Fraud is a problem that has affected the running of many activities in both the private and public service sectors. For instance, the NHS loses £1.25 billion in every financial year (Griffith, 2018). When funds appropriated for running activities within an organization are misused or lost through fraud, there is a large possibility of poor service delivery to the customers. According to Said, Allam, Ramli & Rafidi, 2017,) three laments result in the practice of fraud, including pressure, opportunity, and rationalization.
However, with ethical values can be used to mitigate these occurrences in a working environment. When undertaking investigations into a fraud case, fraud auditors and financial auditors look for various elements and patterns that show the organization’s misappropriation.
Yekini, Ohalehi, Oguchi, & Abiola (2018) observe that an examination of employees’ behaviors, for example, those employees who steal items form in an organization or can give an auditor the motives behind the fraud. By establishing a behavioral pattern of a number of employees in an organization, a fraud auditor can gather evidence to support his case. In the case presented by Felicia Riney. (2017) some of the employees were committing fraud through the falsification of documents as well as misappropriating time. For instance, Linda did not follow the company’s set standard time and had been deceiving the company. Through these acts, the company suffers a lot of costs, and its revenue and profitability go down too. As indicated in the case, one of the fraudulent employees, Linda, receives an extra hour pay of overtime, which she has not worked for.
For the fraud auditor to present this case before a court of law, he should prove beyond any reasonable doubt that these misappropriations happened (FindLaw’s Team, 2019). According to FindLaw’s steam (2019), fraud falls under criminal law. There is only a slight difference in who undertakes the filing of the case. A company that is a victim of fraud is liable to file for a lawsuit. A person found capable of deception can be charged in both criminal prosecutions as well as in a civil suit. Therefore, through the analysis of the case being tackled, the employees found benefiting from the misappropriation of time can be persecuted for both charges if the company decides to take through the charges.
In establishing the occurrence of fraud, especially in our case, the fraud auditor must flag off specific unfamiliar patterns and behaviors within the employees. For instance, in the case of Felicia Riney, the employees were established to use an inevitable misappropriation of time to earn more money from the company. Therefore, the suitor is able to obtain tangible evidence to prove that the empires were not making this money rightfully. One of the pieces of evidence is the schedule of the employees. While there was a standard company time schedule for the working days, some of the employees choose to adopt their own work schedule. Through these manipulations of work schedule, the employees managed to add an extra 260 hours in their yearly calendar, which they did not work for.
Another evidence that the fraud auditor can deliver to the court is the payrolls of these employees. The payrolls will reflect the number of hours paid against the real working time when the timesheet fraud adjustment sari is done. It is easy to compare the output or the work load that was recorded within the period. The discrepancies that get recorded showing excessive overtime as obtained from employees log in to their systems can tell who does not follow the companies set standard schedule. When a company sets a program, it should be used by all employees unless there is the authorization of overtime by a managerial person.
In calculating the fraud amount that the company was paying to Linda and his co-accused, the fraud auditor records five hours every week, which adds to 260 hours per year. Linda and the other fraudulent employee would take home $2600 in a year at the rate of $ 10 per hour. That money fraudulently paid and thus acts as an evidence that they have benefited from the company for time they did not work for. When the court is provided with such evidence that shows the employees benefited from the company for time they did not work for, the court will not have any other choice than to charge these employees with a civil charge or criminal prosecution depending on the charges pressed by the organization.
Another evidence that could be used by the fraud auditor would be us of witnesses. When a certain trend is established by an employee to earn extra income from a company, they tend to recruit others into the scheme. Therefore, there will always be witnesses who can testify to it as they respect the company ethic and policies. These employees know that indulging in such is a crime but then excuse themselves and go on their business as stipulated in the companies’ schedule. Employees who refuse to play into these grant schemes can be called into a court’s chambers to testify.
In this case, the evidence highlighted is more factual, as can be shown from payroll and other payment receipts. The court can admit this evidence for the prosecution of the case. The court allows for financial records and any other records, including digital records like those showing the employees’ login time and the falsification of overtime. The fraud auditor also has the liberty to call upon witnesses who agree to testify against the colleagues in the case.
It is up to the persecutors to prove beyond doubt that the fraud occurred. Therefore, if the fraud auditor can prove who, when, and how the fraud happened, they can be assured that it would be a successful fraud detection process. The evidence’s success is what will determine the recovery of an organizational fiancé and return it to its previous position. In the case presented, the auditor can layout the number of hours that the employees were adding to their payroll and the amount of money paid to them in a year. Therefore, the company’s financial loss was making for a year, including the taxes, is clear and openly shown. Thus, it would only in the interest of justice to remedy the company’s financial loss. The evidence is overwhelming as shown, and a Parten has been established how it happened. The timing has also even identified to which differs from the company standards.