An update: We posted a request for a voluntary auditor in our school newsletter. We are very fortunate that a parent -- who is also a professional accountant -- stepped forward to do the audit this July. He has done this sort of thing before, so I assume he has his own set of procedures. If I learn something worth sharing, I'll post it here after the audit.
It is stated in our bylaws that the books are audited at the end of our fiscal year June 30th. They also state that the auditing committee shall be at least 3 individuals chosen by the executive board. The treasurer may not be on the auditing committee, nor anyone else who had the authority to sign checks. We do let our treasurer be present to answer any questions we may have. I will email you what I have on holding an audit and the form we submit.
To those of you that mention parent volunteers audited your books...
Do you have a procedure that you are willing to share? What did the auditor(s) review and what are some of the things they did? We are trying to implement annual audits and are looking for the best practices. Thanks.
We audit our books whenever we have a treasurer leave the job--every one to two years. We have been lucky to have enough parent volunteers who have some bookeeping/accounting knowledge that have done the job for us as a volunteer. We ask them for any suggestions about the way we keep the books and anyother comments. We then ask them to write a short summary of the condition they found our books to be in (whether everything seemed in order, no discrepancies, etc.) We give a copy of this letter to the principal of the school, a copy goes to the district office and we keep a copy for our PTO records. We have never had any trouble and it is reassuring to know our books are in good order.
[This message has been edited by grundysue (edited 04-02-2001).]
We had a parent who is a CPA audit the books (pro bono) This parent was able to advise us on ways to improve our record keeping. I thought it was very useful.
