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According to UK Finance, UK business lost a total of £93 million in 2018 to invoice fraud, with the average payment to fraudsters being £20,750. To help you avoid losing potentially thousands of pounds, we’ve put together a list of things that you can do to avoid invoice fraud.

Scrutinise all invoices

It’s extremely important for you to scrutinise all of the invoices that you receive. The differences between a false invoice and a real one will be subtle, but if you look closely, you should be able to identify a fake. Common indicators of a fake invoice include a different phone number or contact name for correspondence, a change in payment methods, changes in the amount to be invoiced, a new signature, blurred logos, the addition to bank details that didn’t appear previously and email addresses with small changes.

Listen to your instincts

This might seem trivial, but it is important to listen to your instincts when analysing invoices. If an invoice does not seem genuine, it is probably a good idea to take a closer look at it. In order to stay in control of your payments, try and be more confident when refusing payments or unexpected information requests so that you don’t end up making a mistake under pressure. It’s better to be safe than sorry!

Don’t click suspicious links

This is a general rule of thumb for using the internet, but in order to avoid invoice fraud, never click on the links that appear in an unexpected text or email. Fraudsters are becoming more sophisticated than ever and it is now incredibly easy to create email addresses that look genuine upon first glance, but if you look closely, you might notice that certain names or words in the address are spelt incorrectly.

Check on suppliers

Fake invoices are often issued under a legitimate name with a fake bank account number or email address or under a false business name. When you’re taking on a new supplier, it’s a good idea to do your research into their business to ensure that they are legitimate and to search for their business address on Google maps. If their address is a PO box or a residential address, this could indicate that they are committing fraud. Where possible, if your existing suppliers get in touch claiming that they are changing their bank account or address, contact them directly to make sure.

Conduct multiple-stage authorisation

If you have the staff capability, it’s a good idea to hold multiple people responsible for the authorisation of payments. You could give the department or person associated with the expenditure responsibility for authorising the payment. The more people you have on hand to check each invoice, the more likely it is that someone will spot something suspicious.

If you’re looking to take control of your company spending in a secure and safe manner, get in touch with our expert team at B4B Payments today.

If you are currently a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) or hoping to secure a CFO role for yourself, you may be wondering how to be the best, top-performing CFO possible. Below we outline just some of the skills and characteristics a CFO should have to ensure they bring as much value as possible to their organisation.

1. Transparency

It is important a CFO knows how to create and maintain a trusting, transparent environment. The financial status and figures of a business are an essential element of its foundation. If a CFO is able to be transparent about the financial position of its company, it helps to build trust and ensures all departments and employees are working on the same page towards the same goals.

2. Communication

While it may seem obvious to say that a CFO should have good communication skills, simply being able to communicate well is not enough for a CFO. A CFO should have a flexible communication style that allows them to adjust their communication techniques when working with different departments or individuals. Throughout the course of a day, a CFO may need to communicate with subordinates, board members, business partners, suppliers and the media, making a flexible communication style essential to ensure they can build strong, lasting relationships with everyone they communicate with.

3. Solution-orientated

In a leadership position, such as a CFO, many people will look to you for business solutions, not problems. For this reason, a CFO must adopt a solution-orientated attitude and not fall into the habit of being rule or compliance-orientated, as this can limit the effectiveness of their decisions.

4. Teamwork

Many managers and those in a leadership position may think teamwork is a basic skill that everyone should have mastered in adulthood. In reality, however, it can be difficult for many CFOs to be able to adapt their understanding of teamwork in a leadership position. As a CFO, it is your responsibility to build and strengthen your team. For this reason, a CFO should never look to shine individually or expect personal praise, they should focus their time and energy on ensuring their team is as functional and efficient as possible, rewarding them rather than looking for individual praise.

5. Innovation

As a CFO, you have the power to make innovative financial decisions and revolutionise your department. For example, a CFO could introduce prepaid business cards that save their financial team significant time and money. The CFO must choose where to include innovation carefully, to ensure these changes help improve the efficiency of their company.

If you’d like to learn more about how prepaid business card solutions could benefit CFOs, do not hesitate to get in touch with B4B Payments today. We ensure CFOs can keep control over corporate expenses in one, convenient platform, ensuring to improve the efficiency of their department. For more information, contact B4B Payments.