A syllabus of top SAO resources and articles for school districts

Whether you're a new school official looking to learn all you can, or a seasoned veteran just interested in a refresher or two, chances are we have some resources you can use. Here's a list of linked articles, tools and checklists that have proven quite useful over the years. As always, if you have questions or need more information, contact our Center for Government Innovation at Center@sao.wa.gov. 

Internal control-related resources

Internal controls are arguably the most critical component of running an efficient, effective organization. To that end, we offer a quartet of topics with several guides to help you: cash receipting, accounts payable, accounts receivable and payroll guides. This suite of resources can help you develop policies and identify best practices and other ways to improve. Leadership, managers, supervisors, and accounting clerks can all find information tailored to them within these guides. 

Some of the key guides to check out:

• Segregation of Duties: Segregation of duties, or separating conflicting duty assignments, can help you protect your school district's assets. This guide is designed to help local governments understand how to separate job duties when it’s feasible, and covers all types of financial processes from cash receipting to payroll and banking. 
   
• Best Practices for ACH Electronic Payments: This guide can help governments improve their ACH payment process policies and employee training, establish a verification process, and monitor for unauthorized payee account changes.
   
• Best Practices for Sending Wire Transfers: These best practices are focused on developing strong internal controls to prevent and detect wire transfer fraud. This guide includes key areas to address in employee training as well as advice to help you establish a verification process to confirm the authenticity of wiring instructions.

Procurement resources

• Piggybacking Guide: Local government employees responsible for procurement can refer to this guidance when considering using other entities’ bid awards, a process known as “piggybacking.” It includes an optional checklist in the appendix.
   
• Buying and Bidding Guide: This handbook outlines the basics of purchasing and bidding to help you comply with state law, no matter your government type, size or complexity. 

Federal programs articles

• Audit Timeliness is a Post-Pandemic Team Effort: In this blog post, our Office explains how the increased number and size of COVID-related federal grants to be audited has affected local governments’ federal single audits, and outlines four key strategies you can use to maintain audit timeliness. 
   
• Avoid the most common federal single audit finding with these 10 tips. Local governments often find federal procurement requirements challenging, as evidenced by the fact it's the most common single audit finding that we report. This blog post highlights important areas to pay attention to when you procure goods and services with federal funds.

Don't forget

• School District Financial Statement Checklist: This self-assessment checklist can help school districts with their year-end review process for financial statements, notes and supplemental schedules. Note: We typically update this checklist each August, so check back at the end of summer for the most up-to-date version.

Other resources

• Financial Intelligence Tool (FIT) – Our award-winning tool includes a breakdown of publicly-available financial data for nearly 2,000 local governments, all within a user-friendly and customizable interface.
   
• In The Know with SAO e-newsletter – Our free e-newsletter includes up-to-date audit news and information, important trainings and reminders for local governments, and more. 

• Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF) FAQ: The FCC's webpage dedicated to frequently asked questions about the federal government's ECF program, which was part of its COVID-19 relief package and intended to facilitate a fast conversion to remote learning.

For more help

Remember, SAO's Center for Government Resources is here to support you! Our Resource Library is packed with a variety of free guides, checklists, best practices and tools to assist Washington governments improve internal controls, grants management, procurement practices, financial reporting, and cybersecurity. If you have specific technical accounting questions, submit them using our HelpDesk in the client portal.