Fraud prevention and detection are two of the biggest reasons your company needs a strong bookkeeping system, and it should be more than just creating invoices and making sure bills are paid. It has to include reconciling all the records you have of money coming in and money going out with your bank statements to make sure there are no unexpected expenses or suspicious activity.

But what if it’s too late? What if you’ve already been a victim of fraud and you’re wondering what to do now?

Immediately Contact Your Accountant

If your accountant was not the one who alerted you to the fraud, you need to tell them about it immediately so they can go through the books and bank statements to see exactly how much has been stolen and when. They might also be able to alert you to more stolen funds than you had previously realized.

Once your accountant has been made aware of the fraud, they can create a record of all the fraudulent transactions, including the amount and date of each transaction, which you’ll need to hand over to anyone investigating the fraud.

Keep Records of ALL Interactions with the Fraudster

It might be tempting to delete texts and emails from the fraudster once you realize what they’ve done, but it’s important for investigative purposes that you keep all those records so you can give them to your bank and law enforcement so they can investigate. You never know what they might be able to dig up based on a text message or email. At the very least, it could help them warn other potential victims of fraud to look out for certain types of messages so they can avoid falling victim to the same scheme.

Report the Incident to Your Local Law Enforcement

There’s only so much police can do to go after fraudsters, especially if it was committed online, but it’s still a good idea to file a report with your local law enforcement to make them aware of the crime. You never know when they might be able to pursue a case, and at the very least they can alert other local businesses to the crime and warn them to look out for potentially fraudulent activity.

If you had email contact with the fraudster, you can report the crime to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov.

Contact Your IT Department

A lot of online fraud takes place through emails, so if you think there’s a chance your email might be compromised, have your IT department conduct a thorough review of your email to make sure it’s still secure. If it’s not, you’ll need new email addresses for all the addresses that have been compromised. If your entire email system was compromised, it might be time for a new email system.

A strong bookkeeping system isn’t always able to prevent fraud, but it can detect suspicious activity early on, which enables you to shut it down before the fraudster can do too much damage. If you need a Bookkeeper you can trust to monitor your transactions and reconcile your books, let’s talk about all the things I can do to help keep your company’s finances safe and healthy.