Missing money

[timone]

Hi,

I have been trying to prepare my company accounts and have just noticed a large amount of money is missing.
The bank account is correct, but we do a lot of business by cash and unfortunately i have obviously not kept a close enough eye on that and I have a difference in my accounts.
Is there anywhere i can show it on the accounts.

Thanks for any help or advice received.

Tim

[pawncob]

The fact that you've got a sum of money "missing" means that the Directors haven't complied with their duty to maintain proper books and records. If you show it in the accounts HMRC will treat it as an invitation to investigate in depth. Find the money. Be methodical and it will be discovered, or the cause of the defalcation will!

[Ian McTernan CTA]

Without looking too closely at it, you say the bank account is correct but there is some cash missing. I'd ask the directors for some thoughts on the matter, as clearly something went wrong somewhere along the line and you don't want the same mistake to happen again.

It usually turns out that one of the directors took the cash and forgot to hand in a receipt for whatever they bought, or they took it as drawings and again forgot to mention it- or mentioned it in passing and then the conversation was forgotten (happens quite a lot in busy places).

Get everyone to have a good think and usually someone will remember - a client of mine pays cash for a lot of things they buy for the business and after we list down everything we have receipts for there are usually a couple of bits and pieces lying around that aren't in the accounts ( these can be £500 parts, etc) and usually after some digging around at home he can find the receipt or he knows where he got it from and we can get them to confirm the purchase - usually a nice email copy of the receipt which states 'paid by cash' on it.

If it definitely isn't fraud, and it's not some sort of asset, etc, then the directors are taking a hit on their drawings - which teaches them pretty rapidly to make sure procedures are tightened up!!

[timone]

Thank you both very much for your replies. Very helpful and it now seems you are correct and it was a director who was responsible.

[Ian McTernan CTA]

Glad you found it, happy to have been of help:-)