By Siena Rambo
As a best practice, a company or organization should develop a formal fraud risk assessment and monitoring program that is appropriate for the size and complexity of their entity. This program should include identifying fraud risks of the different areas in the entity and taking appropriate action to reduce or eliminate the risks. It is best that the people within the entity that have extensive knowledge of the company operations be involved in this process.
So where do you start?
The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners has some tools and resources to assist in assessing the areas of risk. One of those is the ACFE Fraud Prevention Check-Up. This tool can help identify and pinpoint areas of fraud risk by scoring the processes established in your entity in seven categories. The categories include fraud risk oversight and anti-fraud controls over processes and environments.
There is also the Fraud Risk Assessment Tool which consists of 15 modules, each containing a series of questions designed to help organizations zoom in on areas of risk. The results of the assessment can help identify potential inherent fraud risks, evaluate whether identified controls operate effectively and efficiently, and to respond to residual fraud risks that result from ineffective or nonexistent controls.
We have three Certified Fraud Examiners in our office and other professionals that would be glad to assist you in this process or answer your questions.