2015 International Fraud Awareness Week

International Fraud Awareness Week (“Fraud Week”) is November 15 through 21, 2015.  Fraud Week is sponsored by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ (“ACFE”) and is dedicated to fraud awareness, detection and prevention.  Organizations can help control fraud by establishing and communicating a fraud policy, increasing the awareness of fraud within an organization and using anti-fraud measures such as establishing a fraud investigation team.  The basic objective of an organization’s fraud investigation team is to preserve the integrity of the organization and to mitigate losses due to fraud.

The ACFE’s latest report, Benchmarking Your In-House Fraud Investigation Team, provides benchmarking information for those within an organization who work as a part of an in-house team that performs fraud examinations and highlights industry best practices.  This report was based on statistics from ACFE members who work on internal investigation teams, including the team’s structure and performance. 

The ACFE found that the average number of fraud investigators per thousand employees is 5.1 across all industries.  However, when this data is broken down by industry, as shown below, it is interesting to note that religious, charitable or social services organizations and government and public administration entities have relatively high ratios of staff members assigned to investigate potential fraud when compared to other industries.  This highlights the significant level of fraud risk faced by these organizations and their efforts to mitigate that risk (note that industries with asterisks had fewer than 10 responses which makes their ratios less reliable). 

Average Number of Fraud Investigators by Industry

average-number-fraud-investigators-industry

Highlights from the ACFE’s Report, Benchmarking Your In-House Fraud Investigation Team

  • Investigation teams that implement formal performance evaluation metrics tend to see better outcomes.  The investigation teams that did not report any formal performance metrics also reported the lowest percentage of fraud losses recovered.
  • Internal fraud investigation teams report to a variety of oversight parties; however, the single-most common party to which investigation teams report is the head of internal audit.

The ACFE Benchmarking report can help support the effectiveness of an internal investigation team and highlight its success to management.  The report is available at www.ACFE.com/team/ and for more information on Fraud Week see www.fraudweek.com.  

Contact us to discuss fraud risk assessment and visit our Business Advisory webpage to learn more about other services that the Schneider Downs Business Advisors offer

You’ve heard our thoughts… We’d like to hear yours

The Schneider Downs Our Thoughts On blog exists to create a dialogue on issues that are important to organizations and individuals. While we enjoy sharing our ideas and insights, we’re especially interested in what you may have to say. If you have a question or a comment about this article – or any article from the Our Thoughts On blog – we hope you’ll share it with us. After all, a dialogue is an exchange of ideas, and we’d like to hear from you. Email us at [email protected].

Material discussed is meant for informational purposes only, and it is not to be construed as investment, tax, or legal advice. Please note that individual situations can vary. Therefore, this information should be relied upon when coordinated with individual professional advice.

© 2024 Schneider Downs. All rights-reserved. All content on this site is property of Schneider Downs unless otherwise noted and should not be used without written permission.

our thoughts on
Frauds of the Rich and the Famous: The Star-studded Saga of Jennifer Shah
Frauds of the Rich and Famous: The FTX Collapse and the Chrisleys
Frauds of the Rich and Famous: Billy McFarland and The Fyre Festival
Fraud Week 2023: Frauds of the Rich and the Famous
Fraudsters Might Have Stolen $200B in COVID-19 Aid
Tips to Minimize the Risk of Check Washing
Register to receive our weekly newsletter with our most recent columns and insights.
Have a question? Ask us!

We’d love to hear from you. Drop us a note, and we’ll respond to you as quickly as possible.

Ask us
contact us
Pittsburgh

This site uses cookies to ensure that we give you the best user experience. Cookies assist in navigation, analyzing traffic and in our marketing efforts as described in our Privacy Policy.

×