False billing frauds currently represent the largest dollar losses in small businesses. These phony disbursement schemes are more often than not perpetrated by accounting personnel or, surprisingly, by management.
- Padded Expense Accounts -- Padding expense accounts with fake receipts or other false documentation is an ancient art.
- False Register Voids & Refund Frauds -- If a cashier or point-of-sale person holds the control key for the cash register, untraceable shortages can, and usually will, occur.
- Employee Check Tampering Fraud -- Check tampering often occurs when one employee controls the checkbook and also records expenses, credits receivables and reconciles the bank statement as well.
- Employee Billing Frauds -- Billing frauds are too numerous to count. Fake payee companies, crooked vendors in cahoots with employees or even freelance (non-accomplice) suppliers can be involved.
- Employee Payroll Fraud -- Ghost employees can receive big bucks in falsified wages and commissions if you fail to keep a close eye on who actually works for you.
- Employee Insurance Fraud -- Phony health or liability insurance claims, as well as fraudulent Workers' Compensation claims, can add up to enormous losses for both employer and insurer.