Though faced with several great challenges upon learning about internal fraudulent activity, leaders at National Roofing Partners (NRP) still had a business to run, clients to serve and trust to maintain – and in some cases, rebuild. Here are some key elements of how they did it.

CLEANED HOUSE

While still uncovering layers of fraud, NRP leaders removed several key officers in 2018 and other high-level employees left.

TRANSPARENCY

While difficult, the first step to repairing any potential loss of trust within the organization or with customers on the outside was acknowledging what happened. NRP officials shared the devastating financial news with its members, worked on effective and comprehensive solutions, and didn’t hide. They pursued court action at great cost and risk had the jury voted differently.

MULTIPLE LAYERS OF FINANCIAL CONTROLS

Payments by NRP now go through five stages of approval before checks are issued. Though it appears cumbersome, having multiple eyes on expenditures brings issues like potential fraud to light.

“If you don’t have a segregation of duties or multiple people involved, you really run the risk of this happening to you,” said Kyrah Coker, vice president of finance, NRP.

STACKING THE DECK

The reorganization at the top of NRP didn’t stop at the executive level. Current members of the NRP board include several roofing industry veterans from diverse backgrounds in manufacturing, consulting, association leadership and contracting.