Following up on the last issue dealing with fraud prevention, this issue looks at void payments and another important, but easy to implement, internal control.

As with the last issue, today’s example can easily be implemented by monitoring existing reports.

Excessive void payments

In this case, an astute finance director detected what she thought were an excessive number of void payments by one cashier. This finance director inquired if we could create a void payment list so she could review void payments for each cashier without having to review the edit list for the full day.

The finance director had noticed one cashier was voiding considerably more payments than the other cashiers. She knew an excessive number of void payments can indicate improprieties, and she wanted an easier tool to monitor them.

Every cashier makes an occasional mistake and needs to void a payment, but several per day is problematic. In the end it turned out the finance director’s hunch was correct – the cashier was voiding random payments and pocketing the cash.

Proper internal controls

Granting cashiers who take payments the authority to also void these payments isn’t a problem, unless there is no oversight. All it takes to implement proper internal controls is for someone other than the employee voiding the payments to monitor them to ensure they are legitimate.

Your software doesn’t report on void payments…?

If your billing software doesn’t provide a report of void payments, what else is it missing…? Contact me and let’s talk about a business review to determine if it’s time for new software.

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Are your internal controls adequate?

Are your office’s internal controls adequate? If they aren’t, or you aren’t sure, please give me a call at 919-673-4050, or email me at gary@utilityinformationpipeline.com to learn more about how a business review could help you find out.

© 2024 Gary Sanders