Every organization faces the potential for fraud. This statement is well known, often discussed, but how often are companies proactively taking the necessary steps to fully understand their risk?
Every organization faces the potential for fraud. This statement is well known, often discussed, but how often are companies proactively taking the necessary steps to fully understand their risk? You may see the whistleblower hotline flyer hanging in the lunchroom or receive emails about external threats facing your organization, but does that truly cover everything?
The challenges of identifying all areas of fraud risk can be daunting to an organization of any size. At Clearview, we believe a comprehensive risk, fraud and audit program should address all areas of potential misstatement, collusion and/or potential to conceal facts not just the surface levels areas. These all-encompassing programs can include a variety of components including:
Every organization in today’s world faces some type of risk specific to their business. Having an ERA performed by specialists in risk management, data integrity and internal control provides the overall basis of identified business risks necessary to adapt appropriate and timely mitigation and response needs. The process is a risk based assessment of how your organization is managing its strategic planning and integrating concepts of internal control. The evaluation includes not just risks associated with accidental losses, but also financial, strategic, operational, and reputational risks. Once the overall ERA has identified areas of potential fraud or loss, a more detailed, deep dive Fraud Risk Assessment can be performed by our specialists. A Fraud Risk Assessment can be an essential tool to identify, assess and mitigate fraud in the organization.
One incident, if not properly addressed, could have a serious impact on the success of your organization. The key is to address the incident facing your organization, assess the impact, develop remediation steps and then determine the type of controls that could have prevented this incident as well as prevent other similar incidents. When there is an inherent lack of control individuals both within and outside of the organization can and usually will find ways to commit fraud which could have a huge impact to your organization both financially and reputationally.
Every incident a company faces comes down to three things; people, processes or systems. We believe most incidents happen because of a combination of these three root causes. It is important to identify a cause and work within the business processes to determine the correct actions to be taken to ensure you meet your control and compliance requirements.
In addition to identifying potential errors within individual incidents, it is important to monitor any program from a holistic view to identify key patterns, trends and anomalies within the data. In today’s world it is imperative to use advanced data analytics to complete on-going monitoring on data sets or populations to identify potential patterns, relationships or trends which may be indicators of fraud or collusion to misstate, omit or conceal facts. Whether it be Purchase Cards, Travel and Entertainment expenses, Vendor Management, Company Awards programs, and Maintenance and Repair operations, any type of program can be monitored for fraud given the correct perspective, tools and ongoing monitoring capabilities.
When a situation is identified which involves multiple levels of risk, it is important to take the next step to investigate and validate. Investigation service analyzes the necessary information to be garnered to make a fraud determination and executes a plan to obtain all relevant facts and data associated with the potential fraud.
Although many organizations implement the basics, many do not know how to properly identify potential fraud and mitigate risk. Executives and Management work to keep their finger on the pulse of operations but often there are unknown issues bubbling below the surface that when faced with the right question or discussion can identify a potentially serious issue. An effective risk and fraud program can work to identify these issues before they impact you.
To learn more or inquire about how Clearview Group can help your organization, please reach out to:
We are a full-service management consulting and CPA firm covering all aspects of audit, compliance, risk management, accounting, finance, tax, IT risk, and more. Just let us know what you need help with and an expert will be in touch!
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