The major issue we have seen when examining administrative assistant fraud is that when an operation involving money, such as incoming receipts, payments to vendors, reimbursements to credit cards, etc., is that the entire operation is "bottlenecked." In this case, it is bottlenecked with ont person.
In this case, the bottleneck is with an administrative assistant who is trusted and, as such is given a great deal of access to cash. This bottleneck means that the assistant has the ability to commit fraud with little fear of being caught (especially if the person is smart enough to use the "salami" technique).
The easy answer to this issue is to split up the responsibilities so that one person is not in charge of money intake and/or distribution. For a large organization, it is relatively easy to distribute the responsibilities over a larger group of people. For small organizations with limited human resources, this distribution may have to be outsourced to third parties (accountants, attorneys etc.).
Generally, therefore, the greater the "bottleneck," the greater the risk of fraud.
NOTE: THE INFORMATION IN THIS BLOG IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE NOR
IS IT INTENDED TO BE LEGAL ADVICE. IF
THE READER HAS ANY LEGAL QUESTIONS, PLEASE REFER TO AN ATTORNEY.
Have a great and fraud-free day.
----------à>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>gene
tausk
