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

[Babooshka1234]

I need to rant and ask your thoughts about a member of staff who is in a managerial position responsible in HR & Finance yet is terrible at her job and the Director doesn't do anything about it. Have I become a bit too obsessed with this women and my lack of confidence in her ability and should also ignore it or can anything be done about it? I will list a few of the things she does... yesterday paid £80,000 into her own personal bank account in error because the banking app she uses is linked to both the business account and her personal account! Last year she almost lost the business £150,000 due to a scam again using this banking app, fortunately it was stopped just in time. She pays the wages for everyone and regularly changes them if she doesn't agree with the time sheets. And despite being told numerous times not to come to work early, she still comes in over an hour early to claim overtime at time & a half and daily plays the clocking in machine to her advantage yet stamps down on anyone else if they are a minute over or under their clocking in. There are so many other things she does to annoy people and I think most people in the office have no confidence in her yet she is allowed to continue. I think what annoys me is that she is in this position of responsibility and gets away with things like this.

I’m astonished that any organisation would keep this woman on! Messing about with other people’s wages is the worst of it all, though. I used to deal with things that affected monthly salaries and I was acutely conscious over getting it right. How dare she just change stuff at will! Lots of people live payday to payday and she could massively affect them.

Watch your pay like a hawk, OP. And maybe be on the lookout for something else?

Isn't changing time sheets an illegal detachment of earnings ?

I would be suggesting a full forensic audit to see whether she is systematically scamming the company. There are many ways to do this if you have access to the bank account. The fact she starts work early is a massive red flag to me. Not because she is claiming overtime but because she may be alone in the office to carry out all sorts of stuff.

Secondly the wage manipulation is very dodgy. It would be very easy to manipulate the hours and redirect money into her own wages.

I speak from experience. It has amazed me, over the years of owning a business, the lengths people will go to steal from you.

A friend of mine discovered his long serving and supposed loyal employee, had stolen over 1 million pounds over a 30yr period. Her DH was a business owner so her apparently well healed lifestyle didn’t ring alarm bells. She was very clever but ultimately became sloppy and the accountant spotted anomies leading to a full audit. Sadly, before any legal action could take place, she committed suicide.

It happens, so frequently, in most industries. All that companies can do is put in place is easy to use auditing tools. We have had everything from pinching toilet roll to outright theft of cash from the business. Some very complex others less so.

Folk suggesting she should whistleblow - to who exactly given that managers already know??

OP - you won't necessarily know about any actions taken against the person, just that they haven't been sacked. You are not responsible for managing her performance.

It's this woman not this women. It's also independent.
If I seem an arse, it's because I see women for woman far too often.

Reckon she’s shagging any of the management team? This was the situation at my old firm. Highly incompetent worker, is now chief of staff (and still in carnal knowledge of the CEO)

everywhere I worked in banking or retail anyone who was suspected or caught transferring money to personal accounts would be suspended with police brought in. Staff had to report any financial discrepancies no matter how high up they were.

@Babooshka1234 this is very worrying!!!! she should not be using a business computer to do her own banking and she should not be using her phone to do the business banking either!! she actually is behaving very suspiciously. the bank usually control the amounts of cash which can be transferred to another account in one transaction. she must have done the overide specifically to enable any kind of accident like that!! why is she going in early? I used to pay the wages at my husbands business. the wages were made by the accountant. some business have a wages office but I certainly dont think she will also be in charge of "doing" the wages before paying them to employees!! the managing director needs to get a tighter grip on this. I have seen too many smallish businesses going to the wall due to embezzlement by an employee. in the past few years a local council had an employee embezzle well over a million pounds to cover his gambling debts!!!

I doubt the 80k was an error. Regularly coming in to work early despite not needing to or being asked to is also a massive red flag for possible fraud.

I wonder what she's doing when she's alone for that hour before everyone else gets in.

This is wrong on so many levels!

Somebody should be keeping an eye on the books to make sure everything tallies, no misappropriation of funds is going on and all “mistakes” are rectified. The accounts should be signed off and submitted as appropriate, any taxes payable to HMRC as necessary etc.

Secondly if you are a professional/chartered member of any professional body then you are supposed to abide by the rules of conduct of the body. What qualifications does she have?? She should be reported and hopefully would be struck off.

Thirdly, intention to permanently deprive, or “stealing” should to be reported to the Police.

Before you blow the whistle, make sure you have a job to go to as the messenger with bad news usually gets the boot first and make sure you gather all the evidence you can so that you are not the one thrown under the bus.

Find a new job, OP. Working with someone like this is difficult and the frustration and resentment will only build. That, coupled with seeing management not take any action… It would simply stress me out too much. I have no respect for an organisation that suffers fools easily.

