Internal Controls: What Growing SMEs Often Get Wrong

Controls that work fine at 5 employees (the founder approves everything) break down at 30 — without a documented approval structure, errors and fraud risk both increase quietly.

The fix isn't bureaucracy — it's a handful of clear rules: who can approve payments above what threshold, who reconciles vs. who enters transactions, and a monthly review that isn't done by the same person who does the data entry.