Payroll processing is an extremely high-risk niche to operate in, especially these days with all the technology available to photoshop, make a website, etc. So many people rush around trying to get things done, sometimes talking to a customer isn’t always a face to face interaction, making it very easy for companies to open themselves up to fraud. It is more common than some may think, affecting over 25% of businesses each year. During COVID-19, EVERYTHING is being made remote as much as possible in order to try and reduce the spread of illness. While this may be helping the health crisis, it is creating opportunities for companies to be vulnerable to fraud in and out of the office.
There are people out there looking to make a profit from this pandemic and GMS wants to help you protect yourself and your business from these vulnerabilities. Some types of payroll fraud can include:
- Employee Misclassification: yes, this is a type of fraud. Learn the difference of exempt and non-exempt employees
- Ghost Employees: someone with access to payroll inside the company creating fake employees or terminated employees and paying them.
- Buddy Punching: If the employee isn’t there, they shouldn’t be clocked in. Co-workers should not be signing in for other employees who aren’t there.
- Human Error: Unintentional, but it can lead to mistakes, causing more issues down the road
- Unworked Hours: This is the most common type of payroll fraud. Also known as, time theft.