Finding Text
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Health Resources and Services Administration
Health Care Center Program
CFDA 93.224
2023-03: Approval for expenditures
Criteria: The assignment of responsibilities should be segregated so that one person is not responsible for the authorization and recording of a transaction and the custody of the related asset. Approvals should be noted on all expenditures by an individual outside of the recordkeeping and custody functions to provide reasonable assurance that transactions are allowable and appropriate for the Organization.
Condition: The Organization does not consistently document an approval process on source documents for expenditure.
Effect: Activities or costs that are not allowed or allowable could potentially be paid, as well as errors or intentional fraud could occur and not be detected timely by management in the normal course of their responsibilities.
Cause: There are no procedures in place to ensure source documents are consistently approved by a member of management prior to payment.
Identification of a repeat finding: No.
Recommendation: We recommend that a member of management or the Board of Directors review and authorize all disbursements, as well as travel reimbursements. This authorization should be evidenced by the initialing of each disbursement reviewed. We also recommend that care be taken to ensure the payee is not approving reimbursements to themselves and that a member of the Board approves those reimbursements.
Views of responsible officials and planned corrective actions: The Organization agrees with this finding and will adhere to the corrective action plan on page 32 in this audit report.