In a previous post titled ‘What Hercules’ second labor teaches us about procurement fraud,’ we equated procurement fraud to Hydra, the many-headed monster that Hercules had to slay and concluded that to eliminate it, instead of tackling each individual case of fraud as it occurs, organizations have to take steps

To put it simply, an invoice is a bill. You fulfill your customer’s need with a product or a service and you present him/her with an invoice to receive payment. Immediate payment of invoices is not the norm; it generally takes about 30 – 60 days for an invoice to

When employees go on business-related trips, their organizations reimburse them on their return. In theory, this is simple – the employee travels, comes back, files an expense report, and gets reimbursed. But in practice, it is not quite so. The process of reimbursement faces several challenges, making it complicated. If

Before we get into procurement fraud and what we can learn about it from the second labor of Hercules, let’s take a look at the second labor itself. To atone for killing his wife and children, Hercules is sent to serve King Eurystheus for a period of twelve years by

Expense reimbursement is often a chaotic process in many organizations. With paper and paper work piling up on their desks and the pressure of deadlines growing, many finance executives won’t be able to give each expense report more than a cursory glance before releasing the payment. This introduces the risk

Anyone familiar with Jeffrey Archer’s short story, ‘Crime Pays’ from his 2000 book ‘To Cut a Long Story Short’ will know how easily and ingeniously the protagonist (antagonist?) Kenny Merchant perpetuates invoice fraud against some of the leading businesses in his country. Kenny’s fictitious and thoroughly enjoyable account (you’d be