It is easy to think that fraud is something that ‘couldn’t or wouldn’t happen here’. However while large organisations have the resources to implement what they hope are effective systems of internal control to prevent fraud, smaller and medium-sized organisations often have to rely on a small team of people who they trust. No doubt you can think of a handful of key employees who you couldn’t imagine being without! Sadly some organisations have found out the full extent to which this trust can be abused.
A key difficulty faced by smaller organisations is the lack of options to segregate duties. Individuals have to fulfil a number of roles and this can lead to increased opportunity and scope to commit fraud, and for some, the temptation can be too great.