By Brian McKay

Fraud is a growing problem for many businesses. It’s not about to go away anytime soon. And there are so many different types of fraud. From online cyber crime to employee fraud, you have a lot of different potential types of fraud to battle against. Your business can overcome and avoid this problem though. Here’s how your business can ensure it doesn’t fall victim to fraud.

Learn More About Online Scams

These days, one of the major threats businesses face comes from online fraud and scams. The internet offers the perfect breeding ground for criminals and people who want to get money from your business. You will have to protect any accounts, online transactions, and stored data if you want to avoid falling victim to this kind of fraud. You should also learn more about scams. You should never enter your details into a website that is asking for them without a proper reason. Many phishing scams will present themselves as banks asking for your details. But a real bank would never do this.

Improve Your Payment Processes

How you accept and deliver payments matters a lot. When you carry out these kinds of tasks, you give criminals the opportunity to target you. So, improve the way in which you organise your payment processes in order to make fraud less likely. You should use high risk merchant accounts if you’re looking for a higher level of security for your payment processes. If you run a business that sells products online, you should make sure that your web pages are as secure as they can be. Protecting your customers from fraud is important too.

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Assert Internal Controls

Your company’s assets are what matter most And it’s these assets that are at risk when you become a victim of fraud. So, be sure to assert stronger internal controls to prevent anything happening. For example, you should make sure that at least two people are involved in any process that involves handling company money. This means that one rogue individual won’t have the opportunity to skim money off the top of the accounts and take it with them. This is one of the most common types of fraud. By limiting access to assets, you will also prevent external people committing fraud too.

Get to Know and Build Trust with Employees

It’s not good to assume the worst of your employees. So, don’t jump to conclusions and assume that they’re to blame if something does happen. Having said that, internal fraud is one of the most common types there is. So, it’s best to make sure that this can’t happen. By asserting internal controls, as mentioned above, you’ll be off to a good start. But that won’t be enough by itself. You will also need to build trust with employees. You can do this by getting to know and understand them. When you have a good bond with your employees, they will be much less likely to commit fraud. And you will also get to know who you can and can’t trust.

Brian McKay is a co-founder of zenruption. He has a B.A. in Political Science from Gonzaga University and an M.B.A. from Boise State University (yes that blue field). His goal in life is to look out for the regular guy and bring as much knowledge and change to this world as he can. His purpose in founding Zenruption was to do just that and help craft the world he wants his daughter to inherit. Please feel free to email him any feedback or article ideas at brian@zenruption.com.  On twitter: @brianmckay71

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