#internal-controls
Internal Controls
Systems and procedures that safeguard assets, ensure accurate records, and prevent fraud
Law Firm Trust Accounting: Why a Three-Way IOLTA Reconciliation Is Your Best Defense Against Bar Discipline
A three-way reconciliation proves the bank statement, trust ledger, and every individual client ledger agree to the penny. It is the monthly process that keeps a pooled IOLTA account compliant with ABA Model Rule 1.15 and out of bar discipline.
How to Stop Deepfake Invoice Fraud: An AP/AR Prevention Guide for Small Businesses
Deepfake fraud cost Arup $25.6 million in one faked video call, and voice cloning now needs just three seconds of audio. This guide shows small businesses how callback verification, two-person approval for banking changes, and periodic vendor-file cleanup stop synthetic vendors, cloned executive voices, and doctored invoices.
How a Trailer Manufacturer's Bankruptcy Shows What Happens When Nobody Is Watching the Books
A Georgia trailer manufacturer's 2026 Chapter 11 filing traces partly to alleged employee theft discovered in 2024. Businesses under 100 employees suffer a median fraud loss of $141,000 per ACFE data — here are the segregation-of-duties controls that catch theft early, and why an auditable ledger matters.
Ghost Employee Fraud: How Fake Payroll Records Drain Small Businesses and the Controls That Catch Them
Ghost employee schemes cost U.S. businesses an estimated $400 billion a year and run a median of 18–30 months before detection. Learn the three common scheme patterns, the red flags already in your payroll data — duplicate bank accounts, unchanged withholding, missing I-9s — and the segregation-of-duties controls that stop them.
AI-Generated Fake Receipts Now Drive Most Expense Fraud: A Small Business Guide
AI-generated receipts jumped from 0% to 70.8% of fraud flags between March 2025 and May 2026, per AppZen data covering 1,471 fake receipts across 174 companies — and the average claim dropped to $101 as fraudsters shifted from a few large fakes to many small ones under auto-approval thresholds.
Church Fund Accounting: How to Manage Restricted and Unrestricted Funds
An estimated $86 billion is lost to fraud inside churches worldwide each year, and most of it starts with one bookkeeping mistake — treating restricted and unrestricted funds as one pool. This guide explains how FASB ASC 958 classifies donor-restricted gifts, the three errors that get church treasurers in trouble, and the monthly habits that keep ministry books compliant and transparent.
KPMG Australia Cut Partner Pay 20% Over an Ethics Scandal. Here's How to Vet Your Own Accountant.
KPMG Australia is preparing to cut over 1,000 of roughly 10,000 jobs and reduce partner pay by up to 20% after admitting it mishandled a 2024 whistleblower complaint alleging misuse of confidential client data. The same five independence threats behind the scandal — self-interest, self-review, advocacy, familiarity, and intimidation — apply to any local CPA firm, and this guide covers the red flags plus a five-step due-diligence checklist (license lookup, peer review report, references, commission disclosure, engagement-letter scope) for vetting your own accountant.
Check Washing Is Back: How to Protect Your Small Business's Accounts Payable From Mail Theft Fraud
Check fraud losses hit roughly $21 billion in 2023 and mail-receptacle theft rose 139% between FY2019 and FY2023. This guide covers the accounts-payable controls that actually stop check washing — positive pay, weekly reconciliation inside the UCC 4-406 window, gel ink, and separating check-writing from reconciliation.
Scrap Metal Recycling Center Bookkeeping: Cash Purchases, Seller IDs, and Form 8300 Compliance
Forty-five states require scrap yards to keep seller-ID records, cash caps run as low as $30 (Washington), and IRS Form 8300 is due within 15 days on cash over $10,000. A practical guide to building a purchase ledger that survives police, state regulator, and IRS scrutiny.
Why Regulation E Won't Save Your Business From Wire Fraud: UCC Article 4A Liability Explained
Business wire transfers are governed by UCC Article 4A, not Regulation E, meaning a company can be held liable for a fraudulent wire if its bank's security procedure was commercially reasonable, even though 86% of the FBI's $3.05 billion in 2025 BEC losses moved via wire or ACH.
The IRS Is Overhauling Form 990: What Nonprofits Need to Know About Grants and Fiscal Sponsorship
Treasury and the IRS are restructuring Form 990 to require source-by-source government grant reporting and project-by-project fiscal sponsorship disclosure, aimed at detecting fraud in the tax-exempt sector.
OSHA Form 300, 300A, and 301 Injury and Illness Recordkeeping in 2026: The Complete Compliance Playbook for Small and Mid-Size Employers
A 2026 compliance guide to OSHA's Form 300, 300A, and 301 injury and illness recordkeeping under 29 CFR Part 1904 — who must record, the four-step recordability test, electronic Injury Tracking Application submission for Appendix B high-hazard establishments with 100 or more employees, severe-injury reporting timelines under § 1904.39, state-plan deltas, and how to build a program that survives an OSHA audit.