FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, Md. (April 19, 2012) -- Last year, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta issued the challenge of being audit-ready for the Statement of Budgetary Resources by 2014 and for three other financial statements by 2017.
To prepare for the challenge, nearly 100 staffers from more than a dozen installation organizations trained last week at McGill Training Center to learn about internal controls associated with the end-to-end financial transaction process that takes place with every business procedure.
The course prepared participants for upcoming audits and how to be ready for them.
"[The class is] all about internal controls," said Beth Barr, director of the Fort Meade Internal Review and Audit Compliance Office. "The internal controls are the things that the auditors are going to check for. What this training is trying to do is make sure that everybody has those internal controls before the auditors get here."
Since the group was so large, the four-day training program began April 9 and 10 with two introduction courses. On the following days, individuals learned the specifics about internal control processes and how to track those processes properly for the audits.
"We're here to learn what they're going to be auditing and what documents we need to back it up," said Sgt. 1st Class Bernhard Yutesler, supply noncommissioned officer in charge at the U.S. Army Field Band. "I'm learning how the auditing is going to occur in the future."
Business processes that affect the SBR include reimbursable transactions, miscellaneous payments, civilian payroll, supply procurement and government purchase card, said Sharon Hale, the SBR government lead with Army Audit Readiness.
The internal controls associated with these business processes include such practices as getting proper approval and making sure the employee who writes a purchase order isn't the same employee who approves the order and signs the bill.
"One person can't get things for themselves without somebody else seeing," Barr said.
These internal control practices are already in place and commonly used, Barr said, but the training offered a refresher about the correct procedures, since that's what auditors will be examining.
"It's mostly, 'I need to keep a copy of that longer,' " Yutesler said of the training.
The training emphasized that "these are the processes you need to have in place, these are the documents that you should have ready, you should know where to get them and should be able to get them quickly," Barr said.
Similar mandatory training is being conducted at all Army installations as organizations prepare to meet the audit-ready deadline.
Yutesler said he found the training helpful in his preparation for the audits.
"I know exactly what they want," he said. "By the end of this week, we'll be fully prepared."
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