Fraud Never Sleeps
Myth: You’d know if fraud was happening in your store
Reality: You can be alerted to fraud before you even recognize it
Fraud happens, like it or not, but today’s software can alert you before you even notice it, and, more importantly, before it becomes a big problem. By all means, implement processes and set up parameters to control what an employee can do. For example, a centralized price book with POS restrictions can control your retail pricing, limiting cashier mistakes and under-rings. You can also set a pricebook policy on write-offs to help you control what departments allow write offs and which departments require management review and approval. But even with the proper oversite, fraud can still occur.
Excessive write-offs could indicate someone making extra food at the end of a shift to take home. That pattern is in the data and Business Intelligence (BI) Reporting can bring it to your attention, automatically. Margin slipping? Shortages on certain deliveries could be leading to an excessive amount of inventory shrink. Let the software monitor your invoicing so it can alert you and provide the details.
The oversite that comes with business intelligence and reporting is invaluable. It is difficult to think of all the ways fraud can happen, but if theft is happening, you can see it in the data you already collect. Even better, today’s reporting can be by exception, so finding a problem does not involve paging through long reports. Instead, you can set acceptable ranges and see only the data that falls outside that range. Better yet, it’s possible for reports to run automatically and exceptions sent to you via email alerts.
Statistics say that fraud will happen in just about every business. Hire well, put the proper controls in your software, and let BI Reporting be the security guard who is always on duty.
