Blogs

Small business owners can’t overlook their fraud prevention strategies. The extra cash you might save from cutting corners isn’t worth the money you could lose to scams and hackers. Ensure your employees are well-versed on all the latest techniques cybercriminals use to obtain corporate money and company data. Employees are your most vulnerable access point when it comes to fraud. Malicious actors can easily infiltrate their emails and personal devices to swindle money out from under the company's nose. Even worse, they can do irreparable damage to your business' reputation. But you can...

Don’t let fraud prevention fall by the wayside. To survive in a world full of scammers and thieves, small businesses must take cybersecurity and check fraud seriously. Never trust a suspicious check, and don’t hesitate to request an alternative payment. Utilizing check payments to pay your vendors may also be putting your business at risk. Learn more about check fraud and how to protect your business. Bank checks are still the most popular method for making business-to-business payments. But unfortunately, check fraud has significantly increased over the last several years. According to the...

The Cash Conversion Cycle (CCC) measures how much time it takes for your business to convert inventory or other resources into cash from sales. Creating efficiencies with the CCC is one way to increase working capital without generating additional revenue. There are three important factors that affect your CCC: Days Inventory Outstanding (DIO): Measures how quickly your business converts materials into products. Releasing additional working capital into the CCC will allow your business to purchase needed inventory. Access to additional working capital may also allow your business to take...

Technology can do wonders for your business, but it can also leave you open to many types of social engineering attacks if you don’t take the necessary precautions. Is your business prepared to recognize and fend off these attacks? Let’s unpack some common social engineering scams and how to prevent yourself from becoming another statistic. You hear the horror stories all the time—people falling for different types of social engineering attacks and losing everything to some scammer. You’re confident it could never happen to you. But is your business prepared to recognize and fend off these...

Your HTLF fraud partners, Director John Fick, and Fraud Risk Manager Tracy Swaim, along with their teams, work daily to help prevent and mitigate fraud loss for our clients. Now more than ever, small businesses are at an increased risk of fraud. Due to Covid-19, inflation, and rising interest rates, some small businesses are forced to work on a skeleton crew, meaning fewer eyes looking for potential scams. Falling victim to fraud can cost your business precious resources including time and money. Learn more in our latest article about what you can do to help protect yourself and your business...