Subject: Would you like a Receipt

Background
Three employees Jess Guerrero, Marie Lopez, and Diane Lopez are all related and work together in the Southern California area as sales associates. They were recently hired and have been submitting expense reports to the accounts payable department and being reimbursed.
Description of Fraud
The three employees have been sending receipts to the accounts payable clerk which look alike. The receipts have the same font and style. The Accounts Payable clerk noticed this and told the manager and an audit was started. The audit concluded that about 50% of the receipts filled were fake and Jess Guerrero had created them and gave them to Marie and Diane. The auditors made a list of fake receipts and the three of them were fired. In total the company lost $17,175 in fake expenses. The receipts were created using a receipt machine Jess had at his house. He used a online template for the recites and filled the information from local businesses which he found on the internet.
Lessons Learned and Recommendations
To avoid this problem in the future, accounts payable clerks should have access to the relationship status between employees to find collusion. The insurance company had lax rules on filing expenses since it has high turnover and wanted to retain employees with these extra benefits. These lax rules on filing expenses can continue but more documentation should be needed. Time of the expense, who the expense was for would have caught this fraud earlier. Instead of having an accounts payable clerk sign off on the paper work a manager should look at the paperwork before handing it in.