E-Portfolio Assignment ACCT 2010

Fraud is one of the most common talked about topics when it comes to the business world. Fraud is
defined by dishonest and illegal activities that provide a person with financial benefits. This is one of the
most sickening topics for me think of.

I currently work as a business office manager in a nursing facility. With this job, I process all accounts
payable, record and deposit all accounts receivable, handle all employees pay checks, and I also am in
charge of managing our resident’s trust accounts. Now this means that not only do I collect all facility
cash, but I have access to all resident monies. What sickens me is when I here of other office managers
throughout the company have not only stolen from the company, but also stolen from the resident’s
personal money. Most patients at my facility are over the age of sixty-five years of age, and many of
them have dementia/Alzheimer’s. This would make it a ton easier to commit fraud. Now, what I do not
understand, and never hope to understand is how someone could take advantage of the residents this
way. Most of them are on a fixed income in the first place, so I could never imagine how someone could
think that this is okay.

I was also raised a little differently. When I was a freshman in high school, my mother had a stroke that
disabled her to the point that she had to learn to walk, talk, and eat again. This also meant that she
could not work anymore. Because of this, I started to work full time working as a night CNA, making it so
I could help provide an income for my family and pay for all extra curriculars for my sister and I. Having
to grow up so quickly made me learn that not only does it take a lot of money to live a quality life, but it
also takes a lot of hours at work and a ton of hard work. This has made me want to work as hard as I can
to support my family and have the lives that we enjoy to have. My ethics and morals tell me this. It tells
me that in order to have the things I want; I have to work hard for them. Taking it from someone else,
would just make it so down the road when funds are missing would make it so that person would have
to work even harder to recuperate this resource. This could, in a result make it so another family is
struggling to make ends meet or make it so other people’s jobs are in jeopardy.

Because I handle all funds in my facility, this makes me realize just how quickly my job could be in
jeopardy when something goes missing. I mean, maybe I’m not smart enough for it, but I feel like my
company has so many processes in place so that fraudulent acts cannot happen. I can never really figure
out not only how someone could take the funds, but why in the world they would. It can and would lead
to such a mess, which in return for sure would not be worth it.

Overall, I never hope to understand how someone could mismanage funds in a workplace. Morally I
could never do it, and if a temptation ever occurred, I know that I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I just
think about all the negative ways that it could affect my life and the lives of many others.