A fraudulent practice where cash receipts are not matched with their corresponding receivables in order to hide fictitious receivables. For instance, if a fictitious receivable is recorded for one customer, a firm may use a payment received from a second customer to show that the receivable item was valid. A payment later received from a third customer may be used to write off the receivable recorded for the second customer, and so on.
This practice is also referred to as lapping.
