Stupid stupid stupid! I pit myself.

I just got around to finally reconciling my receipts for the past 6 months with the actual deposits and I find I am short on cash. I lock it up, but all of the staff had the combination. The best I can guess, somebody made off with it, between the time it was received and the time it was deposited.

The stupid part is that we double check at the end of the day, double check the deposit against the checks and cash, then double check receipts against deposits. I thought my office manager was doing the last, but she was only doing the other two. When I checked the cash before deposits it matched, and when I checked each day’s receipts they matched. It was only when I triple checked receipts against deposits at the end of the month that I found the mismatch. Of course there is no way to tell who took it, but I suspect the employee I fired, since the missing cash essentially ends when she left.

In any case, I no longer care if my staff accuse me of not trusting them. From now on, nobody leaves the premises each day until I personally check the money, and everything goes into a lockbox to which I will have the only key.

So, go ahead and tell me how stupid I am because I deserve it. I never fucking wanted to own a small business anyway.

Cameras.

Cobras! Put cobras in the safe! No, mambas, BLACK mambas!

That’s the crux of the problem - you didn’t reconcile cash for 6 months. Cash is a high-risk area, and needs to be followed very closely on a daily basis. Also, you might want to look into your Accounts Payable procedures, to be sure there’s no odd vendors lurking. (Payments to relatives, etc.) Lesson learned, you’ll do fine!

Um, yeah - I am an accountant by practice.

I’ve worked at “a few” places, and I would have to wonder about a boss who didn’t keep the cash locked up. When you hire someone, anyone, you don’t really know them. Highly trusted people get busted for embezzling all the time.