Purchasing Card Program Red Flag
If you’ve designed your card program, or it has evolved to the point where supervisory review of transactions is diluted, you may well be at more risk for fraud. This occurs because at some point, busy Managers are only able to robustly review a limited number of transactions per month, for example.
A rule of thumb I’ve seen used in large programs is about 50 transactions per month/manager. At an average of 6-7 purchases per card holder per month (reasonable based on averages), this would equate to about 7 employees per Manager subject to review.
Once this threshold is exceeded, the needed level of scrutiny is often compromised. Adequate oversight and control is diminished and the opportunity for fraud increases. This ratio should be a key metric for your program management and can help you minimize the risk that fraud could go undetected.