I own 2 businesses.
One is my main profession and the other is a small 2 person supply and distribution company. It is a small operation that I bought from a friend a few years ago. 2 employees and it kind of runs itself. It nets me an extra ~$20 - 25K a year and some tax deductions, with little input from me so I keep it going.
Anyway this weekend I did my regular check of the bookeeping records and found that in the past 3 months over $1200.00 in cash is missing from the weekly deposits. Amounts ranging from $40 to $150.00.
We don't do a lot of cash transactions in this business so normally I drop by every 2nd week to pick up the bank deposit.
One of my employees has been with me for over 5 years and the other part-time for 8 months. The part-timer has recently had her hours increased and does do the day end deposit a few times a week.
My first inclination is to blame the new person as for 5 years I've never had an issue and as soon as the new girl starts doing the daily receipts, money is missing. But I also know that recently my full-timer has been having money issues. She's asked me for a couple of salary advancments and also cashed in a couple of her vacation weeks becasue she needed the money. In the past she has confided in me that her hubby has a VLT habit.
I've gone over the security camera video (one in the front counter area, one in the back office and 2 in the storage area) and have seen nothing suspicious but it is normal for them to handle and count cash as well as go into the safe so unless the video actually showed them putting cash into their pocket there is not much evidence to go on.
I'm torn as to what to do.
On one hand I feel like confronting them individually in a manner which indicates I know and have evidence it is them and see if they confess. Kind of like the cops will lie to trick a confession out of someone. But if I do this I risk insutling the innocent one.
My other option is to sit them both down and tell them one of them is a thief. Maybe the one who is will succumb to the guilt of knowing that I know and so does their coworker. It can't be much fun going to work every day knowing that your co-worker knows you're a thief.
Aside from putting tighter controls on the cash which I can do but won't catch the thief nor get me my money back I can't think of how else to get tot the bottom of this.
The part that pisses me off the most is that I am doing these gals a favor by buying and keeping this company going. Like I said I get a bit of income out of it but at the end of the day I could shut the doors and it would have little impact on my life. Yet this is the thanks I get for keeping these people employed.
Any of you ever dealt with a similiar situation or have experience with this kind of thing.
One is my main profession and the other is a small 2 person supply and distribution company. It is a small operation that I bought from a friend a few years ago. 2 employees and it kind of runs itself. It nets me an extra ~$20 - 25K a year and some tax deductions, with little input from me so I keep it going.
Anyway this weekend I did my regular check of the bookeeping records and found that in the past 3 months over $1200.00 in cash is missing from the weekly deposits. Amounts ranging from $40 to $150.00.
We don't do a lot of cash transactions in this business so normally I drop by every 2nd week to pick up the bank deposit.
One of my employees has been with me for over 5 years and the other part-time for 8 months. The part-timer has recently had her hours increased and does do the day end deposit a few times a week.
My first inclination is to blame the new person as for 5 years I've never had an issue and as soon as the new girl starts doing the daily receipts, money is missing. But I also know that recently my full-timer has been having money issues. She's asked me for a couple of salary advancments and also cashed in a couple of her vacation weeks becasue she needed the money. In the past she has confided in me that her hubby has a VLT habit.
I've gone over the security camera video (one in the front counter area, one in the back office and 2 in the storage area) and have seen nothing suspicious but it is normal for them to handle and count cash as well as go into the safe so unless the video actually showed them putting cash into their pocket there is not much evidence to go on.
I'm torn as to what to do.
On one hand I feel like confronting them individually in a manner which indicates I know and have evidence it is them and see if they confess. Kind of like the cops will lie to trick a confession out of someone. But if I do this I risk insutling the innocent one.
My other option is to sit them both down and tell them one of them is a thief. Maybe the one who is will succumb to the guilt of knowing that I know and so does their coworker. It can't be much fun going to work every day knowing that your co-worker knows you're a thief.
Aside from putting tighter controls on the cash which I can do but won't catch the thief nor get me my money back I can't think of how else to get tot the bottom of this.
The part that pisses me off the most is that I am doing these gals a favor by buying and keeping this company going. Like I said I get a bit of income out of it but at the end of the day I could shut the doors and it would have little impact on my life. Yet this is the thanks I get for keeping these people employed.
Any of you ever dealt with a similiar situation or have experience with this kind of thing.
