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AuditWare News

INFO ABOUT PDF SERVICE IN THE MAIL
9/29/08 Recently we sent out information and order forms for our service which converts the annual audit report for a Texas school district into PDF format and then submits it to the Texas Education Association's T.E.A.S.E. website.

SUCCESSFUL AUDITWARE SEMINARS ARE A WRAP
8/20/08 We have completed another successful round of seminars and we thank all of you who attended. Seminars were held this year in two California locations and eight Texas locations.

FIRST OFFICIAL AUDITWARE SHIPMENT OF 2008 IN THE WORKS
5/29/08 Within a few days we will be mailing  out CDs to our clients containing all products for which their 2008 renewal fee has been paid. This is the first official version of 2008.

2008 SEMINAR REGISTRATIONS POURING IN
5/12/08 Our clients must like our new half-day seminars at a reduced price as well as our locations, since our registrations to date for this summer's seminars are considerably above last year's at this point. Later this week we hope to send out our official mailing promoting the seminars.

2008 CLIENT YEAR ESTABLISHED FOR ALL PRODUCTS
4/15/08 The ability to change the client year to 2008 has now been enacted for our Audit I.S.D. for Texas School Districts product, our AuditWare for California School Districts product, and our AuditWare for Local Governments product and passwords established for all.

AUDITWARE SUMMER SEMINAR SCHEDULE NOW ESTABLISHED
3/26/08 Dates and locations for our annual summer seminars have now been announced. Click here for dates and locations or here for a registration form. This year's workshops will be 1/2 day, offer 4 CPE credits, cost $160 and will be offered in two California locations and five Texas locations during June and July.

TEXAS DATAFEED SUBMISSIONS NOW FUNCTIONAL
12/22/07 The Texas Education Agency notified us by email today that their "Sybase" system has been reprogrammed and will now accept submissions of datafeed files from Texas school districts.

TEXAS DATAFEED SUBMISSIONS TEMPORARILY INOPERABLE
12/18/07 The Texas Education Agency announced today that users will get an "invalid schedule" error message when attempting to submit a datafeed file on it's "TEASE" web site until they are able to correct a computer programming problem. They are hopeful the problem will be solved by January 2, 2008. The submission of PDF files is not affected by this problem.

MAJOR NEW FEATURE BENEFITS AUDITWARE USERS ON A NETWORK
12/2/07 A major new feature has been added in support of storing and accessing AuditWare client "archive" files on a remote computer in a computer network environment. AuditWare now prevents a network user from opening a client which is already in use by another network user. See "AuditWare Engine Updates" this date for more information.

TEXAS DATAFEED SUBMISSION REVISED FOR J-1
11/29/07 We received an e-mail today from Paul Moreno of the Texas Education Agency's Financial Audit Division announcing a revision in the requirements for the annual datafeed submission by Texas school districts to the TEA. The change is that column 31 of the last line of Exhibit J-1, The Delinquent Tax Schedule, is now included in the datafeed file. That line has a data control code of 9000 and reports the portion of line 1000 paid into Tax Increment Zone under the Chapter 311 tax code. It is not applicable to all schools. The change is NOT retroactive. Files previously submitted will not have to be resubmitted as long as that line was included in the hard copy of the audit report and the PDF submission.

An update of the AuditWare Engine which includes this change was posted to the Downloads Page today. The Audit I.S.D. product will need to be downloaded as well unless you already have installed that version.

CALIFORNIA CONTROLLER REVISES THIS YEAR'S AUDIT REPORT
11/27/07 A letter from the California State Controller dated October 31, 2007 addressed to all K-12 LEAs revises the Schedule of Instructional time for this year's audit reports. The letter states "Section 19824(a)(7) of the audit guide requires that the instructional minutes listed on the Schedule of Instructional Time be shown by grade level instead of grade span. For example, the grade span of Grades 1-3 should now be shown individually as Grade 1, Grade 2, and Grade 3, with accompanying instructional minutes for each grade level." The default version of that schedule was also revised within AuditWare with an update of the California School District product published today. Thanks to Steve Yribarren of Jorge and Yribarren, CPAs in Selma, Ca for making us aware of this change and faxing us a copy of the letter.

TEXAS SEMINARS ARE HISTORY by Paul Shaw
8/7/07 Dolly and I arrived home in Phoenix yesterday after almost a month on the road. We had a great time seeing so many clients and friends at the Texas seminars in San Antonio, Longview, Weslaco, Corpus Christi, College Station, Fort Worth and Lubbock. In many of those cities we had two days of seminars. After the seminars we spent almost a week with my brother John and his wife Judy in Ruidoso, New Mexico before finally getting home.

