Question

Yes, skimming is a good example of fraud that would affect receivables! Please discuss how the fraudster can use Excel to carry out this fraud.

Answer 1

Skimming fraud involves taking the cash or receivables of a business prior to entering it into the accounting system. It is an “off-book” fraud as the cash theft occurs before it is entered into the bookkeeping system; and is never reported on the company’s accounting records. Individuals are also vulnerable, and can experience ATM, debit card, and credit card skimming.

Excel can be an important source and tool for the Fraudsters working in the organization relying on Excel/VBA Macros systems for Accounting or ERP purpose. Skimming or defalcation in Excel is difficult to detect because it does not have audit trails that can reveal the source of the theft. Excel can be used to enter Prices of the products against each product listed in the Excel. Excel can be used to enter the cash or receivables for each sale. In both the cases the prices of the products and cash receivable values for reconciliation purpose and can be altered (when in series or tandem) by using TRIM function to alter the series for few values in between. The TRIM function is a built-in function in Excel that is categorized as a String/Text Function. It can be used as a worksheet function (WS) and a VBA function (VBA) in Excel. Introducing the functions like “=RIGHT(A1,LEN(A1)-FIND(",",A1)) “ or “=LEFT(A1,FIND(",",A1)-1) “ usually paves the way to change the value or Cell value in the excel without disturbing the overall series in the worksheet.