Upcoming End of Year Audit

Not sure which forum subject to start this in so I will post it here. This last Thursday we had our training for the upcoming audit. We had our Assistant Area Auditor attend as this is the first go around for our new Stake Presidency. It was during the training that I learned we now, once again, have new audit forms. Not sure when the new forms we put into MLS but there was no "head's up" that new audit forms were created. Last go around new audit forms were downloaded into MLS without notifying anyone via MLS or otherwise other than a letter that may or may not have been received by the Stake President. It was only a couple of days prior to last audit training meeting that we learned that some fairly significant changes were made to the audit forms (such as requiring all individuals to yearly review the training lesssons at auditing.lds.org). We caught it in time and informed all the bishoprics that this was a new requirement. Without doing that we would have had a list of exceptions ten units long. Now it has happened again - new forms without any prior notice that they were put into MLS. If the LUS folks can send us messages to notify us of new finance reports, to do our Quarterly Reports, and so forth it certainly shouldn't be that hard to send out a message that new audit forms have been downloaded.

Okay, off my soapbox. My real question revolves around a statement made by our Assistant Area Auditor last Thursday. After every audit period, the stake president receives a "letter of X's" which shows which units had exceptions and also showed exceptions for previous audit periods - normally the last three years or so. We were informed that it was a requirement to send to Salt Lake via email, letter, report, or now perhaps via LUFUS that we are to clear all those previous years X's so they don't show up on the next audit letter sent out. It has always been our understanding that after an audit, if any exceptions were found that the clerk, Bishop, and stake clerk for finances would work at resolving the exceptions. Then (at least in our stake) we let the Stake President know that all the exceptions have been resolved by presenting him a letter detailing how and when they were cleared. It was never our understanding we were to somehow let Salt Lake know that we had cleared exceptions. We always looked at the letter sent out as a reminder of the exceptions and as a "history for any recurring patterns".

Did we miss something or is there a directive that someone knows about that requires each stake to send a letter or whatever to Salt Lake detailing how and when we cleared exceptions? And, now that we have been informed - do we need to go back three years of audits and send a letter to Salt Lake letting them know how we cleared exceptions two, three years ago? A directive or letter that we missed perhaps?

FFRsqpilot wrote:It was never our understanding we were to somehow let Salt Lake know that we had cleared exceptions.

Our area auditor used to require that the stake respond to any bold exception(s) with details on the resolution of the audit finding. He was required to report that the matter had been resolved.

Our new assistant area auditor has not given us instruction in this matter.

Another interesting thing I observed in the notice announcing the year-end audit is that future notices will not be sent, because our assistant area auditor will notify us of upcoming audits.

Was this a notice sent to the stakes? Because I don't remember ever getting a message announcing the audits for the ward. The auditor would just give me a call to set up a time, and we'd do it.

As far as the forms go, isn't there always a *new* form? Although there is no announcement, you can just go into MLS to view/print the current form. I did a quick pre-audit recently, and I didn't notice anything different (from my end) than past years.

FFRsqpilot wrote:Not sure which forum subject to start this in so I will post it here. This last Thursday we had our training for the upcoming audit. We had our Assistant Area Auditor attend as this is the first go around for our new Stake Presidency. It was during the training that I learned we now, once again, have new audit forms. Not sure when the new forms we put into MLS but there was no "head's up" that new audit forms were created.

Our Assistant Area Auditor gave us a warning sometime in December that new forms were available, and we should be sure to use the W4 version of the forms.

FFRsqpilot wrote:Did we miss something or is there a directive that someone knows about that requires each stake to send a letter or whatever to Salt Lake detailing how and when we cleared exceptions? And, now that we have been informed - do we need to go back three years of audits and send a letter to Salt Lake letting them know how we cleared exceptions two, three years ago? A directive or letter that we missed perhaps?

I've never heard of such a directive. The previous stake audit form (W3) contained a new provision that the audit committee needed to actually meet again to review the completion of the followup (and that provision is still in W4), but there is no provision in either W3 or W4 forms that require a communication up the line that this followup has occurred.

So I don't know if this is an initiative by your AAA that doesn't apply to the whole church, or if our AAA is slow to communicate (but he has been very much on top of communication, so I would think that is unlikely).

[Moderator note: I moved this thread to Local Unit Finance from Reports & Forms, since all other audit discussions are in LUF.]

The only requirement to report the resolution of exceptions, that I have seen, is for the audit committee to report that bold exceptions have been resolved. This is on page 3 of form W4.

I think it would be helpful to keep the old exceptions on the reports as it would highlight recurring problems, particularly for new members of the audit committee and clerks. I would have expected the exceptions noted to have been sorted or picked it when the audit committee does its review.

I am happy to say that our local office has been very good in letting us know of any changes to the audit forms, I believe they acted independently of the Area Auditor.

simonawright wrote:The only requirement to report the resolution of exceptions, that I have seen, is for the audit committee to report that bold exceptions have been resolved. This is on page 3 of form W4.

I have reviewed page 3 of form W4, as well as page 3 of form S4, and I can see no requirement "for the audit committee to report that bold exceptions have been resolved." Yes, page 3 says that the audit committee makes sure "If there are any audit problems, be sure they are corrected within 30 days of completing the audit." And step 11 for form S4 says the audit committee must make sure "During the audit period a stake audit committee meeting was held to determine that corrective action plans for the previous audit period were completed on the specified date."

But neither of those sections require the audit committee to communicate this followup beyond the stake. I can only conclude that people are looking at a different form (simonawright is in the UK, which uses a different form W4/S4 than the version for the United States and Canada used by the other respondent in this thread), or they have specific instructions from their Assistant Area Auditor that do not apply to other areas.

lajackson wrote:Another interesting thing I observed in the notice announcing the year-end audit is that future notices will not be sent, because our assistant area auditor will notify us of upcoming audits.

allenjpl wrote:Was this a notice sent to the stakes? Because I don't remember ever getting a message announcing the audits for the ward. The auditor would just give me a call to set up a time, and we'd do it.

Yes, this was a notice to the stake, dated December 7, 2011. But audits (to this point) have always been in February and August, and the stake auditor does make an appointment directly with the ward or branch to schedule the actual audit.

I serve as an Assistant Area Auditor. I have never heard of any requirement for stakes to communicate audit exception resolution status to Salt Lake. One of the responsibilities of Assistant Area Auditors is to follow up with stakes to ensure that high-risk audit exceptions (those in bold-face type on the audit form and on the exception reports) have been resolved. High-risk exceptions are tracked in LUFAS and after a stake reports that these exceptions have been resolved, the Assistant Area Auditor marks them as resolved in LUFAS. Once this information is in LUFAS, the Church Audit Dept and Area Audit Committees have access to it.