Ask yourself the following twelve questions to determine if your company is a candidate for the dreaded “Unclaimed Property Audit” by either a state or state sponsored (third-party) unclaimed property auditor:
1) Has the company been in business 10 years or more?
2) Is the company aware of all its unclaimed property reporting responsibilities?
3) Has the company reported unclaimed property in the past, or only sporadically reported, or only filed negative reports?
4) Does the company currently have unclaimed property reporting policies and procedures in place?
5) Does the company issue a large number of checks or drafts?
6) Does the company have a large number of employees and high employee turnover?
7) Does the company do business with multiple vendors and change them frequently?
8) Does the company accept customer deposits as prepayments including gift certificates and layaways?
9) Does the company’s books reflect any type of over payments, credit balances, unapplied cash, refunds due to customers, or numerous voided checks?
10) Does the company have unrecorded liabilities including old uncashed/outstanding checks that may have been written off to income in prior years?
11) Does the company issue securities and have a large number of shareholders?
12) Is the company in an industry group that has been targeted for unclaimed property audits in the past, such as Fortune 500, Fortune 1000, Health care, Insurance, Manufacturing, Banking and Finance, Securities, Utilities, College/University, or Retail?
If you answered “yes” to any of the basic questions, you could be a target for an unclaimed property audit. To find out how to help protect your company please contact or call us direct at (410) 303-5510.