Broken Finance Controls Let Expense Fraud Run for Eight Years

Invoice and expense reimbursement fraud can escape detection when one employee controls cash entries, payments and bank reconciliations, while outside reviewers check receipts without testing their business purpose. The risk is structural: weak segregation of duties and disconnected data allow individually plausible transactions to conceal a wider scheme. Olivier Cornet, SixthFin’s UK country manager, argued in The Fintech Times that shared visibility and automated cross-checks are central to prevention.

The Fintech Times reported on May 12, 2026, that a subsidiary’s chief accountant left customer payments off the ledger, then reimbursed himself through fictitious expense claims for matching amounts. He posted adjustments at each monthly close and reversed them on the first day of the following month. The scheme continued for eight financial years and cost the subsidiary the equivalent of 1% of annual turnover; the report did not identify the company or disclose a monetary amount.