Fraud in Charities – Stolen Assets

In a series of blogs for Charity Fraud Awareness Week, our Head of Charities and member of the Charity SORP Committee, Jenny Simpson, will give examples of frauds perpetuated against charities and what you can do to protect your charity.  Today she looks at a fraud involving stolen assets;

The circumstances surrounding the fraud

The IT manager of a charity was responsible for the purchase and installation of new PC’s.  The charity had a programme of rolling replacement of PC’s.  New equipment was delivered to the IT department, configured and then distributed out to the charity’s various offices. 

The IT manager stole a number of new PC’s from each delivery and sold them, pocketing the proceeds.

The fraud went unnoticed because no one realised that the age of equipment according to the fixed asset register did not correspond to the age of the equipment physically held by the charity.

What you can do to protect your charity

All charities should have a detailed fixed asset register showing all of the assets they own, and their location.  The register should be used to carry out periodic physical checks of the assets by agreeing assets on hand to the register and assets per the register to the actual assets themselves.

In this case the register would have shown a newer PC than was physically present.  Use of bar codes on assets could have prevented this.  Each asset is barcoded when purchased and the barcodes are recorded in the asset register.  They provide a speedy way of carrying out the physical checks as well as ensuring that the correct assets are identified.

One further safeguard would be to review the records of entrants to the building during non-working hours to identify any suspicious patterns of evening/weekend attendance.

This blog is intended as a general overview and discussion of the subjects dealt with. It is not intended to be, and should not be used as a substitute for taking professional advice in any specific situation. Wbg Services LLP (and its subsidiary Wbg (Audit) Limited) will accept no responsibility for any actions taken or not taken on the basis of this blog. If you would like further advice or would like to discuss any of the issues raised in the blog then please get in touch with your regular Wbg contact or use the contact form on our website.

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