CALIFORNIA SEMINARS ARE HISTORY by Paul Shaw
7/2/07 We had a great time at the California workshops! Dolly and I went one day early to the Tuesday San Diego seminar and enjoyed Mexican food in Old Town, a trip to La Jolla and shopping (and seafood) in Seaport Village. After the Visalia seminar on Thursday, we took a day or two on the California coast. We visited the Hearst castle and spent the night in San Simeon, took a drive up the Route 1 highway, looked at the Elephant seals on the way, backtracked to the South and checked out Morro Bay (delightful) and generally had a great time. On the way back to Phoenix we stopped for one night at Laughlin, NV and had a good time at the Golden Nugget. Not as fancy as Las Vegas but we liked the more small-town atmosphere. -- Paul

GENERAL MAILING IN PROGRESS
6/14/07 A general mailing to all AuditWare users who have paid their 2007 renewal fee began today with the shipment of the official 2007 versions of all AuditWare products on CDs. These are the same versions as are available for download on our web site, except that they are imbedded with the password for changing the year to 2007. Printed user manuals will be shipped under separate cover by Monday, June 18th.

SAS NO. 112 IMPLEMENTED IN AUDITWARE TODAY
6/9/07 Major changes were made today to the second and third auditor report to implement SAS No. 112, Communicating Internal Control Related Matters Identified In An Audit. The term "significant deficiency" is now used instead of "reportable condition" and is defined differently. The term "material weakness" is still used but it is also defined differently than before. The statement is required to be implemented for periods ending December 31, 2006 and later. If you are still working on an audit from an earlier date and have not yet created and finalized the auditor reports, it is important that you not install AuditWare versions dated today or later until you are finished with that audit report.

The single audit major program report provides somewhat of a quandary for auditors. At this writing the OMB has not provided or approved the wording for that report although the AICPA has provided a draft of the wording with the OMB's permission. PPC is recommending that the issuance of the report be delayed, if possible, until the OMB approves of the wording, but if that is not possible or practical, to use the AICPA's draft available on AICPA's web site as the wording. It is this draft wording which is being made a part of AuditWare today. We will either update AuditWare when an official version changes it, or let you know that the draft has become the official version.

NEW SCHEDULE REQUIRED IN CALIFORNIA AUDIT REPORTS
6/9/07 The 2006-07 K-12 Audit Guide calls for a schedule called "Local Education Agency Organization Structure." and that schedule was added to AuditWare today. It is similar to the one required prior to 2004 called simply "Organization" except that it requires somewhat more information. Required, at a minimum, are:
1) The date on which the local education agency was established, and for charter schools the date and granting authority of each charter;
2) The date and a general description of any change during the year audited in a school district’s boundaries;
3) The numbers by type of schools in the local education agency; 
4) The names, titles, terms, and term expiration dates of all members of the governing board;
5) The names, with their titles, of the superintendent, chief business official, and deputy/associate/assistant superintendents.

NEW AUDITWARE PRODUCT PLANNED FOR FLORIDA!
3/15/07 A major new AuditWare product is in the works which will be available to auditors of Florida cities, counties and special districts early this summer. "AuditWare for Florida Governments" (AFG) will be AuditWare's fourth product, joining "Audit I.S.D. for Texas School Districts," "AuditWare for California School Districts" and "AuditWare for Local Governments" (ALG). The Florida product will differ from ALG in that it will have Florida's state-wide chart of accounts for cities, counties and special districts built in!

Having the chart of accounts built in makes it possible to use AuditWare's powerful "Turnkey" command. That command allows all basic and combining financial statements to be created and/or printed with one keystroke or mouse click once the client's year-end trial balance data has been imported from a file (or keyed in manually when a file is not available). Make a few government-wide adjustments and the government-wide statements and reconciliations are included in the command as well.

TENTATIVE SUMMER SEMINAR DATES AND LOCATIONS POSTED
2/12/07 Tentative dates and locations for our summer series of seminars and workshops in Texas and California have been posted on the "Dates and Locations" Page. However, the seminar descriptions and registration form have not yet been updated.

