What’s your fraud risk?
One thing accountants do is look for possible fraud when they're auditing business's books. Recently the Journal of Accountancy published an excellent article on spotting fraud in your business. Here's the lead from that article. Every organization faces some risk of fraud from within. Fraud exposure can be classified into three broad categories: asset misappropriation, corruption and fraudulent financial statements. Answering the following 15 questions is a good starting point for sizing up a company’s vulnerability to fraud and creating an action plan for lessening the risks. The questions are based on information from the 2007 edition of the Fraud [...]
Library volunteers upset over background checks
The Fayetteville, Arkansas Public Library has a problem. For the last several months, the staff has been working on a policy that will protect members of the public, especially children, from predators while they're at the library. How could anyone object to that? Well, it depends on how you do things. The Northwest Arkansas News reports on a brouhaha over background checks for volunteers. Here's the story. First, the library ran unannounced criminal background checks on employees. The employees learned of the checks after the fact at a staff meeting. Then, a rumor surfaced that the library was going to [...]
Checking out customers
This is a "man-bites-dog" story about background checks. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel recently carried a story about how charter boat captains are starting to do background checks on their customers. This isn't as weird as it might sound. It turns out that those charter boat captains have a good reason. They don't want to suffer the same fate as the captain and crew of a boat named the "Joe Cool." Here's how the Sun-Sentinel tells the story. The 47-foot Joe Cool fishing boat left Miami on Sept. 22 with a four-person crew and two men bound for the Bahamas. Two [...]
Bill to combat elder abuse is still going nowhere
Maybe it's because we've got older relatives in a nursing home that this story makes me so angry. Here's how it was reported in the Chicago Tribune. The Elder Justice Act, designed to combat abuse, neglect and exploitation of older Americans, still gathers dust in Congress. It has been doing that for five years, odd for a bill with few visible opponents. That last part gets my dander up, the part about "few visible opponents." If that's true then why haven't we seen action on this? I mean, if you all think it's a good idea, what's the holdup? There's [...]
Background checks slow down airport hiring
The News-Tribune in Tacoma, Washington weighs in with a story about the impact of the anti-terrorism background checks on businesses. These businesses are connected with airports like Sea-Tac. Problems with a new federal background check for potential airport employees could slow baggage delivery, delay cargo shipments and cut the hours of airport vendors at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and other airports throughout the country as the holiday travel season approaches. At Sea-Tac alone, more than 400 new hires are awaiting clearance from the federal Transportation Security Administration before they can be issued badges that allow them to work beyond the airport’s [...]
Embezzlement: it could happen to you
Susan Gunn wrote an excellent article that appeared in the September 2007 issue of Dental Economics. Her title: "Embezzlement Wake-up Call." You have to register to see the whole article, but the registration is free. She surveyed dental practices and asked them about embezzlements. Then she analyzed the responses. She found that the embezzler could be anyone: "assistants taking cash payments chairside, front office managers taking patient checks, spouses and family members taking from other family members, CPAs diverting funds, even the dentist!" Losses ranged from $35 to $900,000. They averaged $104,585. But Gunn points out that the money loss [...]