3. The organization should be structured so that the perpetration of a fraud requires collusion between two or more individuals.
The record-keeping tasks need to be carefully separated. Specifically, the subsidiary ledgers (AR and inventory), the journals (sales and cash receipts), and the general ledger should be separately maintained. An individual with total record-keeping responsibility, in collusion with someone with asset custody, is in a position to perpetrate fraud. By separating these tasks, collusion must involve more people, which increases the risk of detection and therefore is less likely to occur.
Supervision
Some firms have too few employees to achieve an adequate separation of functions. These firms must rely on supervision as a form of compensating control. By closely supervising employees who perform potentially incompatible functions, a firm can compensate for this exposure.