Prevent Fraud in Your Business

Forewarn would-be employees about your background checks, verify résumé facts, check references-and provide a way to report unethical behavior anonymously

Small employers suffer the most the when it comes to business fraud. Those with fewer than 1,000 employees lose an average of $150,000 per fraud case, while larger companies lose $71,000, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. Ken Springer, a former special agent in the FBI, has investigated hundreds of fraud cases in small companies over the past 25 years. Springer, 56, is founder and president of Corporate Resolutions, a New York investigations and consulting firm that examines, among other things, misappropriation of assets, intellectual property theft, and employee backgrounds for businesses here and overseas. He spoke with Bloomberg Businessweek's Lauren Hatch about the types of fraud that are flourishing in small businesses and what management can do to prevent financial loss. Edited excerpts of their conversation follow.

Lauren Hatch: What is the most prevalent type of fraud affecting small businesses today?

Ken Springer: I think the biggest fraud we see is check tampering, at least, that's probably the biggest way people get hurt.
It's because no one's watching the cookie jar. In the 19 years I've had this company, we've done a lot of fraud investigations at small to midsize businesses. We've seen they don't want to spend the money to put controls in place that bigger companies have. For instance, some smaller companies don't want to pay the money to have an annual audit, but when you have an audit, there are checks and balances so that people can't commit fraud as easily. Some smaller companies also don't want to spend money to do background checks on their staff. If people did background checks on their employees, a lot of problem employees would go elsewhere.

Continue Reading: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jul2010/sb20100723_

52977.htm

Source: Bloomberg BusinessWeek

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IGC/Independent Garden Center Show
For Immediate Release

Editorial Content: Susie Carmen
Advanced Retail Management Systems
Phone: (303) 738-1800
Fax: (303) 738 9563
Email: susie.carmen@armsys.com

July 23, 2010, Littleton Colorado, Advanced Retail Management Systems (ARMS) announced today they will be exhibiting at the IGC/Independent Garden Center Show August 17-19, 2010 at Navy Pier, Chicago, IL. It is the industry's largest and most dynamic garden industry show in the world, featuring thousands of garden center products and green goods.

Rob Freda, Senior Sales Consultant, will be in booth # 1714. He is looking forward to meeting customers with an opportunity to discuss and demo the CounterPoint SQL system by Radiant Systems, for Point of Sale-Inventory Control.

Tell another retail store that is looking for a Point of Sale system about Advanced Retail Management Systems. When you refer a retailer to us that participates in a 1 hour web presentation for Retail Pro, CounterPoint or Microsoft RMS, we will send you $100 - it's that simple!

Register your referral today. Call Susie Carmen today at (303) 738-1800 Ext 357 or E-mail her at susie.carmen@armsys.com

Price-Point Politics
By ANNE KADET

If you live in Manhattan, what's a surefire way to get a discount on your morning coffee at Starbucks? Get up an hour early, take the A train to downtown Brooklyn and voila, you'll see savings on your large (I refuse to say "venti"!) coffee. You'll also pay less than you would in Manhattan for treats such as caffé latte and lemon poundcake.

Traveling between boroughs is a good way to find different prices on view for the same products at various chain stores.

Manhattanites have long taken the other-borough discount for granted. Whether it's dinner, a pedicure or a new pair of shoes, the price is dictated largely by the shopkeeper's rent. Manhattan includes some of the costliest retail space on the planet, and when a merchant's paying $600 a square foot on Fifth Avenue, he can't sell doughnuts for the same price as the guy paying $25 in Bay Ridge.

But costs aren't the only factor that retailers consider when they set prices-they also know that shoppers in certain locations are simply wiling to pay more. Turns out, a growing number of chain stores are using sophisticated software to predict, store by store and item by item, how demand responds to changes in price. A retailer can calculate in advance whether raising fruit prices in Store 504 will boost profits or produce a heap of rotten bananas. It's a national trend-the strategy has been adopted by about 10% of the major chains, says Verlin Youd, senior VP at retail-software provider SAP.

But the finagling is easier to spot here in New York, where shoppers frequent multiple locations within the same chain. And surprisingly enough, it isn't always Manhattanites who are paying top dollar.

Starbucks is a prime example. During the past year, the chain started adjusting prices on a store-by-store basis, based on demand for different products, says Matthew DiFrisco, restaurant analyst for Oppenheimer. That's why you'll see higher prices for lattes and espressos in Midtown than in Harlem, for example, and why muffins run an extra 10 cents up in Marble Hill. (Starbucks calls this "a strategic approach to pricing for the benefit of both customers and shareholders.") Meanwhile, the chain maintains consistent pricing on high-profile items like the small coffee, where a price hike could drive frugal customers straight into the arms of arch-rival Dunkin'. You'll pay $1.70 for a tall Pike Place Roast, it seems, no matter what location you hit.

Continue Reading: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870346730457538306

220539180.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Prevent Fraud in Your Business Forewarn would-be employees about your background checks, verify résumé facts, check references-and provide a way to report unethical behavior anonymously

Prevent Fraud in Your Business

Forewarn would-be employees about your background checks, verify résumé facts, check references-and provide a way to report unethical behavior anonymously