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As the Defense Finance and Accounting Service prepared for the standup of the United States Space Force and transition of personnel to the new service, planning also started to prepare the new service for a successful audit.
While most of the United States Space Force (USSF) consisted of the former Air Force Space Command, the service stood up independently and thus subject to audit like any other service.
A hallway conversation in the Pentagon between David Norquist, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense (former Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)/Chief Financial Officer) and Thomas J. Murphy, then Air Force Deputy Assistant Secretary for Financial Operations, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Financial Management and Comptroller, discussed creating an opportunity for USSF to come out of the gate with a clean audit opinion.
Pam Franceschi, DFAS Columbus site director and Air Force (AF) and Space Force Client Executive, said DFAS took this as a challenge, "We took that as a charge to position USSF in the best possible light on their audit journey."
Dawn Coulter, Agency Program Manager for USSF, joined the team early on and worked with Terry Dove, Air Force Client Executive Office project lead, to establish a project management team. The project management team began first with mission area interviews to understand current Air Force business practices to ascertain the impact of the USSF addition to DFAS.
Early on, DFAS Columbus Audit Support was identified as a key stakeholder due to the Department Wide priority on the financial statement audit.
As the team briefed DFAS executives, a consensus arose that it was best to establish an audit structure early in USSF's creation instead of retrofitting into an existing organization. Heather Murnane, Division Chief, Military Services, and Rachel Guzek, Branch Chief, Air Force Working Capital Fund & USSF, DFAS Columbus, led efforts in building a Space Force Audit Team.
"The consensus decision transitioned into broad questions of what was auditable from the inception of the organization with the answer being Statement of Budgetary Resources (SBR)," Guzek said.
When the Air Force, Space Force, and Inspector General agreed to support a full financial audit at a future date, planned for FY23, DFAS utilized DFAS Internal Review and an Agreed-Upon Procedures (AUP) to substantively test financial balances on the SBR.
"The four AUP's to date have confirmed our ability to support basic financial statement audit functions including reconciling from financial statement back to the general ledger," said Guzek, "providing a universe of transactions that equals the general ledger balance."
"This then produces complete evidentiary matter that addresses the assertions of existence, completeness, rights and obligations, and financial presentation," stated Murnane.
With each AUP, DFAS is looking at expanding scope alternatives to include Fund Balance with Treasury, another Department priority, and additional statements such as the balance sheet.
"Doing so gives us the infrastructure to successfully support the USSF when it likely goes to full financial statement audits," Murnane said.
| Date Taken: | 07.19.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 12.28.2021 15:35 |
| Story ID: | 411995 |
| Location: | INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, US |
| Web Views: | 130 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Laying the foundation for a successful audit, by Steven Lawson, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
