If you are a small business owner and you think your place is safe because you know your 4 employees since years. Think again. Employee theft is sadly everywhere. We will show you below the 3 most common ways it happens. You can download a sample employee theft policy here.

1. If you own a small retail business, the easiest way for an unethical employee to steal from you is by canceling or “voiding out” the transaction on the register and pocketing the money. You may think you use a “theft-proof” point of sale (POS), but we can assure you, if an employee who spends the majority of his day behind the counter wants to steal, they will find a way to do it.
   One easy policy to implement is to make it mandatory to give a receipt to each customer and having a detailed customer-facing register screen that allows them to see everything that’s going on. Another option, less popular, is to have your business 100% cashless.
2. Having high-quality and secure video surveillance for your small business is crucial. It may cost you a few hundred to a few thousand dollars to set up at first, but you will offset the cost by reducing customers/employees’ theft of merchandise or cash. Make sure to cover all the entrances and exits to your business as well as any secure areas inside. You need to think ahead of the game and make sure that your system is as reliable and as secure as possible.
   One important duty that you will have will be to randomly check footage activity to get yourself familiar with your employee’s habits and behavior in your absence. If you see something, you will need to confront the employee and make it clear of the consequences immediately.
3. Carless or naive employees don’t want to hurt your business intentionally. They will randomly offer free or discounted items to friends and family or offering discounts to random customers thinking it will make them come back and helping the business. A good way to correct this behavior is by implementing recurring training and easy-to-understand sales procedures.

Some Facts:

• A large portion of retail theft comes in the form of employee theft.
  In the United States alone, employee theft is over $50 billion dollars per year.
• An average of 7% of all small business revenue is lost to employee theft or fraud each year.
• 3 out of 4 employees throughout their careers have stolen from an employer at least once.
• 1 out of every 3 small businesses has declared bankruptcy due to employee theft.
• On average, the fraud or theft committed by an employee is discovered after two years.

Small Business Activity Check (SBAC) provided by ACM Investigations LLC can help your small business fight against employee theft by providing a monthly undercover random visit to your location, doing a quality check in over 50 different areas, and providing you with a video recording of the encounter as well as giving you the knowledge and tools necessary to make your small business even better than it already is.

To learn more about our fraud investigation services, click here.

Small Business Activity Check (SBAC) provided by ACM Investigations LLC can help your small business fight against employee theft.