Business Fraud Prevention Checklist
In the digital age, fraudulent activities are more common, and often more severe, than they have ever been. It’s imperative your business takes preventative measures to protect your finances and sensitive information. The following best practices can help you do that.
Establish internal controls and operations
A strong fraud prevention strategy starts with creating and maintaining strong internal systems.
Create formal policies and procedures
- Determine how payment instructions are verified internally.
- Create a process for changing a vendor’s address and/or banking information to ensure accurate invoicing.
- Verify emailed payment information directly with the payee—for example, over the phone.
Understand unauthorized transaction recovery timeframes
- 48 hours for unauthorized ACH debits.
- 24 hours for suspicious or fraudulent checks.
Teach your employees to fight fraud
- Follow established policies and procedures.
- Safely conduct business online by keeping systems up to date, utilizing antivirus software and following proper web-browsing habits.
- Protect user data by setting strong passwords and never leaving workstations unattended.
- Recognize fraud attempts.
Manage system access
- Limit access to a need-to-know basis.
- Remove access when an employee leaves the company.
- Conduct daily and monthly reconciliations, as well as regular account audits.
Segregate duties
- Have separate accounts payable and accounts receivable departments.
- Require different individuals to process collections, disbursements and reconciliations.
- Have employees work on different stations with different login credentials.
Stay vigilant
- For ACH, always have dual approval for initiation and reconcile daily.
- For wire transfers, utilize dual authorization and be wary of high amounts, international requests and new or non-approved partners.
- For checks, preapprove high amounts before issuance, use a secure check stock and limit access to check stock.
Take advantage of external services
Mountain America offers a variety of fraud prevention tools to help protect your business.
Monitor your accounts
- Monitor your accounts regularly using online and mobile banking.
- Have paper or electronic statements sent to multiple employees for review.
Set up account alerts
- Be notified of suspicious activity.
- Receive notifications about balance thresholds, processed payments and cleared transactions.
Sign up for Positive Pay
- With Check Positive Pay, we’ll verify your checks and notify you if any records do not match.
- ACH Positive Pay allows you to whitelist approved companies, and we’ll let you know if an unapproved company debits your account.
To learn more about Mountain America’s fraud prevention services, including Positive Pay, meet with a business advisor today—visit your nearest Mountain America branch or call 1-888-845-1850.
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