I can’t tell you how many times a small business owner has called us in for help with their books—only for us to uncover something much bigger.
They often think it’s just a reconciliation issue or a miscategorization. But once we start digging, we almost always find gaps in internal controls—some small, some serious. And in most cases? The business owner had no idea those risks were even there.
While not strictly a financial issue, it can cause lots of problems down the line. And it usually presents an opportunity to strengthen your systems before something goes sideways.
We get it. When you’re running a business, internal controls aren’t exactly at the top of your to-do list. You’re focused on growth, serving clients, and managing your team. It’s easy to assume that if things seem to be running fine, they are.
But from our side of the table, we see the warning signs—every single day. If any of the warning signs below sound familiar, now’s the time to fix the cracks before they turn into costly problems.
Warning Sign #1. You realize there’s too much financial power in one person’s hands.
We’ve worked with businesses where one employee controlled the whole financial flow—issuing payments, approving expenses, and reconciling accounts. That lack of oversight might seem efficient… until it’s not. Whether it’s a mistake or something more serious, there’s no backstop.
The Fix: Make sure that one person isn’t responsible for approvals and payments to minimize the risk of embezzlement. Create simple checks and balances—even if you’re a small team. Your bookkeeper or financial partner can help make sure no one person is both approving and paying bills or issuing customer invoices, and applying payments.
How We Help: We’ve worked with business owners who didn’t realize their office manager had full control over cash flow. We helped them create a shared workflow where our team entered bills, the owner approved them, and we handled the rest—with full visibility for everyone.
Warning Sign #2. You’ve never reviewed your internal processes.
If no one’s reviewed your financial processes or checked who has access to what, you’re operating on trust and good intentions. We’ve caught everything from long-term fraud to simple missteps that cost thousands—all because no one had taken a hard look under the hood.
The Fix: Start simple. Document how bills get paid, how deposits are made, or how payroll is processed. Even a bullet list in Google Docs is better than nothing. Your finance partner can help write these steps down.
How We Help: A client once lost their bookkeeper and had zero documentation. We worked with them to recreate basic processes, then helped write and store SOPs so the next team member could jump in without starting from scratch.
Warning Sign #3. You haven’t locked down your account access.
Whether your accounts are tied to an employee’s personal email address, haven’t set up 2FA yet, or “shared” passwords are floating around—and you haven’t changed them recently, it’s time to take a closer look at account security.
It can be a huge deal. One of our clients got completely locked out of their vendor accounts and SBA loan portal because a former employee had set everything up using their personal email—and had 2FA codes going to their phone. It took days to untangle, and that delay cost them money and credibility.
The Fix: This fix has three steps:
- Centralize logins. Use a role‑based email (finance@, admin@) for every critical account.
- Lock them down. Store credentials in a password manager, turn on MFA for everything that touches money, and review access at least quarterly.
- Create an audit trail. Choose tools that track who logged in, what they touched, and when.
How We Help: Ideally, we identify these potential situations before they show up so clients can avoid the big, bad, costly problems by getting controls in place proactively. In our business, we use a tool that pushes MFA notifications to Slack so that the right team members can get access to verification codes even when the main account holder (me) is in a meeting.
Warning Sign #4. You don’t have a formal spending policy in place.
We’ve seen teams spend thousands on purchases that were never approved, simply because there were no clear rules. Add in reimbursements or vendor payments via Venmo or Zelle, and you’ve got a setup with zero accountability.
The Fix: Set up a basic spending policy and approval flow. Use software with audit logs to document who’s spending what and when. Work with your bookkeeper to track and verify receipts consistently.
How We Help: Once full receipt tracking is in place, we can help you identify patterns — in the past, we’ve been able to call attention to one employee with higher than normal gas card usage, or accidental personal use of cards.
Warning Sign #5. If someone walks out, you’re left scrambling.
This one’s the most common—and the most chaotic. If one key team member leaves or has an unexpected emergency that takes them out of office, and you can’t access your payroll platform, your bookkeeping system, or your SOPs, that’s not just a staffing issue. It’s a control issue. You need more than good intentions—you need backup.
It goes beyond locking down account access (see Warning Sign #3), because it’s not just inconvenient. A breakdown in staffing and SOPs can mean costly fees and reputational damage—not to mention all the lost time sorting through the mess and panic-calling your team member.
The Fix: Create a simple continuity plan. This includes documenting your key financial tasks—how to pay bills, run payroll, invoice clients— and realistically should cover your most important operations and procedures as well as your logins. Then, store that information in a shared folder, so workflows and details live somewhere besides one person’s head.
How We Help:
A client lost access to their entire payroll system when a manager left during a family emergency. We helped rebuild access, recover credentials, and document the entire process in a shared folder so it wouldn’t happen again. And we always recommend a password manager!
Warning Sign #6. You rely on trust and don’t have safeguards in place.
We love working with tight-knit teams—but even the best people need guardrails. Controls don’t mean you don’t trust your team; they mean you trust your business enough to protect it.
One of the most blatant examples of fraud I’ve ever encountered, was when the business owner had total trust in their office manager. Unfortunately, this “trusted” person, was paying all of her personal bills — mortgage, vehicle payments, and more — from company accounts. She was also writing herself second payroll checks, and the owner had no idea. We discovered this when they came to us with unexplainable cash flow problems.
The Fix: Introduce basic checks and balances—not because you suspect anything is wrong, but because every good business runs on structure. Ask your bookkeeper or financial partner to review what guardrails make sense for your team size.
How We Help: We helped a client add lightweight controls around reimbursements and vendor payments—things like approval thresholds and monthly report reviews. They still trusted their team, but now had visibility and accountability, too. Good fences make good neighbors and good safeguards keep people honest and your bottom line safe.
Learn from Other People’s Lessons
Most businesses we work with have at least one of these warning signs. It doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It just means it’s time to tighten things up.
And I want to remind you — it’s not about adding complexity for the sake of checking off boxes (although as an accountant, I do love a good checklist!).
Instead, I want you to think about internal controls as a way to protect what you’ve built so you’re not wasting time chasing things down (or, worst case scenario, left in damage-control mode).
If any of these warning signs sound familiar, don’t wait for a crisis to confirm your gut feeling.
The best time to fix it is before the wrong charge goes through, the wrong person logs in, or the wrong assumption costs you money.
And if you’re already in emergency mode? Let’s triage it together.
Set up a free strategy call to talk through where your systems stand and how we can help—whether you need a cleanup or it involves a bigger fix.
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