Internal Controls - What They Are and How to Ensure Compliance Workshop

Thompson Grants Workshop: Internal Controls - What They Are and How to Ensure Compliance

Countless audits tell the story! The lack of maintaining effective written internal controls, and actually following them, is often the root cause of numerous audit findings and unwanted questioned costs. In addition, many organizations that shifted from their traditional operations to a virtual environment in response to the COVID-19 pandemic were forced to adjust their policies and procedures “on-the-fly,” putting an even greater strain on their methods to properly oversee their federal award funding.

As organizations now begin to return to a “post-pandemic” reality in which they operate programs in multiple settings, they likely will be spending significant time and money updating their internal controls over financial reporting, and assessing how to best document that they are using their federal dollars appropriately.

This on-demand workshop focuses on specific strategies for developing and applying efficient internal controls, and what organizations must do to ensure compliance and reduce questioned costs. We address the following topics:

• What a sound internal control environment should look like
• How organizations should update their documentation of their internal controls
• Best practices in establishing, documenting and following internal controls
• Applying functional accounting and procurement procedures
• Characteristics of an internal control process that are ripe for re-evaluation

Agenda

Session 1: Best Practices In Establishing & Documenting Internal Controls As We Return From the COVID-19 Pandemic
As our work has migrated from a “bricks and mortar” environment to a virtual environment and now back to something somewhere in between, all organizations have had changes in their internal control environment and continue to have them. This program will discuss what a sound internal control environment should look like, how organizations should update their documentation of their internal controls, and best practices in establishing and documenting internal control.

Key Session Take-Aways:
• 5 elements of internal controls
• Understand how your internal controls procedures should be documented
• Understand how to reconsider your internal controls in the new back to work environment
• Consideration of best practices in establishing new controls, including how to document
• Describe how management and boards should review/approve internal controls documentation

Session 2: Considerations of Specific New Internal Controls for Implementation During a Post-COVID Environment
This session will explore specific areas in internal controls over financial reporting that are ripe for reconsideration as we move from a mostly virtual environment to a hybrid environment of some office and some virtual. Accounting processes such as payroll, procure to pay, information technology and grants management will be discussed.

Key Session Take-Aways:
• Characteristics of an internal control process that are ripe for re-evaluation
• Specific considerations for changes to the payroll process
• Specific considerations for changes to the procure to pay process
• Specific considerations for changes to the information technology process
• Specific considerations for changes to the grants management process

Meet Your Instructor

Jack Reagan is a Partner at UHY LLP in Columbia Maryland with over thirty years of experience in the audit and evaluation of federal, state and local government and not-for-profit financial statements, internal controls, and accounting and financial management systems and operations. He has overseen numerous projects demonstrating his extensive knowledge of accounting, financial management, auditing and budget to include developing and revising operating policies and procedures for federal and state and local government agencies and designing or evaluating financial reporting internal controls. He has also conducted numerous Single Audits and Uniform Grant Guidance audits, both in the Washington DC area as well as nationally. He is a widely sought-after speaker on governmental accounting, auditing and grants management topics.