Fraud. Guess you may say “surely not me”?

You cannot say “surely”, because most likely some form of fraud is in fact taking place in your company just as it takes place in most places. You may only hope that it isn’t affecting your company too much, but making it sure is another matter. 

What is fraud? Fraud is something that’s motivated by various things:

  • Incentive (someone performing fraud will receive something if certain results are reaching pre-determined levels at a certain date, company reaches specific financial rations etc., i.e. bonuses or compensations);
  • Pressure (pressure comes from outside sources mostly and not from the person performing fraud, i.e. management needs to reach some results and makes threats to personnel to reach those or someone else may make threats to get their bonuses or, which may also be sometimes happening, is that owners may have unreasonable demands on management and only way to reach that would be to manipulate with results);
  • Attitude (in essence attitude is something that gives a fertile ground for a person to perform fraud, they either don’t understand the benefits and importance of an accurate accounting or want everything for their own good and don’t see anything bad in changing financial results along the way or taking a thing or two for themselves).

So think about that and give people as fewer opportunities as possible and at the same time consider also your salaries, motivation packages etc. It all matters!