Skimming and Lapping, Explained: How Cash Goes Missing Before — and After — It Hits Your Books
Skimming steals cash before it is recorded; lapping hides it by misapplying later payments. A proof of cash and split duties catch both.
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Fraud Detection
Identify and prevent financial fraud with monitoring and controls
Dext's AI Assist Learns How You Code Receipts — Then Does It for You: A Small Business Owner's Guide to Agentic Bookkeeping
Dext AI Assist learns how you code receipts and applies your judgment automatically — but two-thirds of CFOs still demand human review. Adopt it safely.
Benford's Law: The First-Digit Test That Catches Fake Invoices in Your Books
About 30% of real accounting amounts start with the digit 1 — fabricated invoices rarely do. Here's how to run a Benford first-digit test in a spreadsheet.
Counterfeit Bills at the Register: Train Your Cashiers to Catch Fakes Before They Cost You
Counterfeits you accept are your loss — no reimbursement. Train cashiers on feel-look-tilt checks, UV verification, and Secret Service Form 1604 reporting.
The Beneish M-Score: How to Spot Earnings Manipulation Before You Lend, Invest, or Acquire
The Beneish M-Score combines eight financial-statement ratios into one score that flags likely earnings manipulators above −1.78; here is what each variable catches and how to use it in lending and acquisition due diligence.
Bank Reconciliation Checklist: How to Match Your Books to Your Bank Statement Every Month
A 9-step monthly bank reconciliation checklist that matches your book balance to the bank statement, separates timing differences from journal entries, and uses the divisible-by-9 rule to catch transposition errors in 30 to 60 minutes.
Cargo Theft Surged 60% to $725 Million: What Small Carriers Need to Know About Tighter Underwriting and Rising Premiums in 2026
Cargo theft losses hit $725 million in 2025, up 60%, with average theft at $273,990. Small carriers face 18 percent cargo premium hikes, theft sublimits, and stricter underwriting on high-risk lanes—learn what thieves target, where risk moved, and the bookkeeping that keeps coverage intact.
AI-Generated Receipts Are Now Most of Expense Fraud: How to Protect Your Small Business
AI-generated fake receipts rose from 0% to 70.8% of detected expense fraud in fourteen months, averaging $101 per claim, and small businesses can counter it by matching receipts to actual transaction records instead of judging document appearance.
Employee Dishonesty Insurance and Fidelity Bonds: What They Cover and What They Don't
A fidelity bond (employee dishonesty insurance) covers employee theft, forged checks, and payroll fraud that general liability and property policies exclude, and it's legally required for anyone handling a 401(k) plan's assets under ERISA.
Nacha's 2026 ACH Fraud Monitoring Rule: What Every Business Must Do
Nacha's Phase 2 ACH fraud monitoring rule took effect June 19, 2026, requiring nearly every business that originates ACH payments to run a documented, risk-based fraud monitoring process covering account ownership verification, change monitoring, anomaly detection, and audit trails.
AI-Powered Fraud Detection for Small Businesses: Real-Time Auditing Without a Big-Four Budget
Business email compromise cost U.S. companies over $3 billion in 2025, averaging $137,000 per incident — and 45% of small businesses hit by BEC close within six months. AI-driven continuous auditing now starts around $20–$70/month; here's how anomaly detection, vendor account validation, and free controls like payment-change callbacks cut the risk without an enterprise fraud stack.
Check Fraud Is Still the #1 Payment Threat in 2026 — Here's What to Do About It
The 2026 AFP Payments Fraud Survey found 76% of U.S. organizations faced payment fraud in 2025, with paper checks the top target at 58% — ahead of ACH debits (30%) and wires (25%). Here's a practical small-business defense checklist, from Positive Pay and ACH filters to callback verification and weekly reconciliation.