Finance Manager "accidentally" paid £80,000 into her own bank account!!

Completely this.

I’m an accountant and there is no way I would ever mix up the company’s and my momey. It’s unforgivable and against professional standards. I’m scrupulous about segregation of duties to safeguard myself and others.

While I agree this is awful, I just thought I'd add my perspective of something I've just realised I've done. I have my business and personal accounts on my NatWest app.

The other week I went to transfer some money to myself from the personal account. I was in the personal account screen and clicked "Payments" on the bottom and transferred the money.

Today, my bookkeeper asked me how to account for the money and I realised the app had defaulted to my business account, rather than the personal account I'd been in when I selected the payment.

Thankfully it was much smaller an amount and I've transferred it back today, but it can be easily done, especially on the NatWest app.

Given this woman's history though, I would be highly recommending switching to a banking system that requires second authorisation for large payments!

How do you know about all of these incidents, changing of wages etc

Methinks she has her fingers in the till.....

I'd be wondering what else she was up to with these early starts, because who knows what other stuff she's up to during those periods.

I know the job market is pretty crap atm, but I'd be looking. Realistically if her superiors know, but don't do anything about it, it doesn't bode well for the future viability.

I hope the employees who are getting their pay messed around with are complaining.

By any chance, is it a Barclays banking app?

It Is very likely she is coming in early because she can’t do her job within her normal hours due to incompetence… She needs the extra hours to get through the work required of her. We have this same problem. It’s disguised as commitment but it’s actually incompetence.

Are there employees earning at or close to minimum wage at the company? If you want HMRC to act then you'll have a much better response reporting a minimum wage concern than anything to do with tax. Eg if you have employees close to min wage and she is amending time sheets then the company isn't paying min wage for the time those employees are working. Min wage checks are, rightly, a fucker to deal with even when you have good controls.

I think this is your best option OP. Then, start looking for a new job. Also, document everything. Everything you do, all your clocking times, any interactions between you and her. Cover your own back.

Agree with other PPs, there is something else going which you are not party to. Be very careful in what you say and to whom.

Whistleblowing never ends well for the whistleblower, so if you go down that route have all the facts, dates, times, amounts, conversations had.

For your own peace of mind, change jobs sooner rather than later.

And I say this by the Wayne aide many years ago when I was HR/ office manager at a mid sized company and our finance director was defrauding the company . ( gambling problem) it only came to light when someone covered them for holiday and queried a lot of regular transactions that he couldn’t find in invoicing system when reconciling back statements .

How do you know these things OP? Does she state she has made these cockups ? Or are you in accounts and can see them? Is the MD also the owner? Because if so they are negligent- they should have dual controls in place . I have a business and it’s not that easy to make that kind of cock up, because if they are with the same bank then in order to pay yourself you would hit the transfer button rather than pay an external person under the ‘pay’ button- who was the £80k meant to be going to ? If it was another internal account of the business, she needs to arrange to delink her personal account as it’s nothing to do with the business . That’s easy to do with the bank . If the owner isn’t the MD I wonder if he/she is aware of all this? If they are both owner/MD then whilst it’s annoying it’s out your control if they are aware of it and one day will bite him on the arse. I’m not sure these cockups aren’t deliberate and testing the waters to see if it’s noticed

If the woman is also a 'qualified accountant' then I'd report her to the relevant professional body that she belongs to. Also, report the company to HMRC and say that there aren't enough financial checks and balances in place. The company accountant is committing fraud and paying herself £80k, that's not a mistake. This is fraud and stealing money.

It's a real email from the bank - but clearly their security isn't up to scratch.

There is no such thing as a secure e-mail — anyone can send you a mail that appears to come from [email protected] or whoever. The protocols that send e-mails were designed in the late 1960s when anyone who had access to a computer was unlikely to be trying to scam the general public. Gmail has identified that the content of the mail suggests that it is finance-related and is just suggesting that you need to be careful. It has not identified any specific security issue that Lloyds could have done anything about.

A real security problem would be if the e-mail contained a link to click on (out of interest, did it?). Banks that takes security seriously will tell you to log in to the app or website but will not provide a link — they want you to develop the reflex of not clicking.

