What Is the Maker-Checker Process?
The maker-checker process is a control method that ensures no single person has full control over a business's financial transactions. At minimum, 2 people are involved in every transaction: the "maker," who initiates the request, and the "checker," who reviews and signs off on it before it proceeds.
This applies across a wide range of financial activity: invoice payments, employee salaries, vendor and client reimbursements, budget and expense management, updating financial records, and controlling who has approval rights in the first place.
The core objective is a secure, transparent approval workflow that builds accountability rather than relying on trust alone.
How Much Does Skipping This Control Actually Cost?
The financial case for maker-checker controls is more concrete than it might seem.
According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), organisations lose an estimated 5% of annual revenue to occupational fraud on average, and a lack of internal controls is the most commonly cited root cause.
- The average employee fraud case costs companies approximately USD 1.78 million, per ACFE's 2022 Report to the Nations
- Companies with strong segregation of duties detect fraud roughly 50% faster than those without
- Expense reimbursement fraud has a median monthly loss of USD 1,400, typically continuing for around 24 months before being caught
None of this requires a large finance team to address. Segregation of duties can be difficult to enact in small organisations.
But the core mechanism, requiring a second person to check before a transaction proceeds, scales down to a small business just as effectively as it scales up to a large one.
How Does the Maker-Checker Process Actually Work?
The exact implementation varies by industry, but the underlying sequence stays consistent:
Depending on the transaction's value or the company's policy, step 3 can repeat across multiple checkers, adding further review layers for higher-risk or higher-value transactions.
What Are the Real Benefits of a Maker-Checker System?
Beyond the headline fraud-prevention case, a maker-checker system delivers a few distinct, practical benefits:
How Can a Business Actually Implement This?
Implementing maker-checker controls is built directly into Aspire's Payable Management and Expense Management solutions, rather than requiring a separate system layered on top of an existing Business Account.
On the payables side, approval workflows can be customised to your internal spending policies, routing invoices through up to 3 levels of approval before funds are disbursed. This ensures every invoice is reviewed and authorised properly, with full visibility over outgoing payments rather than an Accounts Payable team processing everything immediately.
On the expense side, employees upload or scan receipts through the Aspire mobile app, and customised multi-level approval workflows route each claim to the appropriate checkers before reimbursement is processed.
A centralised dashboard tracks approval status, fund disbursement, and claim history in 1 place, giving full transparency over who is spending what.
Parent Budgets and Sub-Budgets
Aspire's tiered budgeting system supports up to 3 sub-budget levels beneath a single parent budget, with each sub-budget able to contain further sub-budgets of its own.
A business can structure many of these at the client, team, or project level, creating clearer transaction traceability and tighter cash flow control across the organisation.
Budget Owners and Transfer Rights
Each budget can have multiple budget owners, but not every owner automatically holds transfer rights. An owner without transfer rights cannot grant that right to someone else either, which keeps transaction authorisation limited to specifically assigned people.
Owners at a parent-budget level can view and assess every action taken beneath it, adding a further layer of accountability without creating a single point of failure.
When Should the Maker and Checker Never Be the Same Person?
Always. For the control to function at all, the maker and checker must be genuinely different people, without exception.
- Humans make mistakes, and a second reviewer is the mechanism that catches an error before it becomes a real financial loss
- If someone can approve their own request, the control offers no fraud protection at all
Why Hong Kong Businesses Choose Aspire
Building a genuine maker-checker control into your business shouldn't mean adding friction to every part of your financial operations — Aspire is built to make the control automatic instead.
💱 FX spreads from 0.18%, up to 3x cheaper than traditional banks. This applies across 130+ countries and 40+ currencies through Aspire's multi-currency account. It's useful for anything from paying overseas suppliers to settling international payments without losing margin to markup.
💰 1.2% unlimited cashback applies on every corporate card transaction, with no monthly cap. It kicks in automatically on eligible spend, with no minimum threshold to hit first.
🌐 Local transfer network, not multi-hop SWIFT chains, is how Aspire routes most payments. This means faster settlement and fewer intermediary fees eating into your payment before it reaches the recipient.
💸 Fixed USD 8 inbound SWIFT fee, tracked end-to-end with SWIFT GPI, applies when SWIFT is the right rail for your payment. There are no surprise deductions from correspondent banks along the way.
⚡ Approved in as little as 1 business day, with no branch visits and no paperwork stacks. Applications are completed entirely online, from document upload to approval.
Open a free multi-currency business account built for Hong Kong SMEs, or explore how Aspire's corporate card fits into your day-to-day spend.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the maker-checker process, in 1 sentence?
It's a financial control requiring at least 2 different people to complete any transaction: 1 to initiate the request (the maker) and 1 to review and approve it (the checker), reducing the risk of both error and fraud.
Can the checker and maker be the same person?
No. The maker and checker must always be different individuals. If the same person could both create and approve a transaction, the control would offer no meaningful protection against error or fraud at all.
What are the actual steps in a maker-checker approval?
The maker submits a request, the request is routed for review, the checker validates it and either approves, rejects, or sends it back for amendment, and the entire action is logged for audit purposes. Higher-value transactions may pass through multiple checkers before final approval.
How much does a lack of internal controls actually cost a business?
According to ACFE research, organisations lose an estimated 5% of annual revenue to occupational fraud on average, with the typical employee fraud case costing around USD 1.78 million. A lack of internal controls is the most commonly cited root cause behind these losses.
Is maker-checker only relevant for larger businesses with big finance teams?
No. The core mechanism, requiring a second person to review before a transaction proceeds, works at any company size. Even a small business with just 2-3 people involved in finance can implement basic maker-checker controls on its highest-risk transactions.
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