December 2013 Vol. 4 No.

UHY Advisors Mid-Atlantic MD, Inc.

Tax & Business Consultants

Nonprofit Insider

UHY LLP brings specialists in nonprofit solutions in accounting and tax

istration as the requirements for the password are pretty stringent: no more using your childs or pets name with 123 after it! The best part about the passwords, though, is that they expire every 60 days or after 30 days of no activity. So if you log into the Federal Audit Clearinghouse website on an annual basis, be prepared to get those creative juices flowing to come up with a new password at each login!

Are You Ready?

Big Changes Coming to the Data Collection Form and Process

By Matthew Duvall, Senior Manager f you are subject to OMB Circular A-133, you know that part of the final process involves the completion and submission of the Data Collection Form to the Federal Audit Clearinghouse. The streamlined process that we have all come to know and, dare I say, love, is about to be turned on its head. Although the final version of the form is not yet available and the original release date of October 2013 has come and gone, we do know some of what we can expect. First, the new form must be used for fiscal years ending in 2013 and beyond. Second, the majority of the form will still be completed by the auditor. Third, the majority of the information collected will be the same, but the format in which that information is entered and presented and the level of detail required will change. The changes be-

ing made are in an effort to streamline the form to allow the federal agencies to more easily extract information about the results of the financial statement audits being submitted. The real impact the new form will have on you will be in the submission process. Traditionally, under the old system when the form was ready to be submitted, the auditor would send you an email with a report identification number and password that all parties involved would use. That information would allow you to login, review the form for accuracy and certify it by entering a signature code. With the new process, however, those relatively simple steps are no more. Now, each user, i.e. the audit partner, the audit staff, the organization signing official and the organization staff, will be required to register on the Federal Audit Clearinghouse website and obtain a unique username and password. Be sure to have pen and paper handy when you go through this initial reg-

Once youve successfully registered and logged into the system, the certification process has changed as well. This is one place where the government made the process a little easier. No longer will you be required to type in a signature code; rather, upon initially setting up the form, the user will designate via name and email address which individuals should have access to the restricted certifying officials only pages. The expectation is that the certifying officials, of both the auditor and the organization, will just be
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For more information, please contact Jennine Anderson at janderson@uhy-us.com

8601 Robert Fulton Drive l Suite 210 l Columbia, MD 21046 l 410-423-4800 l Fax 410-381-5538 l www.uhy-us.com

the next level of service

Big Changes Coming to the Data Collection Form and Process continued from page 1 required to click a button in order to certify the form. website for previous submissions. Combing through the old website often proved difficult when searching by an entitys name since character limits required frequent abbreviations, e.g., Association was entered as Assn or Center was entered as Ctr; and if this wasnt done consistently from year to year, good luck! This new feature may be of limited benefit for some, however, as the system will rely on the email address provided on the previous submissions when populating users individual accounts. Since the new form hasnt been released yet, you may be worried about timely submission of your fiscal year 2013 form. Under normal circumstances, the rules require the submisan entity is considered low-risk for A133 audit purposes in subsequent years, so we are glad the extension issue has been addressed. If youre interested in becoming even more intimately familiar with the details of the new form and submission process, you can visit the Federal Audit Clearinghouses Data Collection Form website for a detailed instruction manual; you can also visit the website to keep up to date on the status of when the form will be released in its final version. Of course, we can help you too. Give me a call at 410-423-4800 if you have any questions. Ive got my fingers crossed that the rollout of new data collection form and website will be smoother than that other government website weve been hearing so much about!

A couple other changes to expect...

Previously, scanning a paper copy of the audited financial statements and uploading that PDF to the Federal Audit Clearinghouses website was acceptable. Now, as part of the streamlining on behalf of the federal agencies that we discussed above, the audited financial statements being uploaded will need to be text-searchable. This is a fairly simple adjustment to make, but it will now allow the

Previous data collection form submissions to the Federal Audit Clearinghouse will be available in users individual accounts.

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federal agencies to do quick word searches for phrases such as significant deficiency, material weakness or any other undesirable wording that an organization doesnt like to see in their audit results. Another change that we can expect is actually pretty useful. Previous data collection form submissions to the Federal Audit Clearinghouse will be available in users individual accounts. This means no more searching the Federal Audit Clearinghouse

sion of the form within the earlier of 30 days after you received the final audit report or nine months after your fiscal year end. For those non-December 2013 year end clients, there is a pretty good chance, under the normal due dates, that your data collection form could be late, but the OMB has granted a submission extension until January 31, 2014. To simplify the process, the extension is automatic and there is no approval required. As you know, a late submission of a data collection form can impact whether

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