you thought they were genuine..not

[frankeyzee]

I have been running an ice cream parlor for a little over a year and just opened another one a week ago,

My employee for one year that I made like family was siphoning money every month

I messed up by just checking the end of month inventory, and not doing random audits.

He made up his own starting and ending inventory per day so that by the end of the month it would appear fine. (So that’s why my costs were so high!)

So you think you can trust just anyone you can’t...

I learned that I have to fix the inventory sys and stay on top.
But what happens when I open 2 more stores how I will monitor the starting and ending inventory for all stores. And if I get someone to do that for me, how do I know he or she will not do the

[DerekS]

Have you called the police? If not, I would do so. You need to make an example of this person, and this is definitely an arrestable offense- provided that you have proof.

The only way to properly check up on everything is to do it yourself. If your trust was violated once, it can be violated again. I'm not saying that you should become a mistrusting, suspicious person- but you should make it clear to your employees that your eyes are on EVERYTHING. If if you're not checking up on things as much as you should, the impression should be given that you see everything.

The only way to be 100% sure that everything is in order would be to put your eyes on everything, everyday. It may be a timesuck, but starting businesses tends to be an all-consuming activity.

[orbit]

I agree you have to be there everyday

[vafire]

You should really implement a LP (loss prevention) person in your stores...maybe a district LP person. Give that person the responsibility to keep up with loss and really come down on the store managers when things don't look right. It will also let your employees know its NOT ok to waste and/or steal. Might be some cost, but the outcome will/should be a effective and lucrative one.

Vafire
Founder & CEO CDS and CDS Entertainment
ChiefDesignStudios com

[Gary Barzel]

As unfortunate as this incident was you learned a valuable lesson. Every time we fail or make a bad business decision we have two options. We can either berate ourselves for what happened and replay the incident over and over again in our minds, or we can say this is terrible but I will make sure not to do the same thing next time. People grow from mistakes that happen. We are all human and mistakes are inevitable but there's always a lesson to be learned.