Accounts Payable Fraud - Detecting and Preventing AP Fraud

This webinar will guide you through the critical steps in ensuring strong controls for the accounts payable (AP) function and provide practical 'how to' guidance for minimizing your organization’s exposure to AP fraudsters.

Why Should You Attend:

According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, businesses suffer an average of $155,000 every time an insider commits fraud. More disturbing: Billing schemes are by far the most common fraud schemes threatening organizations, making up nearly one-third of the total. Adding to the problem, check fraud is rising at a rate of 25% per year and criminals are coming up with new high-tech ways of hijacking corporate ACH (Automated Clearing House) accounts.

In this session, participants will learn how to identify the different varieties of AP-related fraud schemes damaging organizations of all kinds, including small businesses and non-profits. You will learn to determine how shrewd fraudsters abuse the AP process to embezzle funds for years before being detected and how to shorten the time before discovery. This training will enable you to quickly recognize the red flags of AP fraud in your operations and financial records and will assist in providing cost-effective anti-fraud controls to protect against the growing army of fraudsters both inside and outside your organizations.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will learn how to
• Conduct a quick and cost-effective Fraud Risk Assessment for client AP operations.
• Implement effective AP fraud detection techniques and build audit practices to detect red flags of AP fraud.
• Implement best-practice Anti-Fraud Control strategies for AP.
• Advise management on fraud risk mitigation through transaction monitoring, technology/information technology tools and low-cost internal controls.
• Recommend better anti-fraud management structure (Board of Directors/Executive Management, Line Management, Compliance, General Counsel, etc.)

Areas Covered in the Webinar:

• INTRODUCTION
• Statistical overview of the fraud problem
• Who commits fraud
• Why employees commit fraud (The Fraud Triangle)
• Lessons from fraudsters

COMMON TYPES OF AP FRAUD TODAY

• Vendor/billing fraud schemes
• Check fraud and tampering
• ACH fraud
• Fraudulent AP financial reporting
• Kickbacks/bribery
• Conflicts of interest
• P-Card fraud

RED FLAGS OF AP FRAUD

• Conducting a Fraud Risk Assessment and Recognizing the Red Flags of Internal Fraud
• The Fraud Risk Mitigation Cycle
• Implementing an organization-wide system for detecting, preventing and investigating fraud

FRAUD DETECTION

• How Frauds Are Most Often Detected
• Additional General Detection Methods
• Data Mining/Analytics for fraud detection
• Examples of Fraud Audit Techniques at Work
• ANTI-FRAUD CONTROLS FOR AP
• Internal Controls and Other Fraud Prevention Measures:
• Who Should Manage Anti Fraud Activities for AP
• Internal Controls: Do's and Don'ts
• General controls: Segregation of Duties, Delegation of Authority, Background Investigation
• Specific AP Operations-Level Controls.

Who Will Benefit:

• Internal and external audit professionals
• Accounting and audit practitioners
• AP managers
• Senior financial management seeking to reduce their vulnerability to costly frauds
• Procurement and payables specialists
• Compliance and ethics managers
• CFO's/senior financial managers
• Security personnel