Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Great article for non-profits...

Joanne Berry, Executive Director of the NYS Society of CPA's wrote a great editorial in last month's edition of The CPA Journal, in which she dives into the path that the CPA-non-profit relationship may be on.

http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/205d12e6#/205d12e6/9

The Roslyn School District scandal is probably the Enron of school district scandals with about $11 million in misappropriations and fraud and has since laid the ground work for more state audits and more regulation. We have seen many of our local school districts end up on the front page of the "capital district" section of a local paper talking about how money was spent inappropriately and how internal controls did nothing to prevent it - and Berry asks the same question with regards to NFP's and their spending responsibilities.

I believe this article comes at a good time because of the economic difficulties many non-profits have faced over the past couple years and some of these struggles include layoffs which can really have a negative impact on a small non-profit's internal control. Especially in these times when everyone is hurting a little in the wallet, you want to make sure that your internal controls are structured in a way that even the smallest of departments can handle and that is something your auditor should be able to help you with - but if not, as always, please feel free to give me a call.

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