Finding 8064 (2023-001)

CFDA #84.425 Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund Granted through the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Criteria: Organization’s must have a system of internal control to timely detect and correct financial statement misstatements and determine costs charged to federal awards are allowable costs. Condition: Accounts payable included several outstanding items that had been paid and expenses were duplicated in the accounting system. For these items, expenses were recorded through a bill and then again an expense was recorded with a check payment. A regular review of outstanding payables was not conducted to determine the accuracy of outstanding payables. Cause: The process of paying vendors is done in two different methods, some through bill entry and some through check payment , which allowed payments be made without applying the payable against the outstanding bill. Prevalence: During a review of accounts payable, nine invoices had already been paid yet were still outstanding on the payable list. Repeating finding: This is not a repeated finding. Effect: The Organization accumulated costs for the grant that were not incurred. The Organization had overstated revenue for claimed costs and expenses. The grant term extends through September 2024; the Organization will be able to correct costs claimed prior to the end of the grant term. Recommendation: It is recommended that the Organization use bill payments for all vendor payments to avoid duplicating entry of bills and the Organization should review accounts payable in search of unexpected outstanding payables. Views of responsible officials: In order to prevent this issue from happening again, the treasury team will perform the following; 1) Utilize bill payments for all vendor payments going forward 2) Notate the bill payment requests in ConceptSIS as “entered into Quickbooks on MM/DD/YYYY” once the bill has been entered into the system to ensure duplicates are not entered 3) Review the accounts payable on a monthly basis to search for unexpected outstanding payables and to ensure the accuracy of the accounts payable This corrective action will start as soon as possible and will be reviewed in a month for the next three months to ensure that these guidelines are being followed and whether or not a continual improvement plan needs to be implemented.