Time Fraud and Other Potential Sources of Loss
Small businesses must scrimp and scrounge for every dollar they can get until they learn how to scale. That’s what makes small losses so devastating. Everytime HR fails to recognize problems like time clock fraud or internal theft, your business suffers for it. Here are the tell tale signs that something is wrong, so you can step in to curb the behavior.
Time Fraud
Time fraud refers to employees who defraud time clocks with the intention of gaining a profit. The most common example is an employee who shows up for work in the morning, but doesn’t stay. These employees will sometimes use complicated buddy systems to ensure everyone is clocked in and out properly. Biometric time clocks can be used to combat this problem, and are quite effective. These clocks recognize an employee based on his biometric characteristics, like hand prints or facial features. This technology was once expensive and far behind, but today’s clocks are more affordable and can scan up to 60 points on a person’s face.
Inventory Loss
Internal theft can be a huge problem, especially for warehouses, but inventory loss comes in all forms. It might take the form of damaged goods, which show up to the warehouse already broken. Theft from customers is an additional problem to worry about, so tight security is crucial to a business maintaining its stock. You should take detailed numbers of your supplies, and be sure that you diligently check your sales against your available stock to catch losses before they become a problem.
Administrative Errors
Errors with paperwork are some of the most common, and costly, in business. You’ll often find fledgling companies forgetting things like payroll deductions. Late tax payments are another source for revenue loss, especially if the bill is higher than anticipated. It’s best to keep a dedicated accountant on staff who can check things like the employee time clock, payroll taxes and sales numbers to stay abreast of the books.
Final Thoughts
Retail businesses aren’t the only ones who suffer loss from theft. A corporate sales company can still suffer losses in office supplies or man hours. Time clock fraud is a real phenomenon, and you would be remiss to ignore it. Audit your company regularly so that these potential sources for loss do not drastically impact your bottom line.
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Allied Time is a time clock vendor that sells the acroprint time recorder. Cut down on time fraud, find affordable time clocks and have them delivered when you order from Allied Time.