Page 163 - ACFE Fraud Reports 2009_2020

Billing Schemes Billing Schemes
Among the fraudulent disbursements, billing schemes
were the most common and were associated with the larg- Department Cases %
est losses. Over half of all billing schemes in our study Accounting 65 31.0%
were committed by accounting personnel or executive/up- Executive/Upper Management 54 25.7%
per management. Sales 16 7.6%
Purchasing 15 7.1%
Expense Reimbursement Schemes
Executives were also the most likely to commit expense Manufacturing & Production 11 5.2%
reimbursement fraud, followed by employees in account- Customer Service 10 4.8%
ing and sales. Presumably, sales employees would be most Finance 8 3.8%
likely to file fraudulent expense reports, whereas account- Information Technology 7 3.3%
ing staff, who are less likely to travel on company busi- Marketing/Public Relations 7 3.3%
ness, would tend to be involved on the other end of these Warehousing/Inventory
schemes by processing knowingly false expense reports for 5 2.4%
payment. Research & Development 4 1.9%
Human Resources 3 1.4%
Payroll Schemes Legal 3 1.4%
Not surprisingly, accounting personnel (which includes the Board of Directors 2 1.0%
payroll accounting department) were most often involved
in payroll fraud schemes. Approximately half of all payroll
frauds were attributed to accounting. However, payroll
frauds were also committed by employees in a number of Expense Reimbursement Schemes
other departments who claimed false overtime, conjured Department Cases %
up ghost employees, falsified leave reports, or otherwise at- Executive/Upper Management 53 34.4%
tempted to bilk their organizations’ payroll systems. Accounting 39 31.8%
Sales 22 14.3%
Customer Service 6 3.9%
Research & Development 4 2.6%
Payroll Schemes Board of Directors 4 2.6%
Department Cases % Finance 3 1.9%
Accounting 49 47.6% Marketing/Public Relations 3 1.9%
Executive/Upper Management 20 19.4% Legal 3 1.9%
Customer Service 10 9.7% Manufacturing & Production 2 1.3%
Sales 6 5.8% Human Resources 2 1.3%
Manufacturing & Production 4 3.9% Information Technology 1 0.6%
Research & Development 4 3.9% Purchasing 1 0.6%
Human Resources 3 2.9% Internal Audit 1 0.6%
Legal 3 2.9%
Warehousing/Inventory 1 1.0%
Finance 1 1.0%
Marketing/Public Relations 1 1.0%
Board of Directors 1 1.0%

ACFE Report to the Nation on Occupational Fraud & Abuse 1