Is Your Company Susceptible to Expense Reimbursement Fraud?
IS YOUR COMPANY SUSCEPTIBLE TO EXPENSE REIMBURSEMENT FRAUD?
It is very common for companies to reimburse employee expenses on a regular basis, which makes expense reimbursement an
easy target for fraudsters. As we increase the emphasis of safeguarding against hackers and other criminals that pose an external threat, we should stop and consider potential threats from within the organization itself. As a manager, am I placing enough emphasis on protecting my company from internal fraud?
The 2 ways in which these schemes typically occur are:
Claiming reimbursement for fictitious expenses
Inflating actual business expenses
Helpful tips for preventing expense reimbursement fraud in your organization:
• Require that all expenses submitted for reimbursement are accompanied by original documentation, with no exceptions. Regardless of the amount, it’s important that employees keep receipts and maintain good records for expense reimbursement.
• Ensure that your organization has a well written expense reimbursement policy. Stay tuned for more on writing an effective policy from BankTEL!
• Institute a two-step review process for employee expense reimbursements. This means that two managers will have to approve the reimbursement before it is approved for payment.
• Maintain a healthy level of skepticism about your employees. You always want to trust the people you hire, but there’s nothing wrong with digging deeper to verify employee expenses.
• Have a consistent process set up for reimbursements. All employees should know what the process for reimbursement consists of and should expect that it will be the same every time.
• Discipline employees who violate the policies and procedures. Doing so will set an example and help deter other employees from making the same mistakes.