Finding Text
Financial Statements Condition: The year-end financial statements generated from the general ledger, that were prepared and presented for the audit contained inconsistencies, in comparison to the financial statements submitted to the Auditor of State, via the Hinkle Submission and the Entity Wide Balance Sheet and Entity Wide Revenue and Expense Summary, submitted via the Financial Assessment Subsystem. Criteria: The internal controls established by management, pertaining to the year-end financial statements should operate in a matter which should prevent or detect errors and inconsistencies. Cause: Lack of financial internal controls. Effect: ? Total assets per the financial statements generated from the general ledger were understated by $123,336. ? Total liabilities and net assets per the financial statements generated from the general ledger were understated by $123,336. ? Total revenue per the financial statements generated from the general ledger were understated by $4,619. ? Total expenses per the financial statements generated from the general ledger were understated by $48,409. Recommendation: I recommend that the Public Housing Authority should assess the adequacy of the design of its policies and procedures related to preparation of financial statements and the design appropriate controls as necessary to rectify inadequacies. Furthermore, the Public Housing Authority should consider where errors could occur that would cause a material misstatement in the financial statements and which policies or procedures would prevent or detect the error on a timely basis. Views of Responsible Officials and Planned Corrective Actions: Contributing to differences between the system generated financial statements and the financial statements prepared by the Authority for distribution include balances in accounts that typically have a balance that would appear on the Liability side of the Statement of Net Position, but in any given year have a balance reported on the Asset side of the Statement of Net Position, an example being the OPEB Net Asset. Balances of grants of short duration that for grant reporting purposes are maintained cumulatively in the general ledger for which only period amounts are reported on the Statement of Revenues, Expenses, and Change in Net Position is also an example of what can cause such differences. It is unknown by current management of Springfield MHA when the mapping for the financial statements generated by the Authority's accounting software was done or last updated. The financial statements generated by the Authority's accounting software are for very limited use by management only. They are not and were not generated for publication and distribution. For audit, Springfield MHA prepares trial balance worksheets that document mapping to the unaudited Financial Data Schedule, and then the totals from the unaudited Financial Data Schedule as adjusted (if applicable) provide the basis for the Financial Statements prepared for financial reporting and distribution. In addition to considering any mapping changes needed to system generated financial statements in the Authority's accounting software, Springfield MHA will consider how to label the financial statements generated by the accounting software as For Management Use Only.