Page 687 - ACFE Fraud Reports 2009_2020

Anti-Fraud Controls at FIG. 21 What anti-fraud controls are most common?

Victim Organizations
External audit of financial statements
Proactive anti-fraud controls play a key 83%
role in an organization’s fight against
fraud. While the presence of these Code of conduct
mechanisms alone does not ensure that 81%
all fraud will be prevented, manage- Internal audit department
ment’s commitment to and investment 74%
in targeted prevention and detection Management certification of financial statements
measures send a clear message to em- 73%
ployees, vendors, customers, and others External audit of internal controls over financial reporting
about the organization’s anti-fraud 68%
stance.
Management review
We asked survey respondents which of 65%
18 common anti-fraud controls the victim Hotline
organization had in place at the time of 64%
the fraud. Figure 21 shows that inde- Independent audit committee
pendent external audits of the organiza- 62%
tion’s financial statements are the most
common of the controls examined in our Anti-fraud policy
study; 83% of the victim organizations 56%
had their financial statements audited Employee support programs
by an outside auditor. While we classify 55%
such audits as an anti-fraud control for Fraud training for employees
purposes of our study, it is important to 55%
note that this mechanism is not primarily Fraud training for managers/executives
designed to detect or prevent all frauds. 55%
As noted in Figure 9 on page 19, only 4%
of the frauds in our study were uncov- Dedicated fraud department, function, or team
ered through an external audit. 44%
Formal fraud risk assessments
Other common anti-fraud controls 41%
include a code of conduct (present in Surprise audits
81% of victim organizations), an internal 38%
audit department (74%), and manage-
ment’s certification of the financial Proactive data monitoring/analysis
statements (73%). 38%
Job rotation/mandatory vacation
23%

Rewards for whistleblowers
13%

Victim Organizations Report to the Nations 31