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Security

Protect your financial data with security best practices and tools

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15 min read

When Your EIN Gets Stolen: A Small Business Guide to IRS Letters 5263C, 6042C, and Business Identity Theft

IRS Letter 6042C verifies a specific business return; Letter 5263C verifies the entity itself on file from Form SS-4, and both carry a 30-day response window that, if missed, stalls your returns, refunds, and overpayment applications. This guide explains how thieves obtain an EIN, the tax and non-tax red flags that signal fraud, exactly what to fax back in each case, when Form 8822-B is required within 60 days of a responsible-party change, and a monthly-quarterly-annual monitoring routine that catches misuse early.

Mike Thrift

small-businesstax-compliancesecurity
10 min read

Anyone Can File a Fake UCC Lien Against Your Business. Rhode Island's SB 3212 Just Changed the Rules.

Rhode Island's SB 3212, signed in June 2026, lets business owners remove fraudulent UCC filings through an administrative complaint, authorizes the Department of State to refuse suspicious filings, and requires misleading "annual report" solicitation letters to disclose that they are advertisements. The same defenses — quarterly UCC searches, entity-record checks, and fee verification — work in every state.

Mike Thrift

fraud-preventionbusinesslegal
6 min read

Expensify's MCP Server: What Connecting an AI Assistant to Your Books Actually Means

Expensify launched an MCP server on June 8, 2026, letting Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor query live expense data via OAuth 2.1. Here is what Model Context Protocol means for small business books, which access questions to check before connecting — read-only vs. write, revocability, data retention — and why clean records matter more in the AI era.

Mike Thrift

aiexpense-managementaccounting-software
7 min read

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.

Mike Thrift

fraud-detectionfraud-preventionsmall-business
8 min read

Cyber Insurance for Small Businesses in 2026: What It Costs, What It Covers, and Where Claims Get Denied

Small business cyber insurance runs roughly $400–$1,600 a year for a $1 million limit, while the average breach recovery costs $120,000 and downtime $53,000 an hour. A guide to first-party vs. third-party coverage, 2026 premium drivers, and the social-engineering sublimits and MFA requirements that most often sink claims.

Mike Thrift

insurancebusiness-insurancesmall-business
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