ACFE Issues Study on Fraud in the Workplace

The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners has released their 2006 Report to the Nation on occupational fraud and abuse.

The report takes into account actual cases conducted by members of their organization over the past two years. In about 25 percent of the cases studies - the loss was $1,000,000.00, or greater.

Another finding from the report is that small businesses seem to suffer "disproportionate fraud losses," when compared to larger organizations.

An interesting aspect to this report is that government and non-profit organizations were studied, also. There certainly has been a lot in the news about fraud in these sectors.

The report came to the conclusion that most businesses lose 5% of their revenue to fraud and cites that if this were translated to the U.S. gross domestic product it could mean we lose $652 billion to fraud every year.

Also cited in the report were controls by industry and their effectiveness. The controls measures were external audit, internal audit, fraud training, surprise audits and the use of fraud hotlines.

The report admits it's hard to put a dollar amount on fraud, because if it's not detected, it's normally not "advertised." Nonetheless, the report seems to be extremely factual and I've never seen anyone, who was able to put an exact dollar amount on fraud losses, or their causes.

Even when investigated thoroughly - there are "unknowns" and the best anyone can do is try to make an honest deduction.

If you would like to view the full report, it can be found on their website, here.