This is a guest blog by Eve Baxton.
Owning a professional business is a huge responsibility. It involves all the potential risks and traps that are imaginable. According to a survey in 2009 by PrinceWaterHouseCoopers more than half of the enterprises suffered from the economical crimes. In most of the cases, small sized enterprises are the best prey to fall for potential traps around.
These dangers include employees or managers misrepresenting or manipulating the financial information, customers misusing the enterprise’s borrowing in criminal activities and contractors producing false bills. Along with that, other elements exist that perpetrate fraud against the enterprise by electronic means. This includes hacking, manipulating the telephone service and robbing customer’s confidential data, such as credit card numbers or usernames and passwords.
The ultimate quest that should be taken care of as soon as possible, to protect your business is identifying the sources of potential fails. That is not an easy task to take on, for a less experienced businessman. By just considering some basic and yet important things, the enterprise can be easily protected from potential frauds, however.
According to the statistics, the most common reasons for falling into these traps are the lack of experience, commitment, and, most significantly, management. Let’s take a look at the potential traps that most of the enterprises, no matter big or small, fall for.
- The Innocent Employee Trap
According to the facts, most of the time insiders; employees, managers, or company’s officials, are the main reason for an enterprise to fall and fail. These employees “innocently” steal the assets of the company, and commit accounting frauds. Detecting such actions is vital; it requires a lot of methodologies and commitment to be employed, however.
- The Clever Customer Trap
Another hazardous trap that most of the enterprises fall for is the clever customer trap. It has been found that many customers are using fake identities, stolen credit cards, or are filling out fake liability and injury claims to perpetrate the company. All these actions by “the sweet customers” only results in the enterprise’s money being taken away. - The Fake Return Scheme Trap
The most common victims of this type of frauds are retailers. It is the best scam for the clever customer to perpetrate against any enterprise. Most of the times, the customer brings back used merchandise that has not been bought from the same place and tries to return it and get new merchandise under the shelter of the fake return schemes. - The Greedy Contractor Trap
Most companies rely on outside service providers for its survival. Therefore, many of the enterprises fall for the greedy contractor trap. It is not uncommon for the contractor to bill more than the task he has done is worth, and more often even asks for the billing of a task that has not yet been completed. Strong policy, terms, and conditions should be presented to the contractors, before entrusting them with any task, to avoid these attempts, and leaving no room for the contractor to commit such frauds.
Protecting Your Professional Businesses
After viewing the potential traps, let’s take a look on the precautionary measures that an enterprise can take to avoid unnecessary fails; these important methodologies can fraudproof your business against its very own employees.
- The Method of Anonymous Employee Reporting
Utilizing this method is one of the best methods for detecting the potential dishonesties that can occur within your business; compared to scheduled employee reporting, the violators’ opportunities to destroys any vital fraud traces are severely limited.
- The Method Of Surprise Auditing
Along with the regular, scheduled internal audits, surprise auditing should also be performed in the enterprise, as it significantly increases the chances of detecting potential irregularities, thus making your company more protected.
- The Method of External Auditing
Along with the above mentioned methods, this is also a significant tool to determine a potential fraud; it should be held at regular intervals.
Business Insurance – The Ultimate Protection
Along with all the above methodologies, the most important step in stabilizing an enterprise is business insurance. It plays an important role in the art of preventing the failures related to undetected frauds. Professional business insurance protects the business from many unexpected frauds, and it enables a recovery from what may seem as a catastrophic loss. Even when insuring your business, you should consider several key factors, however; for your business insurance to be viable for you, it needs to offer an equal protection for any business, regardless of its size, and to provide protection from all sources of frauds and failures. First thing that comes to mind is protection from theft. Theft is the most common and uncontrolled source of assets loss that occurs in most enterprises internally and externally, making insurance without theft protection almost useless. Protection from litigation is another important aspect; while unfounded law suits from wealthier competition are likely to turn out in your favor, the costs before you prove your innocence can cause your business to fail, so proper insurance has that covered. Protection from unwanted liabilities provides you with protection, when the assets, coming from your company, are used for any illegal activities, which is not a rare occasion with internal frauds and thefts.
It’s your responsibility to implement a fraud proof protection method, that suits best to your enterprise’s needs, properly. All it requires is some commitment and dedication towards the business; no matter how malicious the fraudster’s aims are, you can stop your company’s fail before it’s to late!