Misuse of University Resources

Misuse of university resources by employees, customers, vendors, or others outside of the organization.

Examples of fraud include:

  • Fraudulent travel and entertainment (T&E) reports, inappropriate p-card expenditures, theft of university property, false time reporting, and undisclosed conflict of interest.

Ways to Prevent:

  • Ensure T&E reports and p-card transactions are fully reviewed by someone who is knowledgeable of the expense, including all supporting documentation.
  • Ask questions if you don’t understand what you are approving or the supporting documentation doesn’t make sense.
  • Ensure travel and entertainment reports include a detailed and appropriate business purpose.
  • Require itemized receipts, particularly for employee reimbursements when the employee did not utilize a UCD travel or procurement card.
  • Ensure access to equipment, inventories, cash and other assets is restricted.  Examples of access controls include locked door, badge system and computer password.
  • Perform periodic user access reviews. 
    • At a minimum, departments should perform an annual review of application access to confirm user access is appropriate with existing roles and responsibilities and remove access that is no longer needed in a timely manner.  Be sure to check for employees who have transferred to another job position or department, individuals whose employment has terminated, developers and IT professionals, and even third party vendors and affiliates who may have been granted temporary access but the contractual relationship has ended.

Ways to Detect:

  • Complete ledger reviews, Analytical Ledger Review (ALR), Management Ledger Review (MLR), and Quarterly Ledger Review (QLR), timely.
  • Ensure travel expenses are reconciled timely - DS 418 and DS 421 are essential tools to help with this.
  • Periodically complete a physical inventory count and make sure it agrees with your records.  If missing items are detected, the following steps should be taken: investigation of the cause, adjustment of inventory balances if missing items are not located, and review of possible control deficiencies.