I once had a client in Delaware who entrusted all their financial operations to a long-time employee and friend of the business owner. The employee wrote checks, made bank deposits and received monthly bank statements. She also stole money from the company. Her most audacious move was getting the owner to sign checks when he was distracted. In the end, the owner not only paid to finance the company's fleet of trucks but also the employee's car and her husband's and son's cars.

The moral of the story is that you should never delegate too much responsibility to a single employee. They could abuse your trust and rob you blind.

If you have a trusted employee whom you think might be might be stealing from you, don't go it alone, contact us.

~ John Capizzi, president Internal Audit Services

If you are looking for a presenter for your next in-house training session, contact us. We'll teach your staff how to recognize fraud and reduce liability in the workplace. We'll customize the session to meet your needs.

If you trusted all of your company's financial controls to one person, you could be in for a big surprise. They could be cooking the books and you wouldn't know it until your company started bleeding money.

While financial statement fraud is one of the least common types of occupational fraud, it's also the most costly. The average median loss is around $954,000.

Your trusted employee could be misstating your firm's net worth or net income through timing differences, fictitious revenue, improper asset valuations, improper disclosures, and concealed or overstated liabilities and expenses.

Here are five preventative measures you can take:

IAS can help you identify, deter, investigate and resolve fraud in your company. We can audit your internal controls, create a loss prevention and internal audit program, conduct loss prevention workshops, and most importantly investigate suspected fraud.

Our investigations can obtain signed confessions, restitution and even prosecutions.