OCA Audit Reports

Issued: February 2008

SUMMARY

The purpose of our audit was to assess the reliability of selected financial data from the City’s new financial accounting system. The results of our audit provide some limited assurance of financial data reliability of the new AFS3 system in selected areas, although we identified some areas where improved controls are needed. Further assurance is expected from the work of the External Auditor on the FY07 financial audit and associated systems review work, and as management and departments continue to address implementation issues after the first year of implementation. OCA will consider these and other issues when developing its FY09 Service Plan.

We found a number of controls in place to support financial data reliability overall. These controls ranged from security and access controls to system assurance jobs, vendor payment controls, and reconciliation procedures. In addition, we confirmed the accuracy and completeness of Citywide expenditure payments recorded in AFS3 against checks clearing the City’s main cash disbursement bank account. We also confirmed the accuracy and completeness of payroll expenditures recorded in AFS3 compared to Banner payroll system output. In addition, we confirmed the reliability of Citywide AFS3 data in selected reports.

However, based on the two activities we sampled, we found the need for improved controls at the departmental level, at the Central Accounts Payable level, and with interface transactions (transactions uploaded directly into the system from other systems, in the form of output files). Activity-level financial data reliability varied for the two activities we tested, when comparing reported purchasing expenditures in AFS3 to source documents and systems. We found one of the two activities we tested for the most part accurate but with control issues, and one inaccurate, based on our transaction sample.

We found several issues that warrant further consideration during the course of our work. Following the FY07 financial statement audit, OCA will assess and may propose further audit work on AFS3 for its FY09 service plan. In the meantime, OCA will continue to be required to verify the reliability of activity-level expenditure information or other financial information if it is the primary evidence for significant audit findings.

We made 15 recommendations: five to the Controller’s Office, one to the Law department, five to Austin Water Utility, three to Fleet Services, and one to the CFO. Management concurred with all of them.

Download the entire text of our AFS3 Data Reliability audit report (Size: 691 KB) in Adobe Acrobat. You will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader to view these files. Or request a hard copy of this audit report, No. AU06101, by submitting this audit report request form.

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