How to uncover fraud, and put a plan in place to prevent it going forward

[Adam Fleming]

Internal fraud, by which people who work for an organization are themselves involved in fraud, is a serious issue for businesses. This kind of fraud is very insidious, as it is stealthy and is almost impossible to detect. Accounts Payable, a core component of most organizations, is one of the primary areas of fraud. This AP fraud is something organizations don’t seem to be precluded from, no matter what the nature of their business or its size.

Yet, learning to detect and prevent Accounts Payable fraud is of critical importance all organizations because as all the payment types present in the market today enable quick and at times seamless payments; they all carry the inherent risk of fraud. Although the Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX), the most important legislation passed by the American Congress aimed at checking internal fraud was passed with good intentions and is considered the most comprehensive of such laws; completely rooting out and eliminating Accounts Payable fraud has not been possible. This explains why the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) found out that fraud accounts for as much as five percent of all revenues in an organization.

Detecting and plugging the loopholes

Tightening the systems and plugging the loopholes is the first step to detecting and preventing Accounts Payable fraud. For this to happen, the organization has to have a thorough and complete understanding all the possible ways by which AP offers scope for pilfering. A strong and comprehensive audit into which these aspects are taken into account constitutes a good first step towards detecting and preventing Accounts Payable fraud.

And then, there are other steps. It is an explanation of these steps that an in-depth webinar that is being organized by Compliance4All, a very popular provider of professional trainings for all the areas of regulatory compliance, will offer.

At this webinar, the speaker is Ray Graber, a very senior payment industry professional. Ray brings deep and profound understanding of the way banking and finance partner with technology. Please register for this webinar by visiting Where your Payments are Going?

Learning on all aspects of the sources of AP fraud

This webinar is going to be a very interactive one, in which Ray will traverse the various issues concerning AP fraud. He will get into the finer aspects of AP. For instance, not many Finance professionals would be aware that a simple exercise such as a quarterly scan can reveal potential issues to check duplicate payments and can be an important means of detecting and preventing Accounts Payable fraud. He will help participants of this webinar to also identify some strategic areas that when reviewed, can help educate their staff on what to look for and to take a relook at some applications.

These applications could be either internal or vendor developed, and can be used to identify potential hazards. Implementing just these two steps can considerably augment the organization’s chances of detecting leakages that could otherwise go unnoticed. Ray will discuss other issues such as abnormal payment volumes, check/wire amounts, addresses, and related ones.

Combining different actions

A few important steps to detect and prevent Accounts Payable fraud that an organization can try to tighten up its Accounts Payable operations and perform an internal audit will be suggested. These will help the organization carry out its future audits and investigations. The speaker will explain these steps, which, while being important for detecting and preventing Accounts Payable fraud; can be supplemented with other exercises such as data gathering, procedural changes, and employee education. All of these are elements of a robust AP fraud detection and prevention mechanism, and can be carried out without causing the company any major financial overloads.

Ray will cover the following areas:

o  Data gathering-Where we are

o  Establishing the scope and objectives-Where we want to be

o  Assessing your risk and resources

o  Risk assessment for specific payment types

o  Specific incidences to research

o  Management approach

o  Summary

Personnel such as Accounts Payable Managers, Payments Professionals, Operations Managers, Cash Management Product and Sales Staff, Treasury Managers, Commercial Bankers, Corporate Treasury Professionals, Payments Network Providers, Payments Processors will find this webinar highly valuable.