A staggering number of businesses falter and even fail because someone on the inside - an employee, vendor or even a partner - steals money, goods, data or intellectual property from the organization. Learning the warning signs can help business owners prevent and detect criminal activity and implement options to avoid future issues.

Kimberly Shannon, President, 

Off-Site Business Services leads a panel of national virtual office business professionals in a free webinar, designed to help businesses identify and safeguard against fraud, Wednesday, May 14, 2014 from 1pm to 2pm CDT.

Fraud prevention is a key concern of growing companies in today's market. For small businesses, the median loss due to fraud is greater than what has occurred in Fortune 500 companies. In fact, one third of all business bankruptcies are due to employee theft and American businesses lose 7% of their annual revenues to fraud. In this webinar, the panel explains the tools you can use to prevent incidents and address problems if they occur.    

For registration, go here. 

Have You Had Your Monthly Check-Up?

Although tax season is over, it is not the time to ignore your bookkeeping until next season. Almost one third of all accountants say the most common mistake small business owners make is calling their tax preparer only during tax time. 

Regular bookkeeping reviews are crucial to ensuring you do not pay more taxes than you need to at tax time.

Surprisingly, that is the not the biggest issue tax preparers face. Nearly 40% of accountants feel that not keeping financial records up to date is an even larger mistake that businesses make.

A monthly checkup of your bookkeeping can save you headaches for many reasons. I had the opportunity to listen to Frank Abagnale speak last week about the emerging risks facing businesses with check fraud. Reconciling your bank and credit card statements monthly eliminates being on the hook for various kinds of check cashing and credit card fraud. Many business owners do not realize that you only have 30 days to notify your bank in the event of fraud.

Monthly check-ups also help you stay on top of how your business is doing. Then can help you plan for capital expenditures you may need to make or see where you can cut costs.

For more information about our monthly check-up service, call us at (708) 966-4441. 

                                       Kim