Our Fraud Awareness in the Church series continues with a 5-part series on Cash Disbursements.
When churches finally get around to considering their exposure to fraud, they almost universally focus on the cash receipts or the inflow part of their cash processes. Without doubt, many churches have been hit by fraudsters skimming from the offering plates. But in most cases, the losses are relatively small for two reasons:
- Most churches have strong count team processes, although more of them should add some rotation to their teller mix.
- The vast majority of offerings come in the form of checks or credit cards. Very little is cash.
KEY: The fact is, the biggest scams usually occur on the “outflow stream” not the inflow…
In the next series of posts we will see how well protected our church survey participants are on this side of the ledger.