Preliminary Fraud Risk Assessment of a Pharmaceutical Distributor

Abstract

According to the CPA-Journal Fraud Aware report, small businesses (classified as those with less than 100 employees) suffer from fraud more frequently than large organizations and are hit by higher average losses. The purpose of this research was to initially assess the fraud level of a pharmaceutical distributor in Mandaue City. The participating business in this study was a pharmaceutical distributor of medicines. Descriptive design and simple statistics were used in this research. The organization had 11 to 50 employees. The assessment was only a guiding tool to assess the level of fraud, not the existence of fraud in the subject of the study. The fraud risk level was 66.88%. This fraud level meant that the level of fraud of business was moderate. This analysis was based on Williams and Kollar (2013). The controls needed improvement. In the analysis of the second-problem statement, the fraud risk level was moderate. Indeed, moderate risk meant improvement on the internal controls because only the majority of the controls were adhered by the management of the business leaving the rest substantially unattended. Thus, emphasis on certain accounting controls can lower the fraud risk of the business. In general, the recommendations aimed either to correct existing business practices or to enforce the implementation of business controls embodied in the tool used in the study.