The last thing anyone wants is fraudulent activity associated with your business. Whether it’s internal or external, fraud is a word you want to avoid at all costs. You may be thinking – how? How do you lower the risk of fraud in your business? There are a few things you can try and implement into your business conduct to do just that.
Client Rapport and Building Trust
A big step towards minimizing exposure to fraudulent activity is to know who you are in business with. This means clients, but it also means suppliers. It’s vital to undertake the proper checks and assurances before shaking hands with anyone. A contract is hard to get out of once signed on the dotted line. So, you can hopefully avoid anything untoward by really getting to know your prospective business associates.
Get to Know Your Finances
The more you know, the more protected your business will be. As the person in charge, you have a responsibility to get to know every inch of your incomings and outgoings. Your records have to be airtight with no room for dispute. Everything has to be done by the book.
But you know all this. If you are struggling with any aspect of your business’ finance, it is worth asking for help before you expose yourself to potential risk and harm through fraud.
Trust Your Employees
Get to know the people that work for you. It is a sad fact that certain types of fraud that expose businesses to harm and closure come from within the employee pool.
That’s not to say that you can avoid this from ever happening because that would be unrealistic with nothing to back it up. But you can build a professional rapport with your employees in a not dissimilar way that you would with your clients and suppliers. All of these people are a part of your potential success rates.
Account Verification
Account verification is a tried and tested way of avoiding fraud upfront. If you use it, you will essentially have peace of mind that any financial account that you do business with is legit and registered to a valid person and or company.
Get instant account verification through services such as Envestnet | Yodlee. These types of services can provide you with the necessary validation that the people you’re in business with are who they say they are.
Accounts are run through verification processes that are more or less instant and completely protected against fraud. A significant amount of fraudulent activity can be detected and avoided when you use a platform such as this.
There’s no silver bullet when it comes to avoiding fraud exposure. However, there are things you can do and steps to take to protect yourself and your business. Fraud can shut down a business for good and cause irreparable damage. It’s time to avoid it at all costs by doing some research and taking preventative measures.
