A Day in the Life of a Bookkeeper | ID theft

There are people with way too much time on their hands. They are actually quite talented because they are able to buy things using credit cards, debit cards, and bank accounts that don’t belong to them. ID theft has quickly become one of the biggest legal issues in the United States.

As a bookkeeper, I urge my clients to give me at least enough access so that I can view their transactions on all of their bank and credit accounts. Some clients use bookkeepers purely to transfer the information from their statements into their books once a month. If the client isn’t watching the transactions regularly, irregular withdrawals can go undetected for a month or longer.

I typically log in at least once a day to each of my client’s accounts and enter the new transactions in the books. During the past few weeks, I noticed ACH transactions that prompted me to ask one of my clients, “What did you buy this time?” In each case, he had no idea why a payment had been made to that entity. Banks and credit card companies are used to working on stolen debit and credit cards, but these were ACH or bank to bank transactions for utility payments in another state. Soon, other ACH transactions were occurring so the bank closed my client’s account. After a few chaotic days, he was up and running with a new bank account.

Would I have noticed these strange transactions if I had just gotten a statement at the end of the month? Yes because I would not have known what categories to put the expenses in. But if my client told me that he didn’t know what those transactions were, I’d be more likely to assume he just didn’t remember, not that they weren’t his transactions.

It is important to stay on top of your finances these days. Hackers are everywhere, hoping to find a way to spend your money undetected for as long as possible. While your personal account may be restored once the errant transactions are discovered, all of us lose as merchants, banks, and credit card companies increase rates and prices to compensate for their losses. Most banks and credit card companies allow you to set alerts and limits so that transactions over that limit will automatically cause you to get an alert or even prevent the transaction from completing. Protect yourself and get a bookkeeper that is watching out for you!