Center for Government Innovation

Today marks the premiere of the Center for Government Innovation's limited series, “Fish Tank,” on SAO's Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn pages.

In this bonus edition of our FIT Data Stories series on COVID-19's effect on our cities and towns' revenues, we use our Financial Intelligence Tool (FIT) to take a deep dive into how the pandemic affected Washington's border towns and special districts. Scroll through our interactive infographic to get a better picture of the pandemic's financial effect on our state.

 

The influx of money from the Coronavirus Relief Fund (Assistance Listing 21.019) prompted many cities and counties to make more subawards than they have the past. Passing along federal money to others does not relieve governments of grant compliance requirements—in fact, it adds to them. The State Auditor's Office is seeing an increase in audit issues around subrecipient monitoring, primarily due to lack of awareness of the requirements.

The Center for Government Innovation at the State Auditor's Office is excited to announce our new Accounts Payable Guide for local governments. Use this guide to find ways to improve your operations and discover best practices.

This guide has something for each role in the accounts payable process, whether you are:

When was the last time you reviewed and updated your deposit process? Deposits become so routine that it is easy to forget that your internal controls might need adjusting as your financial activity changes over time. On top of that, there are new options and technology for deposits that can help you strengthen your security measures.

Here are some tips and resources to get you started:

You've decided the time has come to upgrade your cash receipting system or billing system, or even to install a new financial management system, but where do you start? How do you ensure implementation goes to plan?

Every local government in Washington is legally required to submit an annual financial report to the State Auditor's Office. In turn, SAO is legally required to publish the data from that annual report and make it available to the public. We do this through our online Financial Intelligence Tool (FIT).

Every quarter, we publish an updated snapshot-in-time of the financial data SAO has, which ensures that FIT contains the most recent data for every local government that successfully filed a report.

Budgeting and planning season is here for local governments that have a Dec. 31 fiscal year-end. With 2022 on the horizon, some governments might be anticipating increases to certain revenues or planning changes to salaries and benefits. Our Financial Intelligence Tool's (FIT) “Add Projection” feature allows governments to adjust their known or anticipated revenues and expenditures, and then project those amounts into the future. Continue reading to learn how to access this feature and start projecting today.

How to create a projection

While every financial system's internal controls are important, establishing strong controls for your government's accounts payable process is particularly critical for preventing errors and deterring or quickly detecting fraud. From maintaining master vendor files to preventing duplicate payments and transactions, accounts payable requires a robust set of internal controls for ensuring your government safeguards public resources.

This is the fifth article of our seven-part K&P leadership series. Missed the previous article on enabling others to act? Read it here.