- Email: [email protected]
Bank contests unfair dismissal claim
into large company accounts in which the impacts of fraud could be readily concealed? 3
Chs@t
back
What cost headings are there in your nominal or general ledger which are poorly controlled or difficult to control? Look
particularly att
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
advertising and sales promotion commissions adjustment, transfers and suspense general accounts repairs, maintenance and services intercompany accounts company's consumption accounts write offs account stationery small components accounts overseas or remote stocks freight and Customs duty taxation accounts bank charges and interest payable
Why not go through your nominal ledger listing today and identify and then check on loosely controlled accounts? Then check back to source documents and verify that you have not been defrauded. As a second step examine cancelled cheques (if necessary have them returned by the bank) and look for:
-
alterations to payee's name missing chegues endorsements.
It is better to make tests before anything happens.
BANK CONTESTS UNFAIR DISMISSAL CLAIM
The Employment Appeals Tribunal in Dublin convened on 21 May 1980 to hear the application of Dermot O'Doherty of Portmarnock that he had been unfairly dismissed from his job with the Northern Bank. Mr Ercus Stewart, Counsel for the Bank, outlined a series of frauds that could amount to more than E200 000, it is believed. One transaction alone cost the bank fZ22450 and involved the transfer of monies between accounts and the opening of false accounts for fictitious customers whose names had been taken from the local telephone directory. O'Doherty claimed that he had been dismissed unfairly, and although he had not challenged the bank's evidence before, he did not accept it now.
Nervousand upset
Irregularities were discovered by Inspectors in August 1979 and when challenged O'Doherty admitted that he had not been truthful with his head office. He was nervous and upset by the auditors' questioning and this no doubt influenced his decision to instruct subordinate staff to rewrite certain of the accounts and to destroy pages from the original ledger. One of the fictitious accounts was given an address that, on checking, turned out to be O'Doherty's parents' home. When challenged about this, his lawyer admitted that he had been "flummoxed and could not respond".
The fraud appears to be a straightforward lapping between accounts. Bankers will have seen it all before and can expect the same again: accounts opened in fictitious names, overdrafts allowed and funds siphoned off. These are not difficult to prevent. In this case it is believed that the Northern Bank did not intend to prosecute C'Doherty, perhaps believing that the publicity wo-uld PubZicityinevitable be harmful. If this is true, it illustrates the fact that in some cases publicity is inevitable. A weak policy on prosecution does not deter other future embezzlers and allows suspects to fight a campaign of their own choosing using the threat of publicity as a weapon. It is to the Northern Bank's credit that it chose to contest O'Doherty's dismissal claim; we suspect that other employers might have taken an easy path and paid redundancy money just for peace and quiet.
AUDIT TOOLS
Tools that.the auditor can use to check the inner workings of a computer are coming into fashion. In this article Steve Hinde of Brook Bond-Ox0 examines PANAUDIT and EASYTRIEVE, the interrogation language on which it is based. Pansophic's PANAUDIT is a generalised audit software package based on EASYTRIEVE, and can only be run on IBM and UNIVAC computers. The cost of PANAUDIT is f3000 for OS and E2500 for DOS, whilst EASYTRIEVE, which is a prerequisite, costs between E4000 and El0 250 (depending upon the operating system and whether it is to be used exclusively by auditors or also by D P ). PANAUDIT's main advantage seems to be for the audit department that has limited manpower or expertise in computer auditing. With its use of audit routines and straightforward use of English commands and keywords, it enables the auditor to access information independently from computer based data quickly and easily with techniques that the non-EDP auditor can use as readily as the EDP auditor. PANAUDIT can also be used asa base to build up sophisticated interrogations using its Command System and user-written EASYTRIEVE modules. PANAUDIT is not just for auditors. In fact, the test data generation enhancement currently being developed will be of interest to systems and programming departments, as will PANAUDIT's other facilities. The summary of Release 1.0 PANAUDIT which follows has been extracted from the User's Manual. Additional features will be included in Release 2.0. These are summarized later in the article. PAWAUDIT FEATURES
Geneml
English language format Automatically formatted reports Automatically centred reports selr-aocumenting auait trails Simple use of Boolean logic (IF, AND, OR) Simple use of all relational operators (equal to, less than etc) Simple file statements Mathematical calculations following normal sequence No compile or testing time Execution at I/O speeds
Chs@t
back
What cost headings are there in your nominal or general ledger which are poorly controlled or difficult to control? Look
particularly att
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
advertising and sales promotion commissions adjustment, transfers and suspense general accounts repairs, maintenance and services intercompany accounts company's consumption accounts write offs account stationery small components accounts overseas or remote stocks freight and Customs duty taxation accounts bank charges and interest payable
Why not go through your nominal ledger listing today and identify and then check on loosely controlled accounts? Then check back to source documents and verify that you have not been defrauded. As a second step examine cancelled cheques (if necessary have them returned by the bank) and look for:
-
alterations to payee's name missing chegues endorsements.
