#fraud-prevention
Proactive strategies and controls to prevent financial fraud in your business
Manual invoice entry costs about $12.88 per invoice and takes 17 days from receipt to payment, while best-in-class automated AP teams process the same invoice for under $3 in about 3 days. Here is what QuickBooks Bill Pay's AI email ingestion extracts, where it still fails on messy documents, duplicates, and invoice fraud, and a five-step rollout that keeps a human on approvals.
The SEC pays whistleblowers 10–30% of sanctions collected above $1 million, and received a record 53,753 tips in FY2025. Here is how the program works, why private companies are in scope, what Rule 21F-17 forbids in your NDAs, and the five internal-control steps that keep a concern from becoming an enforcement action.
An IRS Identity Protection PIN is a free six-digit code that blocks anyone from e-filing a federal return with your Social Security number. Here is who can get one, the three ways to request it, how it works for spouses and dependents, and the errors that cause rejections every filing season.
A step-by-step monthly routine for comparing a vendor's statement against your payables ledger — about 15 minutes per key vendor — to catch duplicate payments, unapplied credits, and invoices your books never recorded, plus the five discrepancies that recur and how to resolve each.
CMS froze new DMEPOS Medicare enrollment from February 27 to August 27, 2026, barred 11 suppliers tied to $3.4 billion in suspected fraudulent billing, and suspended $5.7 billion in Medicare payments during 2025. Here is what actually changed for legitimate medical supply businesses and the seven billing and bookkeeping controls that keep claims paid and supplier numbers intact.
A ghost preparer completes your return for pay but refuses to sign it or enter a PTIN, leaving you legally liable for every inflated deduction on it. Here are the seven red flags, how to verify credentials against the IRS Directory of Federal Tax Return Preparers, and which forms to file if you have already been burned.
Private companies mail new LLCs and corporations official-looking notices charging $110 for $10 state filings, $125 for meeting minutes no state requires, and $89 for labor law posters the government gives away free. A 60-second checklist separates real government notices from solicitations, with steps to reverse a payment you already made.
Banks tied roughly $27 billion in suspicious activity to elder financial exploitation in the year ending June 2023, per FinCEN. A practical guide for business owners — the five scams draining parents' accounts, the warning signs to watch in their finances, how to get read-only visibility without starting a family fight, and the bookkeeping rules that protect you if you end up holding the power of attorney.
How to keep auditable books for a jukebox, claw machine, and pool table route — booking gross revenue on venue splits, meter-to-cash collection controls, MACRS depreciation with Section 179 ordering, claw-machine prize inventory, and the state sales tax and per-machine license rules operators most often miss.
Malware disguised as popular AI tools hit small and mid-sized businesses more than 33,300 times in the first four months of 2026, nearly five times the 2025 count. Learn the five disguises most likely to reach your team, what one bad download costs, a shareable download-safety checklist, and a 15-minute software-approval routine that stops most fake installers.
Fuel theft and misallocation drain an estimated 5–15% of fleet fuel spend. This guide explains how fleet fuel cards from WEX, Fuelman, Ramp and others stop personal fill-ups with five controls — unique driver PINs, fuel-only product locks, dollar and time-of-day limits, mandatory odometer entry, and exception alerts — plus what the cards cost in fees versus rebates, when a cash-back business card is the better choice, and how card statements substantiate vehicle deductions under the standard mileage or actual-expense method.
A lockbox sends customer checks to a bank-run P.O. box where staff scan and deposit them the same day and return a remittance data file; remote deposit capture lets you scan checks at your own desk under the Check 21 Act. This guide compares the two for small businesses by check volume, customer geography and cost (setup, monthly and per-item lockbox fees versus a $5 to $40 per month scanner plan), and covers same-day posting to receivables, original-check retention, deposit cutoffs and positive pay.
