Small-business Fraud

ACCORDING TO the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), a leading anti-fraud organization, small businesses are particularly vulnerable to fraud, and are even more likely to become the victims of fraud than larger businesses. The classification of a business as small usually refers to those businesses with a total of less than 100 employees. In a 2002 study conducted by the ACFE, losses to small businesses that were estimated on a per-employee basis were approximately 100 times greater than those losses in large businesses (classified as having 10,000 or more employees).

The average fraud loss in small businesses was approximately $127,000 in 2002. Other estimates state that losses due to fraud may cost small businesses around 6 percent of their annual revenue. The ACFE and other ...