WINDOWS "VISTA" PASSES INITIAL TESTS
2/8/07 For the past several days we have been testing the new Microsoft Windows Vista version to determine what problems, if any, will have to be solved to run AuditWare under that operating system. So far, it appears that AuditWare will run fine, but we're not ready yet to advise our users to rush out and buy it. At this point, the only minor inconvenience is that when AuditWare is initially installed on a Vista computer, one of the files must be right-clicked to set the properties and select "Run this program as an administrator." Subsequent AuditWare updates can be downloaded and installed without having to repeat that step. Also, each time you load AuditWare to run it, a screen appears which requires you to click an "Allow" box because you are running "unrecognized" software. Because Vista is so security conscious, many non-Microsoft software programs will likely generate that screen when loading them. Other than that, everything we have tested within AuditWare seems to run normally.

ANNUAL RENEWAL NOTICES IN THE MAIL FOR SCHOOL PRODUCTS
12/19/06 Annual renewal statements due by January 31, 2007 were mailed today to all organizations which subscribe to Audit I.S.D. for Texas School Districts and AuditWare for California School Districts. We are mailing in December at the request of several clients who want the opportunity to pay in either year. Renewal notices for users of AuditWare for Local Governments will be mailed in the Spring.

ITALICS NOW IN LETTERS FOR ALL; ED PRO FILES NOW SUPPORTED IN TEXAS
10/12/06 Effective with today's update of the AuditWare Engine, Italics is now used in all of the letters (auditor reports) within AuditWare when referring to publications such as Government Auditing Standards, rather than all caps as in the past. This will be a welcome change, since a number of users have been laboriously editing those documents to add the italics. Users of AuditWare for California School Districts will need to also download that product to get this change in the state-required Auditor's Report on State Compliance. Also, the Texas school district product has been revised to add "Ed Pro" as a file type when converting ASCII files. "Ed Pro" is the new version of EDP software. See the Changes page for more details on dealing with Ed Pro files.

NEW GASB 44 STATISTICAL TABLES NOW AVAILABLE IN AUDIT I.S.D.
9/14/06 In a major update of the Audit I.S.D. for Texas School Districts (TSD) product, all statistical tables which are included in the statistical section of a full CAFR have been changed to those now required by GASB Statement 44 for fiscal periods ending June 30, 2006 and later. Alternative and optional tables as shown in the GASB 44 implementation guide examples have been provided as well, but are inactive by default (they must be activated by the user). The old (pre-GASB 44) tables will still be available within AuditWare for audit reports dated prior to 2006.

NEW GASB 44 STATISTICAL TABLES NOW AVAILABLE IN ALG
9/5/06 In a major update of both the AuditWare Engine and the AuditWare for Local Governments (ALG) product, all statistical tables which are included in the statistical section of a full CAFR have been changed to those now required by GASB Statement 44 for fiscal periods ending June 30, 2006 and later. Alternative and optional tables as shown in the GASB 44 implementation guide examples have been provided as well, but are inactive by default (they must be activated by the user). The old (pre-GASB 44) tables will still be available within AuditWare for audit reports dated prior to 2006.

NEW FEATURE FOR AUTOMATIC PRINTING OF "BLANK" PAGES NOW AVAILABLE
8/2/06 Today's update of the AuditWare Engine introduces a major new feature for printing of the audit report. You may now selecting any exhibit or document in the audit report and specify that when it is printed, it is to be followed by a printed blank page. A "blank" page is one which reads "This page is left blank intentionally." This allows for duplex copying or scanning into a file for duplex printing without the need for inserting these pages manually. See the Engine Updates page for more information on this and other changes made today.

LOCATION OF LONGVIEW WORKSHOP CHANGED
7/18/06 The location of the Longview, Texas, workshop scheduled for Wednesday, July 26th has been changed from Homewood Suites to the Holiday Inn Express, 300 Tuttle Circle. All who are currently registered have been notified by telephone. See the Dates and Locations page for directions to the Holiday Inn Express.

ALL AUDITWARE PRODUCTS SHIPPED BY CD TODAY
7/15/06 The AuditWare Engine, AuditWare Utilities and all AuditWare products have been shipped to all AuditWare clients who have paid their 2006 renewal fee. In connection with that mailing, all version dates were changed to July 15, 2006 to provide consistency.

TEA TO REVISE EXHIBIT L-1
6/9/06 We have received word from Paul Moreno of the Texas Education Agency (TEA) that the Schedule of School First Indicators, Exhibit L-1, is being revised this year. A new question will be added for reporting the amount of the total accumulated accretion on capital appreciation bonds included in the government-wide financial statements. As soon as the TEA's plans are final we will be revising that schedule in our Audit I.S.D. product and publishing an update on the web site. The L-1 schedule, as you will recall, is not required to be a part of the paper audit report but it is required for the PDF and data feed submissions to the TEA.

