Finance in Education

Chapter 13

The School Accounting System

Efficiency and in school financial practice require a sound system of accounting for income and expenditures.

Determining whether a company has made a profit or loss, and how much, is fundamental to good business operations.

The School Accounting System

General principles that may be applied to form the basis for an adequate and effective accounting system in every school:

Accuracy Completeness and currency Simplicity Uniformity

Encumbrance Accounting

Governmental agencies, including state departments of education and local districts, are now required to follow the Governmental Accounting Standards Board’s Basic Financial Statements. Encumbrance accounting and the use of computers are examples of important improvements in financial accounting systems in recent years. Their use has simplified the process of financial recordkeeping.

Encumbrance Accounting

Encumbrance accounting is important to any budgetary system. It represents a commitment related to unperformed contracts for goods and services. The issuance of a purchase order or the signing of a contract would create an encumbrance.

Auditing

A systematic process or procedure for verifying the financial operation of a school district to determine whether property and funds have been or are being used in a legal and efficient way.

Discovery of fraud and detection of errors wee once the main functions of auditing, but it has other more important functions today, such as its purpose to lend credibility to the financial reports.

Kinds of Audits

Internal – conducted by technically qualified personnel already employed by the district.

State – Periodic audit of local funds to ensure that the law is being observed in their utilization; varies form state to state

External – conducted by qualified agencies or individuals (CPA)