Sweat the small stuff and Prevent Fraud
By Reggie Novak, CPA, CFE, Senior Manager, Audit and Accounting Services
Reimbursement fraud is often overlooked by management with the thought that their employees are trustworthy and the loss is small and not worth the time and effort to track. In reality, expense reimbursement schemes account for nearly 14 percent of all occupational frauds and result in a median loss of $30,000 per year, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE). And if your employees think management is “looking the other way,” dishonest employees may take advantage of their good natured managers.
Keeping your organization safe from thieving employees demands strong controls, tough actions against perpetrators and management leading by example. Whether you’re a multinational corporation employing sales representatives traveling throughout the world or a small not-for-profit organization, you can fall victim to expense reimbursement fraud. Forensic accounting experts can help companies implement measures to detect and prevent expense reimbursement fraud.
Most common methods
According to the ACFE, expense reimbursement schemes generally fall into one of these four categories:
- Mischaracterized expenses. This involves requesting reimbursement for a personal expense by claiming that it’s business-related. For example, an employee takes a family vacation and requests reimbursement for meal and hotel expenses by submitting actual receipts and a false expense report.
- Overstated expenses. Overstating expenses involves inflating the cost of actual business expenses — for example, by altering receipts or obtaining a refund for a portion of the expense. A common scheme is to buy a first- or business-class airline ticket with a personal credit card, submit the expense for reimbursement, and then return the ticket and replace it with a coach ticket.
- Fictitious expenses. Obtaining reimbursement for nonexistent expenses by submitting false expense reports and fake receipts or other documentation would fall under the category of fictitious expenses. A common technique is to obtain a stockpile of blank receipts from taxicab companies or other vendors and submit them over time.
- Multiple reimbursements. This scam involves requesting reimbursement for the same expense several times — typically by submitting photocopied receipts or different forms of supporting documentation (for example, receipts, email confirmations, canceled checks, tickets and invoices).
These schemes tend to continue for long periods of time before they’re detected. The ACFE reports that the median duration of employee reimbursement frauds is 24 months.
Detection methods
Forensic accountants use a variety of techniques to detect employee reimbursement fraud. For example, they might review reimbursement documentation to look for photocopies, duplicates or fakes; compare employees’ expense reports and supporting documentation to check for multiple claims for the same expenses; and compare the times and dates of claimed expenses to work schedules and calendars to look for inconsistencies, such as expenses claimed during vacations.
Forensic experts also search for red flags that may signal fraudulent activity or warrant further investigation. For example, they might look for employees who:
- Claim disproportionately larger reimbursements than other employees in comparable positions,
- Pay large expenses in cash despite access to a company credit card,
- Submit consecutively numbered receipts over long periods of time, and
- Consistently submit expenses at or just under the company’s reimbursement limit for undocumented claims.
Another technique is to look for employees whose expense patterns violate Benford’s Law — a statistical analysis tool that can reveal fabricated numbers.
An ounce of prevention
In addition to detecting expense reimbursement fraud, forensic accounting experts can help companies implement preventive measures. These include written expense reimbursement policies and procedures requiring detailed expense reports that set forth amounts, times, places, people in attendance and specific business purposes. Employees also should be asked to use company credit cards, submit original, detailed receipts (no photocopies), and provide boarding passes for air travel. Periodic audits of travel and entertainment expense accounts can also have a powerful deterrent effect.
The best advice we can offer is, “don’t go it alone.” Contact Reggie Novak, CPA, CFE, Senior Manager, at Ciuni & Panichi, Inc. at 216-831-7171 or rnovak@cp-advisors.com to learn how you can protect your business from reimbursement fraud.
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