(It's interesting that it's from Lloyds. When DD opened an account with them in 2009 the person in the branch carefully pointed out "You will notice that we have not asked for your e-mail address. That's because we never send out e-mails. Any e-mail claiming to be from Lloyds is fake.", which I thought was a pretty good way to do it — all communication was in the online banking website, or later in the app. But apparently they have changed since then.)

I approve manual payments at the place I work and there are so many segregation of duties and approvals that are followed to make sure people don’t fck it up, and it’s not some huge company. The ability to pay £80k into her own bank account is mind boggling, let alone to ability to change payroll on a whim.

I’d be contacting HMRC on the pre-text of checking your tax deductions and then tell them your concerns and say you’re worried that because she’s altering so many things, you’re not sure your pay has been properly handled.

Either they are fucking now or they have in the past - the "even he complains about her" is a smokescreen. The "almost lost £150k" could have been gross misconduct, depending on the precise circumstances, but the repeatedly claiming OT when she's been told not to and the transfer of £80k into her own bank account "accidentally" are definitely gross misconduct and she'd be in possession of her P45 if she'd ever worked for me. I would be deeply suspicious of her coming into the office early too - what's she doing at that time? Maybe figuring out ways to defraud the company while no-one else is around?
Does the MD also own the company OP? If not, I would be whistle-blowing to the owner of the company (you can check ownership on Companies House). If she brings the company down that would be 50 jobs lost - everyone involved with the company needs to understand this.

I have experience of this. There was a useless woman in accounts who was in charge of payroll. MD became suspicious. Got auditors in. She had stolen £177,000 over the last three years. Went to prison. Was ordered to pay back about £17k. MD was devastated by it all. Never accepted the 17k, people lost their jobs, MD had a breakdown, lost all confidence because they had been let down by this trusted member of staff.

When I was telling a friend about all this recently, she said similar had happened in her organisation which was a completely different industry but very similar story. Bubbly, friendly, woman in accounts who was very trusted but could be a bit ditzy and forgetful. Turns out she netted about £244k of company money. The two women didn’t know each other but their circumstances were very similar. They were both early 40s, both single, both had teenage kids, lived about a mile from each other, both got on brilliantly with their male boss.

I’d be concerned that this ‘useless’ woman in payroll is actually pretty astute and is playing the game. Can you write an anonymous letter to the owner listing all her failings and highlighting the employees mistrust in her?

I would schedule a meeting use chatgpt or Claude to distill your thoughts.

The altered timesheets (as well as the obvious impact on tema morale) i imagine have a risk / exposure factor in a legal sense and the MD would ultimately be accountable for that especially if he knows and ignores it

Hmm...I don't believe that multiple people's time sheets - and therefor their salaries - are regularly, arbitrarily being changed by a member of staff. People would be taking less money home, it would have tax/NI/pension implications, all sorts.

If I was paid less because someone had suddenly decided I'd worked less hours, with no proof, there would be hell to pay and that money would be in my account by the end of the day. If it happened multiple times, to multiple people...well, it just wouldn't, because that would be ridiculous.

I expect there's slightly more to this.

This is not the sort of thing that should be allowed to slide. Frankly, I would be asking for an off the record meeting with the MD and HR, and pointing out their responsibility to act in the best interests of the business. If there isn’t a policy ruling out using the same banking app for business and personal there should be. Someone who isn’t the finance manager should be responsible for timesheets. And if she’s been told not to come in early to claim overtime, she shouldn’t be paying herself for it. Who checks her timesheets?

This is a very important question.

when they do their audit.... this is an issue that needs to be dealt with now and by the organisation (it will always need to be dealt with by the organisation)

Agreed. But if they were in possession of info to indicate that all was not well and the accounts may be inaccurate, they have a duty to be professionally sceptical and ask questions.

A transfer into a personal account like that is a huge red flag. I would expect that to absolutely be a disciplinary matter if not gross misconduct.

Who flagged it up?

I would be concerned this thread may be found and jeopardise any actions against her.

I would move to 30 day board.