As a business owner, you’ll try your best to monitor all areas of your company at all times. But this is a lot of responsibility for one person. As things grow and expand, you’re likely to hand over responsibility for certain sectors to a business partner or managerial member of staff.

While this lifts pressure from your shoulders, you may start to notice certain losses that seemingly don’t add up or can’t be immediately explained. This is frustrating, as not only is something going wrong in the operation of your business, but you’re becoming out of pocket too! So, here are a few different things that could explain financial loss within your company. Take a read through and determine whether they could be applied to your professional situation!

Physical Theft

While we’d like to think that we live in a world of honest people, this unfortunately isn’t always the case. There are plenty of people out there who want to take goods without paying the fair price for them. The sad thing is that the blame can’t always even be put down to people who come in and out of your store as customers. Sometimes staff may try their hand at taking something for free too.

If you notice that your are making losses, but things aren’t adding up and stock is going missing, it’s time to start investigating. If you have CCTV installed, take a look through the tapes. You may find the source of your problems. If you do find that you’ve experienced theft, no matter who it’s at the hands of, you should seek legal help.

If you don’t yet have CCTV installed, it’s time to get it fitted. Alternative ways to protect your stock and wares include security tags and security staff located near the door of your establishment. If you are a partner in a business, you may find that you, conversely, are accused of theft. This might not be the case and you may have simply been moving funds, stock, or other resources from one place to another, only to be accused of a crime. Reliable attorneys such as Powers McCartan will be able to examine your case.

Even if the charges are minor, it’s extremely important that you rectify the situation, proving your innocence and clearing your name.

Theft of Intellectual Property

Another reason that you may notice a reduction in your profits is that customers are going elsewhere to spend their money. This is fair game if their cash is going to another legitimate company on the market. This would just mean that you need to up your business game to bring back a certain level of customer loyalty.

However, if someone else is selling knock off versions of your product, or are using your ideas to make a profit of their own, they could be breaching laws concerning intellectual property. Learn more about intellectual property law and how to tackle breaches of these rules here.

These are just two factors that could be contributing to your company’s financial loss. So be vigilant and keep an eye out for them!