How much is invoice fraud affecting your business?

Invoice fraud is, unfortunately, becoming more common. Businesses are estimated to lose almost £300,000 every year to this method of fraud.

One in five finance professionals say they could not estimate the cost that invoice fraud is causing them.

Invoice fraud involves a fraudster contacting your company and alleging that payment details have changed and providing different ones in an attempt to be added to the invoice list.

But who is responsible for preventing or spotting this?

It might be hard for you to determine whether this issue should be addressed by your IT or finance functions.

How can you or your employees prevent this?

-        Check and double-check details of new payments with a verbal conversation rather than relying on an email from someone who is claiming to be a part of a company.

-        Try to limit the amount of information about suppliers or clients from your website as this can aid fraudsters in imitating these companies.

-        Set up single points of contact with certain clients so you are aware who should be contacting you regularly.

-        Remain vigilant when you are working remotely as it can be more difficult to get verbal confirmations while working from home.

-        Ensure that all staff are trained efficiently when it comes to processing payments and the necessary details.

By implementing these practices and being more aware of invoice fraud, you can help to decrease the amount of money you would otherwise be losing each year.

For advice on this, contact us today.