Marcum Accountants - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

• • • • TOWN OF SURFSIDE, FLORIDA ® SCHEDULE OF FINDINGS AND QUESTIONED COSTS • ® FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDED SEPTEMBER 30, 2014 • • SECTION II —FINANCIAL STATEMENT FINDINGS • • MATERIAL WEAKNESS • 2013-001 Review and Recording of Financial Transactions • • Criteria • Prudent policies include a formal review and reconciliation during the year and during the closing • process with supervisory Finance Department personnel being responsible for the review of • transactions and balances recorded. Timeliness of closing procedures is crucial to proving accurate accounting data and financial information including interim and year-end financial statements. • • Condition • During the course of our audit procedures there were numerous auditor adjusting journal entries • proposed to correct account balances such as to recognize accounts receivable and deferred inflows • for parking contracts which called for future payments. to remove old payable/receivable balances which were no longer applicable in the current year but rolled forward from prior year, to record • current year activity for capital assets for enterprise funds, to properly accrue the Town's payroll • liability at year-end, and to transfer the completed water project from construction-in-progress to • in-service capital assets. In addition, some schedules requested in our initial planning letter were ® not readily available at the commencement of our audit engagement. • Cause ® There is a lack of internal review over the reconciliation and closing process. • • Effect • The general ledger, which are the books and records used to prepare the financial statements • needed to be adjusted throughout the audit process. • ® Recommendation • We recommend a detailed general ledger account analysis of all accounts be performed on a • monthly or quarterly basis in a timely manner to ensure accuracy and completeness of account ® balances. These analyses should be reviewed by supervisory Finance Department staff to ensure accurate recording of transactions. We further recommend that personnel responsible for the • books and records and approval of journal entries consult with their auditors or others for • unusual or difficult to record transactions especially given the complexities associated with the ® accounting standards. • • 110 • a