Portrait of a fraudster

You probably don’t want to start hanging Wanted posters in the lunchroom, but there’s a distinct profile of the employee most likely to defraud your company.

How’s this for a super savings opportunity: 5% of your company’s annual revenues. That’s the huge financial toll fraud takes on businesses every year. Ferret out fraud before it hits and that’s significant cash kept in the company coffers.

And while you don’t like to think anyone in your company is capable of doing it, no one’s above suspicion.

But there are patterns to who’s more likely than another staffer to take what belongs to your company, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE).

Based on the data they’ve collected, here’s a profile of the perpetrator of the most common instances of fraud, which burn companies for an average of $78,000 per incident:

Wanted —

• Male, non-supervisory, employee
• Aged 41-50
• Bachelor’s degree
• With the company more than 10 years
• Works in Accounting

The picture’s a little different when you’re talking about the most expensive frauds that can be inflicted upon your company from the inside. The average loss in those cases is a whopping $218,000. That profile:

Wanted —

• Male, manager
• With the company more than 10 years
• Post-graduate degree
• Aged 51-60
• Involved with Purchasing

The more of these characteristics a given person has, the more they’ve cost your peers in fraud-related losses. And the more you’ll want the proper checks and balances in place to prevent it any way you can.