SCHOOL DISTRICT  PRODUCTS NOW AVAILABLE FOR 2006
4/7/06 The 2006 version of the Audit I.S.D. for Texas School Districts product and the AuditWare for California School Districts (CSD) product are now available for download on the Downloads page of this web site.

DATES FOR SUMMER SEMINARS PUBLISHED
2/28/06 Dates and locations for our summer workshop series are now available on the Dates and Locations page of this web site..

CALIFORNIA SCHOOL ACCOUNTING MANUAL NOW AVAILABLE - AUDITWARE UPDATED
11/21/05 The California Department of Education has at long last published it's revised California School Accounting Manual (CSAM) for 2005. A link to the manual in both PDF and Microsoft Word formats has been added to the "Links to Other Sites" page of this site and a PDF file listing the changes in fund numbers and account codes has been added to the "Documents for Download" section of the Downloads page. Finally, the AuditWare for California School Districts product has been revised to add a new fund, revise various account code titles and add new ones. See the Downloads page ("click here" beside the product) for more information.

AUDITWARE ENGINE CORRECTION PUBLISHED
11/17/05 An AuditWare Engine dated today has been published which corrects a problem caused by the 11/2/05 update. If your Engine version is dated 11/2, 11/3 or 11/8/05 you should download and install a version dated today or later to correct a possible problem whereby some of your budget comparison schedules may be inadvertently de-activated even though you have the fund set as a budgeted fund in Settings. You may determine your AuditWare Engine date by looking at the bottom right hand corner of the AuditWare Access Menu. Click here to go to the Downloads page.

ALG NOTES UPDATED FOR GASB 40
10/24/05 An update of the AuditWare for Local Governments (ALG) product is now available for download which provides the disclosures required in the "deposit and investments" section of the notes by GASB Statement 40. That statement is required for fiscal periods ending June 30, 2005 and later. The other AuditWare products were updated for GASB 40 previously.

TWO HELPFUL AUDITWARE UPDATES PUBLISHED
8/11/05 Two AuditWare Updates have been published lately which should be especially welcome. For users of Audit I.S.D. for Texas School Districts a complete PEIMS file for the midyear submission may now be created with AuditWare. Today's update added the 010, 011 and 020 record types referred to in the 7/10/05 news article below. Also, for users of AuditWare for California School Districts and AuditWare for Local Governments, a new a feature has been added in the FieldWork module allowing the input for the SEFA schedule from the prior year to be brought forward to become the "starting point" for this year (just change the dollar amounts). Thanks to Bob Wilkinson of Wilkinson and Hadley, El Cajon, CA for the suggestion to add this feature. To use the feature, select "Last Year" from the menu.

PRINTED USER MANUALS ON THE WAY
8/9/05 Printed user manuals for the summer/fall audit season are being mailed this week to users of all AuditWare products who have paid their annual renewal fees. This includes users of Audit I.S.D. for Texas School Districts, AuditWare for California School Districts and AuditWare for Local Governments in all states.

PEIMS FILE CREATION IS HERE!
7/10/05 Users of the Texas School District (TSD) product may now use their AuditWare data to create a PEIMS submission file with today's version of the AuditWare Engine and the Texas School product posted today on the downloads page! This version generates the 032 (actual) records and the 033 (Shared Service Arrangements) records when the client is the fiscal manager of an SSA. Later we will be adding the functionality to add the organizational records (010, 011 and 020).

PEIMS FILE CREATION NEARING REALITY!
6/11/05 For users of the Texas School District (TSD) product, the new feature announced earlier which provides the ability to create the PEIMS submission file is near publication! (see the 5/12/05 news article below). Within the next few days we anticipate publishing to the web site a TSD product capable of generating a PEIMS file of the "actual" data. The "actual" submission is submission 2 of the 4 submissions required by the Texas Education Agency. In testing within the last few days, a PEIMS file for a small school districts can be generated by AuditWare in about one minute (2-3 minutes for a larger district)! The subject of how to create a PEIMS file, as well as how to subject it to many, many tests to assure it's accuracy, will be a major topic of the seminars to be held throughout Texas this summer. In short (and as one of our users said recently), PEIMS files are about to get sexy! Within a week or two we will be publishing a version which will be able to include the "033 record" (SSA, a.k.a. "CO-OP", information) in the file when appropriate. Until that happens, AuditWare is saving the generated file as PEIMSTMP.TXT, rather than the official file name (M plus the fiscal year digit plus the county-district number), and it will need to be renamed by the user to the official name in order to submit it. Stay tuned.

