Small businesses can be particularly vulnerable to internal fraud as they often don’t have the resources to prevent it and many small business owners don’t feel the concern that they will become a victim. In fact, 48% of businesses think they’re not big enough to be targeted. Small businesses can fall victim to occupational fraud, which is committed by employees for example, and there’s also the growing constant of cybercrime. Fraud can not only have a negative financial impact but also be bad for your company’s reputation. With extensive data analysis and increased security measures, it is possible to protect your business, however. All businesses and individuals should keep track of bills so they can easily see if something is wrong.
Protect Your Devices
In recent years a number of advances in technology have been developed to help protect your privacy on your electronic devices and smartphone. Biometrics, for example, are developed security measures such as fingerprint and iris scanning, and face and voice recognition. This will ensure that the person using the device is correctly identified. If you’re working online and sharing documents you can password protect these.
Smart-agent Technology
This also helps with identity issues. Things like your credit card, for instance, are analyzed to check for anomalies. If you have a business credit card, smart-agent technology will be able to recognize unusual activity. The technology records regular habits of its usual spender. This will help you to prove your case if you do suffer from identity theft as police are also trained to look for these inconsistencies.
Data analysis
This is the most effective tool against crime. It’s vital to collect large amounts of data and analyze it quickly and efficiently. Certain types of programs such as visallo link analysis software can help to find the connections between millions of collected data. This type of software is used by crime analysts to fight fraud on a larger scale for instance money laundering. This data can be used to predict and prevent fraud, by finding patterns in the information. Advanced software is essential here as it’s impossible to go through all the data efficiently without it.
Accessibility
Be careful and vigilant at work and restrict the accessibility of your employees. You can set up security measures such as passcodes to prevent whoever you want from accessing certain documents and information. You might also want to consider controlling and monitoring your employees’ internet access as a safety precaution as well.
Risk Assessment
It’s always a good idea to carry out a risk assessment for the likelihood of fraud situations, both internal and external. Be sure to do background checks on all your employees and use data analysis to help you outline any other potential risks. Have a risk assessment for fraud drawn up for you. Commonly acts of fraud are committed by an employee teaming up with a third party realizing the misappropriation of assets, which can be easier due to their access to payroll and inventory. It’s vital to thoroughly analyze these risks and their potential damage and take precautions very seriously.
