The 10 truths about Fraud
According to Bonita Peterson and Paul Zikmund (Strategic Finance, May 2004) understanding the following 10 things can help reduce fraud risk:
1.Fraud is everywhere 2.Anyone can commit fraud 3.Understand the circumstances influencing why people commit fraud (motive, perceived opportunity to commit and think they can get away with it, morally acceptable excuse) 4. The best deterrent is to increaese the perception of detection 5. Perpetrators are often employees 6. There are only a limited number of Fraud schemes (asset misappropriations alone count for 60-86% of all frauds) 7. Understand early signs and act upon them 8. Don't rely on auditors to detect fraud (they focus on material fraud only) 9. Have an (anonymous) fraud hotline and use a fraud questionaire now and then 10. Prevention is the best cure.
I would argue that creating and cultivating a high employee moral is also important, do you agree? Who wants to share additional fraud best practises?