When was the last time you didn’t notice something until it was pointed out, and now you can’t un-see it?
This happens frequently with fraud. We may spend time and effort looking for concealment efforts, but what about the frauds that aren’t actually concealed? What about the frauds that hide in plain sight?
Fraudsters don’t necessarily need to circumvent or conceal their fraud if your environment itself creates the concealment.
The longer you leave an issue to reconcile, the harder it will be to find the underlying cause of the problem and correct it and prevent it from going forward.
Have you ever spoken to someone when trying to understand their process, and when you spot something that looks unusual – they just tell you that it happens all the time? They may have to make an adjusting entry to your financial records to correct the ‘error’. How many times would this unusual activity have to occur for it to be considered normal in your business? I would suggest surprisingly few. That normalised behaviour could be a cover for wrongdoing.
Is there unusual behaviour in your company that could soon be considered ‘normal’?
