Fraud Prevention Center

A treasury best practice to minimize fraud is segregating payment and transaction activities across multiple accounts. By designating separate bank accounts for payments to vendors and receipts from customers, for example, you avoid disruption to your revenue stream in the event your payments account is compromised. Segregation also helps limit accounts to discrete company functions, allowing you to limit the number of employees with access to any one account, and making suspicious transactions easier to identify.

Some best practices for account segregation include: 

• Segregate accounts by account type (payables and receivables).
• Segregate accounts by payment method (ACH, check, wire).
• Segregate accounts by purpose or function (payroll, operations).
• Set appropriate permissions or entitlements on accounts.

Account review and formal reconciliation can help streamline operations and reduce your exposure to errors and check fraud. Best practice recommends that you monitor and review accounts daily through either a manual process or an automated solution. At a minimum, monthly reconciliations are recommended to limit irregularities and ensure accounts are kept current.

The following are additional account best practices: 

• Move excess cash from operating accounts to investment accounts, minimizing the amount of cash subject to payments fraud.
• Use positive pay account services such as Fraud Control Services to secure check payments.
• Outsource check printing and institute proper check stock controls.
• Enable alerts of outgoing account transactions.