The Steps to Take if Money Goes Missing from Your Business

Employee theft is a big concern for business owners, and it’s a difficult subject to approach when it happens. Here are the essential steps to take.

Talk to Staff

You shouldn’t jump to hasty conclusions when you find that money is missing from your business. The first thing to do is clarify the situation. So, go through the accounts and double check your finding. If you’re 100% that money has gone missing, you can start to think about talking to your employees.

When you talk to staff members, you should be honest about the situation and talk to them as a group. Tell them that if anyone knows anything, they can come to you and discuss it. Wait to see if anyone comes forward and talks to you about what they know. If no one comes forward, you’ll have to take further action.

Contact an Investigator

An internal investigation should be the next step to take. You can’t just let the issue drop because stealing from an employer is a serious offense, and it can’t be ignored. But calling the police at this stage isn’t the correct move to make. Carrying out an internal investigation will protect the company’s reputation and protect the relationships between employees and employers.

Private investigators will be in the best position to get to the bottom of any problems that arise. They have the skills and experience of dealing with these situations better than anyone else. What the investigator find will dictate what your next move will be.

Call the Police

When you have all the evidence in front of you gathered by the private investigator, you can take further action. If you have specific evidence against an employee that shows they are the likely thief responsible for the loss of money, you should call the police. They’ll be able to review the evidence and see if a charge can be brought against the individual.

On the other hand, if the evidence isn’t conclusive, and it doesn’t show that one person is the likely thief, calling the police might not be best. You should carry out more investigations and give people another chance to come forward. If no further progress is made, getting the police involved will be the only option left available to you.

Put New Protections in Place

Once the issue has been resolved, and the case is in the hands of the police, you should try to make sure it doesn’t happen again. You should make it as difficult as possible for people to steal from you. There are lots of ways in which you can do this. Start by making sure that two people work on the accounts rather than one. This makes theft less likely.

You should also take control of the accounting structure. Separating jobs in the accounts departments will help as well. This means having different people doing different jobs, rotating them regularly. This makes it almost impossible to manipulate financial data and steal cash.

These simple steps will help your business take control of the situation when money goes missing and make sure it doesn’t happen again.