“This isn’t good.”

“Nope, it’s not. Time to share the news,” I said.

I pinged my boss.

“We need to chat.”

“k.”

I booked us a room on the 5th floor tucked away in the back corner with little foot traffic. Not that we needed to be hidden, but the topic was sensitive.

“I think someone is stealing from us,” I said.

“What?”

“Yeah.”

I explained that we recently started reviewing our corporate credit cards and noticed that Poshmark kept showing up on an executive assistant’s card. Unusual considering it’s a marketplace for buying and selling secondhand clothing. There were several, sizable purchases. Hundreds of dollars at a time, but under the thousand dollar threshold.

“How did we miss this?”

He knew the answer but asked anyhow. We had some things to fix and an employee to confront.

Well, a lot. To start, a lack of awareness. It’s hard to know what’s going on if you’re not paying attention to where, how, and why you’re spending money. We were using a clunky card program and platform. We didn’t set up any workflows for automated reviews. We had minimal controls in place and those that were, didn’t get followed. We had turnover at the role and, with it, a lack of knowledge sharing. There wasn’t any accountability and nobody was given responsibility. Frankly, it was a mess.

The good news? Lots of opportunity.

We moved fast and fixed the issues. A new platform, better controls, automated notifications, more visibility and transparency. We also used the example as a way to educate the organization around the benefits of procurement, modern finance, and how, collectively, spending company money is a team sport.

Think of it as an investment, not ‘buying.’

See you next week,

Mat

ps. I know you’re curious. Yes, they were fired (and admitted it). $13K+ buys a lot of clothes!