Reducing fraud risk is key to keeping a business safe, as well as safeguarding their assets.
Employees are an important part of that prevention, as they are the ones on the front lines dealing
with customers, vendors, and transactions. But, as important as the employee’s roles are in
keeping the company safe, many small businesses suffer from fraud caused by employee
dishonesty. Once someone gets aways with something no matter how small, it gets easier to
continue doing it or to do something even bigger. This is why ‘checks and balances’ need to be put
in to place, and procedures followed to ensure the business remains secure and is not at risk.
Using prenumbered sequence codes on customer checks is a way to track every slip to prevent
food being given away or meals being comped. Voiding checks with errors and keeping them is a
good way to track that there are no missing numbered checks when they are turned in at the end
of each day. This will give the manager the opportunity to review all of the checks and compare
them to the cash receipts of the business and the log of numbered checks given out to servers for
the day. If there are any missing, then the manager should be able to track the missing numbers so
that he/she can question that server that was issued that check to get to the bottom of what
happened. Another way to control cash receipts would be to have a computerized system that
tracks every server, every customer, and every receipt so that there is no room for error.
