At the end of August I suspended an employee on suspicion of acts of fraud and/or theft. She was subsequently found guilty (admitted guilt on all charges) at the subsequent hearing and was dismissed.
Now a few suppliers have contacted us about outstanding payments. I have requested copies of orders or at least order numbers, but there have been none, the suppliers claim that they processed the orders made by email in one case and telephonic requests in the others.

One does have a delivery note signed by the ex-employee, although there is no evidence of an order being placed.(cost about R1400)

In another instance there is an email that appears to be requesting an item to be installed by one of our suppliers, which says "please go ahead, order to follow".(cost about R10,500.00)

In all cases the clients apparently paid cash to the ex-employee, but either false invoices, or no invoices at all, were issued and no monies were received by us.

We have been doing business with these suppliers for over ten years. We always issue official orders to suppliers for goods required, whether the cost is R5.00 or R55 000.00. They all know that we only work with official orders.

Who carries the can? Am I responsible for all and any criminal action carried out by my employees?