Are your employees held accountable? Fraud can cost your business everything. It is something that in reality many companies face due to an unexpecting employee who becomes desperate. For example a most recent story is of Lincoln Memorial Shrine in Redlands. They are facing tough decisions on how to stay open and what to cut back on due to an employee who started to skim off the top which turned into embezzling $30,000 in two years.

Misti Moore was the administrative assistant who started to take small amounts from the memorial to cover her gambling debts, but two years into taken money it turned into $30,000. Moore would write checks to herself and then go to great lengths to electronically alter the records that came back from the bank to make it appear that those checks were being written to legitimate businesses.

Everyone was blown away by the fact that Moore was so unassuming, and would have never imagined she would do such a thing. Because of cutbacks Moore was laid off and that is when the embezzlement came to light. The person who replaced her noticed the irregularities in the banking and notified the police. Moore is being charged with embezzlement, and now Lincoln Memorial Shrine is looking at ways to keep the doors open.

Lincoln Memorial Shrine is now making changes by having a job once performed by one person dealing with the money will now be handled by three staffers who will keep an eye on the accounts and, by default, each other. Are you making sure your employees are held accountable? Setting up systems where not one is in charge of all the accounts, but everyone is held accountable is one way to prevent fraud. Make sure you have a system in place where pre employment background screening is first and systems are second when it comes to employment.