Part 4 of our ongoing Fraud in the Church series. PSK in cooperation with the National Association of Church Business Administration (NACBA) conducted a survey to determine the extent to which churches are attempting to address the problem of church fraud. We asked them to respond to this statement:

We present a list of authorized check signers to the Leadership Team. (Elders, Finance Committee, etc.)

This is one of the routine questions we ask financial staff when we conduct an audit of a church. While monitoring check signatures has some merit, it is in my opinion, rather overrated due to the fact that commercial banks no longer review signatures to the same extent they did in the past. Also, if you are unfortunate enough to hire a thief with courage and great handwriting skills, no amount of signature verification will be sufficient. A person with sufficient bravery and forgery skills can wreak havoc on even the most secure systems.

But, a byproduct of this process can be extremely beneficial.  An annual review of authorized check signers, forces the church to also assess how many and the nature of the bank accounts it has on hand. If no review is ever performed, it can be easy for a bank account (or two or three…) to unofficially “go inactive”.  These “dormant” accounts can sit under the radar for years until a dishonest employee discovers them.

One of the hurdles a thief has to jump is once funds have been diverted, how to get stolen dollars out of the church.  Dormant accounts are very handy in meeting this challenge.  To illustrate, small amounts can be siphoned out of a church by the payment of phony invoices. The thief allocates these illicit transactions throughout various budget line item accounts being careful to keep the total for the year within budget limits.  Once the funds are safely in the dormant account the thief simply transfers the funds to a personal account…

Our survey results indicated that 41% of the respondents reported they did not conduct an annual evaluation of its bank accounts and signatures.  That is a wide margin of opportunity for would-be thieves.