It is better to make tests before anything happens.
BANK CONTESTS UNFAIR DISMISSAL CLAIM
The Employment Appeals Tribunal in Dublin convened on 21 May 1980 to hear the application of Dermot O'Doherty of Portmarnock that he had been unfairly dismissed from his job with the Northern Bank. Mr Ercus Stewart, Counsel for the Bank, outlined a series of frauds that could amount to more than E200 000, it is believed. One transaction alone cost the bank fZ22450 and involved the transfer of monies between accounts and the opening of false accounts for fictitious customers whose names had been taken from the local telephone directory. O'Doherty claimed that he had been dismissed unfairly, and although he had not challenged the bank's evidence before, he did not accept it now.
Nervousand upset
Irregularities were discovered by Inspectors in August 1979 and when challenged O'Doherty admitted that he had not been truthful with his head office. He was nervous and upset by the auditors' questioning and this no doubt influenced his decision to instruct subordinate staff to rewrite certain of the accounts and to destroy pages from the original ledger. One of the fictitious accounts was given an address that, on checking, turned out to be O'Doherty's parents' home. When challenged about this, his lawyer admitted that he had been "flummoxed and could not respond".
The fraud appears to be a straightforward lapping between accounts. Bankers will have seen it all before and can expect the same again: accounts opened in fictitious names, overdrafts allowed and funds siphoned off. These are not difficult to prevent. In this case it is believed that the Northern Bank did not intend to prosecute C'Doherty, perhaps believing that the publicity wo-uld PubZicityinevitable be harmful. If this is true, it illustrates the fact that in some cases publicity is inevitable. A weak policy on prosecution does not deter other future embezzlers and allows suspects to fight a campaign of their own choosing using the threat of publicity as a weapon. It is to the Northern Bank's credit that it chose to contest O'Doherty's dismissal claim; we suspect that other employers might have taken an easy path and paid redundancy money just for peace and quiet.
AUDIT TOOLS
Tools that.the auditor can use to check the inner workings of a computer are coming into fashion. In this article Steve Hinde of Brook Bond-Ox0 examines PANAUDIT and EASYTRIEVE, the interrogation language on which it is based. Pansophic's PANAUDIT is a generalised audit software package based on EASYTRIEVE, and can only be run on IBM and UNIVAC computers. The cost of PANAUDIT is f3000 for OS and E2500 for DOS, whilst EASYTRIEVE, which is a prerequisite, costs between E4000 and El0 250 (depending upon the operating system and whether it is to be used exclusively by auditors or also by D P ). PANAUDIT's main advantage seems to be for the audit department that has limited manpower or expertise in computer auditing. With its use of audit routines and straightforward use of English commands and keywords, it enables the auditor to access information independently from computer based data quickly and easily with techniques that the non-EDP auditor can use as readily as the EDP auditor. PANAUDIT can also be used asa base to build up sophisticated interrogations using its Command System and user-written EASYTRIEVE modules. PANAUDIT is not just for auditors. In fact, the test data generation enhancement currently being developed will be of interest to systems and programming departments, as will PANAUDIT's other facilities. The summary of Release 1.0 PANAUDIT which follows has been extracted from the User's Manual. Additional features will be included in Release 2.0. These are summarized later in the article. PAWAUDIT FEATURES
Geneml
English language format Automatically formatted reports Automatically centred reports selr-aocumenting auait trails Simple use of Boolean logic (IF, AND, OR) Simple use of all relational operators (equal to, less than etc) Simple file statements Mathematical calculations following normal sequence No compile or testing time Execution at I/O speeds