Source:- ACL Blog
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AML enforcements require Currency Transaction Reports (CTR) to be filed for any banking transactions of $10,000 or more. Identify any cash transactions just below this $10,000 reporting threshold and summarize the results by customer name and/or tax ID to figure out who might be actively avoiding this reporting limit.
Active Directory security groups are often used by IT to delegate people’s access to applications. Check for any users being added or removed from these security groups to monitor and validate that only authorized people have access. Was somebody accidentally added to the “admin” security group when they should only have “read only” access?
The accuracy of journal entries (JE) in the General Ledger (GL) are critical in maintaining the accuracy of your company’s books. Identifying any JEs being entered at odd times outside of regular office hours (weekends or holidays) may be a good start at finding any suspicious and potentially illicit transactions.
Identify any bank accounts that have had zero activity in the past X months, but have suddenly become active (via high volume transactions or other unusual behavior) after this dormant period. Why was this account not being utilized before? Are these new transactions valid?
To ensure your organization is not accidentally paying out employees pretending to be vendors, conduct a search to identify any matches in vendor and employee information. Look for matches or similar elements in the following fields for your employee and vendor master files: Name, Address, Phone #, E-mail, SSN/Tax ID, Bank account #.
Similar to Test #3: Unless Debbie from Payroll is expected to work away in the dead of night, identify any changes being made to your organization’s employee master file at odd times outside of regular office hours (weekends, holidays, after business hours).
Identify any duplicate journal entries (JE) by searching through your JE file for entries with the same General Ledger (GL) account for the same amount, but with a different JE number. Considerations include white listing frequent recurring transactions or specifying a time period to investigate.
Most accounting systems will automatically calculate the net book value for fixed assets—but what if the calculation is being configured incorrectly? Recalculate your net book value and identify situations where your asset register contains irregular information (such as negative first costs or blank asset classifications) which may impact your depreciation calculation.
A fantastic profiling exercise to identify average expense transaction sizes by department or cost center by their highest total and highest average spend. Great for Purchasing Cards (P-Cards) and Travel & Entertainment (T&E) expense analysis to identify which teams at your organization may be lavishly spending company funds compared to the norm.
Search for bank employees with odd account activities like fee reversal transactions (looking for transaction descriptions/comments including keywords like “FEE REV”) and monthly credit or debit transactions that exceed a specified threshold amount (for example, over $20,000).
With Inspirations you will also have access to detailed step-by-step testing instructions, parameter considerations and available ACL ScriptHub snippets to help you perform these tests! “Favorite” ♡ the ideas that intrigue you so you can keep them in a handy list to reference for your projects.
