Most businesses today suffer from either stealing by customers, stealing by staff, or fraud. I am listing various methods in NO particular order, most of which I have experienced to my peril.

1. Do not let your money or accounts be managed by only one person. To be safe, you need to keep your eye on all transactions at least monthly. I seriously suggest that regardless of the size of your business, that you have a monthly ‘sit-down’ and go over the figures, which is ALL the figures. If the accounting is up to scratch, this will be a short sit-down meeting, however, if it drags on then you have a problem. You should segregate fiscal responsibility among your staff to prevent any single individual from having too much control over financial processes.
                   a.I made the mistake in my last business of not checking up on my in-house accountant. The banking appeared to be running smoothly and as I was behind with my work, I left it at that. However, this accountant withdrew funds from our EFTPOS account and transferred these funds through another account of his, finally depositing the money back into our bank as a LOAN from him. Total amount was approximately $136,000. Crime: That is FRAUD.

2.If you are not ordering stock yourself, make periodic checks with your suppliers to see that you are in fact getting the correct prices.

            a.I once had the experience of our female ordering clerk getting tickets to football matches in return for orders. Two problems there, first she was accepting a bribe that I was essentially paying for, and secondly the supplier was loading the prices, effectively cheating me. Both parties were moved on.