Prevent Frauds In Your Company

By Author: Rohan Sinha
Total Articles: 276
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I’ve been to many companies, and have met the top brass there. If they’re in good mood, they’ll tell you how they started from scratch and today, they’ve got everything one would ever think about. They love talking about their not-so-good days, and how they would work 24 hours a day because they wanted to succeed! After enjoying many rounds of coffee and biscuits, I take the conversation to what they’re doing to protect their companies – that they created from scratch – from frauds, and I find them struggling for answers. It seems as if they never thought about being deceived. Well, if you too are a proud owner of a company, but don’t have a fraud management system in place, here are 5 practical tips to help you out.
1. Create the Culture that Discourages Fraudulent Activities
Your company’s policies should say it all. Update the policies so it clearly demonstrates to both employees as well as outside world that any act of dishonesty, theft, and fraud won’t be tolerated. The policies should clearly define what fraud is, and what the consequences are that the wrongdoer will have ...
... to face when caught.
2. Encourage the Whistle Blowers
The earlier you spot the fraud, the better it is. The company’s fraud management policies should encourage the whistle blowers in the company so they feel safe and secure, and don’t feel hesitation when approaching the management. Early detection of frauds will also result in less waste of managements’ time, and less damage to company’s reputation.
3. Create Fraud Prevention Awareness
You can do it by inviting industry experts to deliver lectures to management and staff on general fraud awareness, presentation of case studies, and fraud prevention articles on company’s intranet. There can be many more ways to create awareness amongst the management and staff.
4. Implement Control Measures
Segregate duties, implement safeguards, and have independent checks from time to time. Emphasis should be on creating an effective management system. There should be proper approval levels, control measures, and everything that you can do to ensure that there is no room for ambiguity when it comes to who’s doing what. Fraud management software, when chosen sensibly, can be of immense benefits.
5. Hire the Right People
Do whatever it takes to hire the right people for the right positions in your company. It shouldn’t be only about skills (required for the position open), it should also be about the integrity and sincerity of the person who’s sitting across the table.