An Australia-wide research study into fraud committed by bookkeepers has revealed new evidence of the size of the problem and its devastating impact.

The research by the Forensic Accounting firm, Warfield & Associates, covered the period 2005-11 and analysed 65 criminal convictions in Australia for fraud offences where a bookkeeper was directly responsible for the fraud.

Report author, Brett Warfield, says: "Most bookkeepers are honest, diligent and perform their work ethically. However, those that were not, had a devastating impact.

The sums of money that were stolen from some of the smaller organisations were incredible, with nine cases involving more than $1 million.

The ease with which the Bookkeepers used the Electronic Funds Transfer system to credit their own bank accounts should concern all organisations. We see EFT fraud as one of the major fraud issues of this decade."

A total of 65 cases were identified during the research. A total of $31,379,761 was stolen over the period, with the average loss being $482,766. The largest amount stolen was $4.6 million by a woman in Geelong, Victoria. Nine cases involved more than $1 million.

Queensland was disproportionally represented with 31 cases of fraud. However, Victoria lost the most to fraud, which totalled $14,868,545, stolen by 14 bookkeepers.

At the date of publication of this research, there were another four cases of alleged bookkeeper fraud currently before the Australian courts.