Emails should not be used to approve six figure cash transactions. An account reconciliation or approval of PTO? Sure.
You can easily set up your online banking to require one individual to intiate a wire transfer, and a separate individual to approve the transaction. This is a very basic financial control.
My guess is the companies falling victim to this don't have any formal controls in place.
It all depends on the size of the company and the stupidity of the accounting/purchasing department. The article describes the fraud ranging from modest to sizable. It's not uncommon for many business to have 50k transactions every week. You don't want to go around getting approval for every transaction every day. It's not uncommon for many businesses to have 300k transactions every month.
The business that lost 30m+ I don't understand... It must have been multiple wires over a period of time. They found some vulnerable accountant with the power and just milked them over time.
Not all transactions are created equal. Six figure cash disbursement transactions should require approval.
And any company that has so many six figure cash disbursement transactions that approving them is an administrative burden is the type of company that most needs this kind of control in the first place.
I have seen emails regularly used to approve 9 and 10 figures transactions. But the approval always knew about the transaction, had talked about it with the relevant manager. And often would double check with the manager they trust that everything is in order.
According to two different 'Outlook of M&A' panels I attended in the past two months, corporations have more uninvested cash on their balance sheets than is typical. I mention that because even the money invested by the wealthy into corporations does not necessarily get spent by corporations. This is part of the reason why the argument for 'tax cuts for the wealthy' doesn't hold up under current conditions.
Thinking about it in terms of supply and demand of goods, increasing wealth of the middle class increases overall demand, and increasing wealth of the wealthy increases supply, but only to the extent that demand will support.
Technologies: Quickbooks, Xero Certified Advisor, Excel expert, etc.
Résumé/CV: Please contact me for my resume
Email: brad[at]beechvalley[dot]com
I help software companies solve accounting problems.
I'm a CPA with several years experience helping software companies. I started my career at a big 4 accounting firm in their technology practice and have since started my own boutique advisory firm.
I (or my resources) can provide interim CFO, Controller, Director of Revenue, and/or Senior Accountant-level services. Please contact me for more information!
I created a notepad document two weeks ago to track a.) each day that I do not move my car (bike everywhere instead) and b.) each meal that I prepare myself and eat in. I have ambitions to start tracking some more day-to-day goals like these.
I'm giving this app a shot to see if it has benefits over the .txt file. Thanks!
I imagine there are enough others like me that will keep these companies around awhile.