ARE YOU RUNNING A HOTEL BUSINESS, BUT THE SALES FIGURES ARE NOTE MAKING SENSE?

Some Actions Required To Reduce Fraud Risks And Impacts on Revenue Leakages.

Managing fraud risks, abuses and revenue leakages involves establishing antifraud management programs and complying with the legislations and regulatory standard/ Antifraud programmes include having adequate structure, strategy, processes, policies and procedures and resources including digital technologies, funding, competent and committed human capital to mitigate the risks. and reduce the probabilities for occurrence to the barest minimum. and when they occur, they are timely detected, the root causes analysed and properly addressed.

Addressing the procedural issues raised above requires building good fraud risk management culture, deploying and enforcing multiples levels of anti-fraud management programmes and enforcement across all levels of the hotel business. Some of the key actions that may be considered have been listed below. Please, note that the list is not exhaustive but contains the most common actions that may be considered.

• Unpredictable visits to work locations including use of undercover agents to observe events.
• Establishing robust standard operating procedures, processes and policies including anti-fraud programmes and policies. These include guest booking and service ordering, payment collection and lodgment in the banks, service cancellation and refunds.
• Strict enforcement of the internal established internal controls including anti-fraud programmes and reinforce by good tone at the top to ensure adherence at all levels in the organisation.
• Segregating conflicting roles and responsibilities and delegating to competent employees.
• Robust automation of all business processes end-to-end to minimize human interventions and also maintain audit trails of all transactions for independent verification on need basis.
• Proper job applicants screening at recruitment interviews and post-employment points,
• Use of independent assurance providers including internal Auditors to check for the effectiveness of internal control design and operations
• Installation of CCTV cameras and connection to mobile phones and laptops to provide for online real-time viewing and regular checks to ensure proper functioning.
• Fairness in remunerating staff at all levels.
• Investment in quality staff training and career development including objective performance appraisals and feedbacks, fraud awareness training
• Regular Job rotations amongst staff and enforcement of holidays
• Expose frauds and abuses and comply with the laws and regulations in disclosing and reporting them