Fraud Awareness Week Casts Spotlight on White Collar Crime

InformationActive Inc. is participating in International Fraud Awareness Week, Nov. 11-17, 2012, promoting anti-fraud education. Businesses lose an estimated 5% of their revenues to fraud, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.
 
Nov. 12, 2012 - PRLog -- As an official supporter of the movement (also known as “Fraud Week”), InformationActive Inc. joins hundreds of organizations who have partnered with the ACFE, the world's largest anti-fraud organization and premier provider of anti-fraud training and education, in a commitment to proactively fight fraud and help safeguard business and investments from this growing problem.

During Fraud Week, InformationActive will publish a series of recommendations for organizations who want to learn more about using technology to prevent and detect fraud in today’s digital workplace. 99.7 per cent of businesses reported using electronic spreadsheets, according to a 2009 Deloitte survey, with 70 per cent of respondents claiming "heavy" reliance on spreadsheets to support critical portions of their businesses. Yet, only 42 per cent of companies paid attention to spreadsheets as part of overall risk reporting and assessment. Organizations need to understand what kind of information is held in such mission-critical spreadsheets and perform the quality assurance, and analysis, necessary to ensure the data is accurate and appropriately used.

According to John West, founder and CEO of InformationActive, “research from the ACFE (http://www.acfe.com/RTTN) confirms that organizations must take control of fraud detection internally. Only 3% of fraud cases are uncovered by external auditors. The vast majority, according to ACFE, comes from employee tips, internal audits and management reviews. With the vast majority of financial records now in digital format, fraud examiners need simple, high performance tools that can sift through enormous amounts of data quickly and accurately. Physical printouts of evidence are insufficient for fraud and audit testing in today’s digital workplace. We have designed our flagship product, ActiveData for Excel, to let auditors and examiners quickly and effectively test evidence, delivering reports to substantiate the validity of fraud examination activities”.

ACFE President and CEO James D. Ratley, CFE, said that the support of organizations around the world helps make Fraud Week an effective tool in raising anti-fraud awareness.

“While fraud prevention and detection is a year-round endeavor, International Fraud Awareness Week provides a great opportunity to spotlight this serious problem and stress the importance of anti-fraud training and education,” Ratley said. “Businesses and organizations who are involved in this campaign show an understanding that spreading awareness is key in combating the worldwide fraud threat.

“This marks the fifth year since Fraud Week became an international movement and, once again, we want to say ‘thank you’ to all of the Fraud Awareness Week supporters for making it a reality,” Ratley said.

In its 2012 Report to the Nations on Occupational Fraud & Abuse, the ACFE found that:

·         Fraud schemes are extremely costly. The median loss caused by the occupational fraud cases in the ACFE study was $140,000. More than one-fifth of the frauds involved losses of at least $1 million.

·         Schemes can continue for months or even years before they are detected. The frauds in the study lasted a median of 18 months before being caught.

·         Occupational fraud is a global problem. Though some findings differ slightly from region to region, most of the trends in fraud schemes, perpetrator characteristics and anti-fraud controls are similar regardless of where the fraud occurred.

·         Small businesses are especially vulnerable to occupational fraud. These organizations are typically lacking in anti-fraud controls compared to their larger counterparts, which makes them particularly vulnerable to fraud.

·         Tips are key in detecting fraud. Occupational frauds are much more likely to be detected by tip than by any other means. This finding reinforces the need for promoting awareness to foster an informed workforce.

For more information about increasing awareness and reducing the risk of fraud during International Fraud Awareness Week, visit www.FraudWeek.com.

The 2012 Report to the Nations is available for download online at the ACFE’s web site: ACFE.com/RTTN (http://www.acfe.com/RTTN).  The Report is in PDF format.

About InformationActive Inc.

InformationActive Inc. http://www.informationactive.com was founded in 2003 with the mission of delivering data analytics directly into the Microsoft Office® platform. The flagship product, ActiveData for Excel®, is used by tens of thousands of users in over 4000 organizations, in 70 countries. Clients include global 2000 corporations, audit firms, and public sector institutions. InformationActive is certified by the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) to offer CPE credits. ActiveData for Excel is endorsed and resold by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. InformationActive Inc. is a privately held firm, headquartered in Ottawa, Canada. Microsoft Excel® is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

About the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners
The ACFE is the world's largest anti-fraud organization and premier provider of anti-fraud training and education. Together with nearly 65,000 members in over 150 countries, the ACFE is reducing the incidence of fraud and providing the training and resources to fight fraud more effectively. For more information about the ACFE, visit www.ACFE.com.

PR Contacts:

ACFE: Scott Patterson, (512) 478-9000, ext. 156

E-mail: spatterson@acfe.com

InformationActive Inc.: Cheryl McKinnon (617) 955-9479

E-mail: Cheryl@candystrategies.com
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