There is No 'I' in Team: 72% of Companies Report Rise in Back Office Fraud

This appears to be subordinate behavior apeing that of their superiors. Compensation below the executive level has been flat for an entire generation, executives are increasingly granted huge bonuses and salary rises while cutting benefits and jobs. Meanwhile, finance has moved almost entirely on-line while almost the entire work force has developed technological skills that make executing fraud a relatively easy matter.

One wonders if actually paying back office employees better while offering job security might be less expensive than enduring, uncovering and attempting to prevent fraud. Just askin'...

Barbara Liston reports in Huff Post via Reuters:

"Back office" fraud is draining corporate treasuries of billions of dollars a year, and the risk is growing as companies and employees struggle in the wake of the recession, finance managers and experts say.

Fraud schemes in company finance departments include the creation of fake vendors, billings for nonexistent goods, checks written to dummy companies and kickbacks from vendors.

"Most companies are weak in the area of back office and vendor fraud and that poses a significant threat to them," Michele Edwards, a fraud expert, told Reuters this week on the sidelines of a corporate finance professionals' conference.

Typically, it takes 18 months to detect a fraud, Edwards said.

In an informal poll of 622 finance managers during the May 8-12 Orlando conference, 72 percent reported seeing an increase in cases of back office fraud, Tom Bohn, president of the Institute of Financial Operations, said on Friday.

The institute, which groups several associations of corporate finance professionals from across the world, was launched this week during the Orlando conference.