You might think that this could never happen to you but if your trusted bookkeeper presents you with an invoice and a cheque to sign, just how hard do you look at the invoice? The amount might be relatively small and is of course supported by an invoice. You have to sign the cheque in a hurry as you won’t be in tomorrow and it’s 5.15pm. Your bookkeeper will fill the payee line in before the cheque is sent out.
Ultimately, the year end figures just don’t look quite right and subsequent investigations identify missing invoices and eventually, that the bookkeeper has been making these cheques payable to himself.
Stock controls were put to the test in the sportswear and equipment business that showed up too many discrepancies between computerised stock and that actually counted at the year end. The differences could not be explained and eventually surveillance was used to monitor the warehouse.
Revealing footage showed the cleaners adding various bats, balls and kit to the bin bags full of rubbish removed each evening!
Imagine the surprise a director of a local manufacturing company had when he handed out the payslips to his workforce and two were left over! His accountant, who had never missed handing these out previously, had been taken ill and could not come into work. Subsequent investigations revealed that for some time, this much trusted accountant had created fictitious employees and had been paying the wages into his own bank account.