BMO Bank of Montreal® offers an extensive online advice-oriented business coaching series for Canada's entrepreneurs, the Business Coach Podcasts.

With over 99 podcasts currently in the library, each recording is produced by BMO Bank of Montreal® in cooperation with PROFIT Magazine. Host Ian Portsmouth, the Editor of PROFIT Magazine, draws on experts in a number of fields in order to tackle the top issues and opportunities facing Canada's small businesses.  There are numerous topics ranging from improving cash flow to tax planning to creating a great elevator pitch.

New episodes are released every month so be sure to check them out on www.bmo.com/coach, profitguide.com and iTunes. Each episode runs for about 10 minutes and provide the credible information and prescriptions needed to run a successful business in today’s economy.

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While no one is immune from cheque fraud, companies that maintain large cash balances and process a large volume of cheques, such as those in the insurance industry, are popular targets of fraudsters. Fraudsters seem to be well in tune with our industry and perpetrate fraud in a number of ways, including stealing blank cheques, or intercepting written cheques in transit and altering the amount or payee, or outright counterfeiting cheques.

In order to protect your brokerage, internal controls must form the first line of defense. Here are a few tips:

• Implement physical security by properly securing and restricting access to any computers used to issue cheques, especially ones with electronic signatures.
• Cheques, cheque order forms, and articles of incorporation should be treated as carefully as cash and kept locked up with restricted access.
• Ensure that cheques have serial numbers on the electronic codeline (commonly referred to as MICR).  Most banks’ detection equipment relies on the MICR as part of their fraud detection systems.
• Reconcile accounts on a daily basis (confirming both correct amounts and payees) and separating accounts payable from accounts receivable roles can help minimize opportunities for fraudulent activity.

A secondary line of defense revolves around various industry products such as modern cheque printers with security features like watermarks. Also, there are a number of banking products and services such as positive pay, electronic reconciliation, and electronic payments direct to the payee can help mitigate the risk of cheque fraud.

If you believe that some fraudulent activity is at work, contact your banker immediately.

For more information, on how to minimize your brokerage’s fraud risk, visit the fraud section of the BMO website, or read the article on cheque fraud in the June issue of The Ontario Broker.