“The accountant made a mistake in the accounting or “I had a penalty because the accountant didn’t tell me to pay the correct taxes are the most common phrases that entrepreneurs, especially small ones, repeat when they aim to get attention from part of the financial police for i accounting fraud offenses, tax evasion or avoidance. A relief, which, however, if there is no fairness, results from gross negligence: the lack of control procedures. Those control procedures which, when included in an organizational model provided for by Legislative Decree 231/2001 and correctly followed and controlled by the intended supervisory authority, relieve (or mitigate) the responsibility of the company. We remind you that Legislative Decree 231/2001 regulates corporate liability because of administrative offenses.
In other words, simplifying due to space constraints but recognizing the limitations of summarizing in case an employee or director performs crime provided by the decree in the interest or benefit of the company, some sanctions also for the company. We often wonder why organizational model as foreseen by Legislative Decree 231/2001, should it also be taken over by a small company? Why would a small company create a type of organization as proposed by Legislative Decree 231/2001?
Simply because it is a fundamental tool for all businesses to organize, manage and protect. Because an organizational model 231 from prevention of risks offers the company the opportunity avoid big problems and important sanctions. And even more so in a small business where responsibility is usually centered on the four identities of the same person, the ownerentrepreneurmanagerguarantor.
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Because the organizational model 231 is necessary for small business owners
Recently I verified the implementation of a simple control procedure in a small and virtuous company not common in the panorama of small companies: the socalled “customer / supplier circularization”, that is to say an empirical study (a trivial PEC) carried out periodically on the company’s commercial relationships, which allows to verify that the debts / credits are registered from suppliers or customers and those reported in the company’s financial statements to match.
An assessment procedure that has a double function: it blocks the balls in the middle since the debtor / creditor expresses his credit / debit precisely and also avoids the accusation of a possible crime of commercial fraud (Article 515 of the Italian Penal Code). code) and allowed to work out any inconsistencies long before a dispute arises over accounting misstatements or tax offenses. Not only that, but at the same time a copy of the correspondence was sent to the accountant who could therefore never have apologized for having made a different booking in the absence of information from the company.
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Whitecollar crime, the law punishes it, but implementing the law is anything but easy
In this small but efficient company, the implementation of an organizational model is not mandatory according to Legislative Decree 231/2001, but it is not a purely formal act. To adopt The 231 model actually means writing it, preparing the necessary documents and that’s it. A formal phase that requires the involvement of the corporate structure, which we could define as passive.
In this company the model is implemented. The implementation of the model 231, however it means it worksThis means putting the protocols into practice and preparing them a supervisory authority (Odv) external or mixed composition or, in the case of small companies, internal composition as long as they are trained or supported by professionals who guarantee the correct control activities who monitor the correct functioning of the recipes. In this small company, selfregulatory procedures are an asset that expresses capacity consciously regulate corporate activities despite an emotion or a tendency to act impulsively, automatically, or underhandedly.