The only issue is the wages. if everyone stared complaining everytime their wages were wrong, someone will have to act.

A near miss on a scam means it was stopped and it is up to the boss or board to decide if the process was incorrect, cyber security or other security needed updating or similar.

The transfer means the processes are not secure or not adequately checked.

Other than the wages being altered, this is a work issue around processes, security and accountability, which is down to the boss.

Is there a regulatory body your company belongs to that you could report the situation to?
Possibly put in a formal complaint about anything she is doing that directly affects you ie pay, charging timesheets - facts not hearsay from other people.
Or even the police about potential fraud/theft?

My thoughts were "who's she shagging" 🤣

Has your pay ever been changed by her? Do you know other colleagues who've also suffered who'd be willing to speak out with you? If you can get enough people involved, you could collectively go to the MD and formally request an independent audit of the wages system because she messes with your pay so often that you are concerned that your NI contributions aren't being correctly submitted which could affect your state pensions – which is a very real concern given how slapdash you say she is. The MD should take that v. seriously but if they don't, just say they've left you with no choice but to go to HMRC to check with them that the NI tallies. You can report your company to HMRC if you think there are discrepancies.

Someone made a comment about making sure you have a job to go to before whistle blowing. This is good advice.

Sadly, despite all the assurances that whistle blowers will be protected, this is often not the case. So, like when you put in a grievance, you need to know exactly what you are getting yourself into and thr potential ramifications for you.

Then again, as I said earlier, these amounts (that you know about) are enough to put small businesses under so there is that risk anyway.

I think this is the best advice, learning what is within and what is outside your control is a painful but important lesson (one I am still learning!) Giving headspace to this isn't good for your general sense of well-being. It sounds like an inexperienced man (probably promote on "potential" rather than proven track record) is not dealing with the situation, but it doesn't sound like you can influence this.

Well an anonymous tip off to HMRC would be a good start - most of the investigations they start are due to tip offs

i would say that if she isn’t making mistakes with payroll tax (unlikely) then there are probably corporate tax issues and also possibly VAT depending on the business.

HMRC enquiries can often lead to tyre kicking and other non tax issues come out

I think you need to consider carefully how you want to proceed and to be very sure about the evidence and facts you are presenting and where they come from. You also need to be very careful about how you are conducting yourself including asking whether you should be posting about your organisation and colleagues on social media at all, even anonymously.

How do you know these happened and whether nothing has been done to investigate and remediate? Given you are not in a management position where are the allegations coming from and are they being discussed in an appropriate way.

For example you state that they has been told not to come in early. Who told them and how do you know that unless you were there or reading confidential emails to her. It may be case that there is a general ban on overtime but sometimes it can be agreed exceptionally. And you might know this has happened in this persons case. It would be right for you to question why the overtime ban doesn’t seem to be fairly applied but it is better to phrase as a question rather than an allegation.

In terms of the allegation that timesheets have been changed, did this happen to you and did you question it? If not question it. If it happened to someone else then it is on them to do that.

I am saying this because office gossip can stir up a lot drama and misguided allegations. That sound serious and overlooked but in reality aren’t and will have been investigated and resolved. It just isn’t appropriate to tell everyone about an individual’s performance or conduct investigations.

Be mindful that there is always one or two people happily stirring the pot in the office and getting others to be their flying monkey. When you put your neck on the line they won’t be standing beside you or even behind you.

It sounds like there’s no internal controls in place to prevent ‘mishaps’. Payments over a certain size should be checked by another person before being made. If she’s incapable of using the app, then perhaps the desktop version of the banks site is more appropriate.
That being said, as a member of the admin team your focus should be on ensuring your pay is accurate, on time, and in accordance with your contract. If your hours are adjusted and don’t reflect actual hours worked, then raise that.

Same 😂

So many financial controls issues! If this person is using an app to make payments, it should be dedicated to company use, e.g. she should have the app on her work computer and/or phone. She should not be able to share the app with her personal banking at all. Who is the second pair of eyes on these payments she's making? Do you have HR?

This is a really shit set up in so many ways. Does anyone have any knowledge of ECCTA and the new anti-fraud law coming in? Maybe that will make the director take notice.

It is theft. Go to the police. A bus company went broke because the MD was stealing and by the time it came out, jobs were lost. He was funding a young woman as a mistress.

She's not incompetent or bad at her job. She's creating that impression on purpose so that it all just looks like organised chaos and nobody asks too many questions. I'd put money on it (my own though, not the business's)! If you have evidence, you can report to HMRC and/or Action Fraud.