Every organization and business system has inherent vulnerabilities to fraud. Taking advantage of vast amounts of data is exactly how organizations and individuals are able to conceal a fraud for years. Staying ahead of them is all about how you approach that data and what systems you have in place to identify potential weaknesses. Let’s examine this.
Fraud Risk Statements
At Fraud Auditing, Inc. we encourage the creation of Fraud Risk Statements during internal audits as part of your process. While some might use the SAS definition of fraud as a starting point remember that fraud is a complex matter that demands a comprehensive approach. For more information on fraud schemes, there's no need to spend time presuming what fraud schemes may be lurking in your business system, our fraud risk registers provide you with a comprehensive framework of fraud schemes in your core business systems.
Creating Fraud Risk Statements as part of wider plans ensures that you can gain and understand of where and most importantly how fraud most likely occurs in your corporation.
Through the understanding of the how—and the natural weaknesses in your internal control system—your team will be better able to design fraud audit procedures and better able to design the fraud preventative and fraud detective controls. In short, you’ll be one step ahead.
Fraud Data Analytics
Fraud Data Analytics is about searching for transactions that are consistent with the fraud data profile associated with a specific fraud scenario. Simply searching for ‘fraud’ is too broad of a search. You need to know what exactly you’re looking, and which fraud scenarios are involved.
This data analytics, essentially, can help your team to identify fraud in a timely manner. Think of fraud like a marathon, with fraud scenarios and inherent schemes as the mile markers. Your fraud identification involves working out which marathon (e.g. the NYC Marathon) is involved and the challenges faced during the race. With this holistic approach, you can stay ahead of fraud.
Need help catching your team up to speed on current standards of auditing or a consultation on a fraud audit plan? Mr. Leonard W. Vona has over 38 years of experience. Contact us today.