Accounting and auditing review

• Define key accounting terms.
• Understand accounting rules, equations, and basic principles.
• Demonstrate how journal entries are used for accounting purposes.
• Discuss the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s (FASB’s) GAAP hierarchy according to FASB Statement No. 162.
• Perform a risk assessment using the financial auditing process.
• Evaluate controls in the audit process by using finance-related management assertions.
• Review an IIA Practice Guide about formulating and expressing internal audit opinions.

Financial statements — an overview

• Review the characteristics of key financial statements.
• Recognize the flow of information from source documents to financial statements.
• Identify the components of a financial balance sheet.
• Distinguish where in an income statement financial accounts should appear.
• Calculate key ratios from a company’s financial statements.

Business processes and accounting

• Differentiate between management-level reporting and consolidated financial statement-level reporting.
• Analyze data using horizontal and vertical analysis.
• Describe revenue process activities and associated rules.
• Describe procurement process activities and associated rules.
• Describe fixed asset process activities and associated rules.
• Recall key revenue, liability, and inventory-related ratios.
• Practice using a risk assessment template to analyze risks, and design and test controls.

Recipes for cooking the books

• Identify the basic elements of an accounting scandal (fraud).
• Identify the five most common financial “games.”
• Calculate financial indices to use in analyzing data.

Technology and accounting

• Discuss the risks and control breakdowns of User-developed Applications (UDAs) and best practices for controls over UDAs.
• Describe how to minimize risk and limit exposure in using spreadsheets.
• Discuss how Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) supports and automates business processes.
• Identify audit techniques to use in performing an application review of a financial audit

Fraud Prevention

• Examining the existing internal control environment
• Understanding the COSO Model (“Internal Control-Integrated Framework”)
  1. Control Environment
  2. Risk Assessment
  3. Control Activities
  4. Information & Communication
  5. Monitoring

Deterring Corporate Fraud

• Identifying organizational tolerance to risk and improvement of internal controls
• Formulating a critical fraud response strategy
• Developing an anti-fraud program

Managing Donor Funding

Project start-up

• Start-up costs
• Start-up staffing
• Communications to stakeholders

Implementation

• Managing project budget and activities
• Maintaining a good relationship with the donor
• Ensuring strong internal controls

Project close Out

• Closeout planning
• Staffing
• Sub award closeout
• Final reports

Donor Audits

• Preparing for an Audit
• Areas of Audit Risk
• Supporting & Managing the Audit
• Corrective Action Plans