Who Do You Trust With Your Money?

Who Do You Trust With Your Money?

The right answer is nobody.

It is most important that you understand that.  Nobody who works for you can be trusted with your money 100%.  Given the right set of circumstances even your most trusted employees will steal from you.  So how do you keep the proper controls on your funds to make sure everything is in order?

 

  • The cash draw is the most obvious place to steal from and therefore one of the most commonly stolen from sources of cash.  If someone stole $50 a day from you for a whole year it would equal $18250.  Could your business come back from that kind of theft?  If you did catch them could you prove to your insurance company or the authorities that they were stealing?  By cashing out your draw and balancing it to your daily sales information you will know the first day that there is an issue.  By logging daily over/shorts and keeping them in line with employee records you can detect patterns of theft.  If Joey works every Wednesday and the draw is short $45 every Wednesday it becomes much clearer that you may have an issue.  Numbered draws are an ideal way to clearly see if there is a cash theft issue.  If each employee is assigned their own draw and each draw gets cashed out individually then it is certain if a particular employee is the issue.  Different point of sale systems can offer different options.  If you can’t afford a system that tracks employee draws then you can institute a system yourself pretty easily.  One employee per register, z out the register at the end of shift and pull the cash draw when you z it out. Start each new employee with their own change and repeat the procedure.
  • Inventory is also a very common theft opportunity.  Keeping theft of inventory to a minimum is easy.  Count it and have inventory control procedures.  If your cost is coming in higher than it should it is a sure tell that there is an inventory theft or waste issue and either way inventory counts will clear up your issue.
  • Payroll is another source of theft.  Reporting more time than actually worked and tampering with payroll taxes are the most common.  Being present before start of shift and being around at end of shift will help keep time keeping honest.  Using a payroll service is the easiest way to prevent payroll tax fraud.
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