RENO, HERE WE COME!
5/16/05 Why not mix business with pleasure with a trip to Reno, Nevada this fall? We plan a full day seminar on Monday, September 19th for current or prospective users of AuditWare for California School Districts and a half day one the next day for current or prospective users of AuditWare for Local Governments from all states. See the workshop schedule for more detail. Click here for more information about Harrah's Hotel and Casino, where the workshops will be held. Our workshop schedule for Summer/Fall is now finalized.

MAJOR NEW PEIMS FEATURES ANNOUNCED FOR TEXAS SCHOOL PRODUCT!
5/12/05 The 2005 version of Audit I.S.D. for Texas School Districts (TSD) will have the capability of creating a PEIMS file suitable for submission of "actual" data to the Texas Education Agency (TEA), it was announced today by Paul Shaw, AuditWare president.  Not only that, but AuditWare will have the capability of giving a client's data a "gut check" by subjecting it to over 100 "scrubs" (TEA calls them "edits") to check the reasonableness and accuracy of the data. Because of these major new features, the summer workshops for users of the TSD product will feature training on PEIMS as a whole, the various PEIMS submissions required of Texas school districts, how to run the "scrubs" and the steps for creating the "actual" submission file in AuditWare. PEIMS is an acronym for Public Education Information Management System and is the primary way that Texas schools submit data to the TEA by means of electronic ASCII files. School District administrators and staff who need an overview of PEIMS are welcome to attend, in addition to independent auditors and staff.

SUMMER WORKSHOP SCHEDULE ALMOST FINALIZED
5/11/05 Except for two seminars in the planning stage for Reno, Nevada, all dates and locations have now been finalized on the Dates and Locations page for our summer series of seminars in Texas and California. A total of 19 are planned. Since both current and prospective users of AuditWare are welcome at all workshops, we hope you can attend one or more. Click here for a registration form.

TEXAS TEACHER RETIREMENT FUND REPORTS SHORTFALL
5/10/05 The April issue of the Texas School Business magazine reports that the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS) has $11 billion less than it needs to pay the plan's promised benefits, according to a report TRS released recently. The gap has grown by $3 billion in the past 6 months. The $91.4 billion pension fund is the 12th largest in the world.

TENTATIVE, PARTIAL SUMMER SEMINAR SCHEDULE POSTED
4/7/05 See the Dates and Locations page for a tentative seminar schedule for the Texas locations. The cities and dates will probably not change, but the locations (hotels) listed are those from last year. We have not yet made those reservations. We have also not yet posted the California dates or locations. Complete information on all our seminars should be available in a few weeks.

TEXAS WATER BOARD STAFF CLARIFIES FINANCIAL STATEMENT REQUIREMENTS
8/26/04 Earlier this year, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) issued a "Water District Financial Management Guide" in which they provided example financial statements and schedules for use by preparers of water district annual audit reports. In the course of providing the "required" statements, they present basic financial statements in a "columnar" format, in that government-wide financial data is presented on the same statements as the fund-level data with a reconciling column between the two. As a result, a discussion arose among users of AuditWare's "AuditWare for Local Governments" product as to whether AuditWare can present financial statements in that format, since they are "required" by the State.

Recently, Paul Shaw made a telephone call to TCEQ staff member Diego Abrego to determine if they require the statements to be in that format. Mr. Abrego stated that since most water districts are small, single-purpose entities, they decided to display what they believed to be the simplest and therefore the most inexpensive presentation when preparing the financial guide. However, he added that any presentation consistent with GAAP will be acceptable to them.

NEW COMBINING STATEMENTS ADDED TO AUDITWARE
7/6/04 Combining statements of changes in net assets for multiple private-purpose trust funds and for multiple pension trust funds are now available in the AuditWare Engine version published today.

2004 CALIFORNIA AUDIT GUIDE MAY NOW BE DOWNLOADED
6/6/04 We have added two versions of the 2004 California audit guide to the "Documents for Downloads" section of the downloads page. The guide is now a part of state law and contains no sample audit report. It does, however, contain descriptions of the required financial statements and schedules.

DOLLAR AMOUNT QUERY NOW AVAILABLE
5/16/04 Looking for a particular dollar amount you can't find? Today's update of the AuditWare Engine provides a new capability to the "Report Master" feature in AuditWare which will search all trial balances and give you a report listing all instances of that amount. From the Report Master menu select "Lead Schedule" as the report type, then select "CUSTOM", then "Dollar Amount." See today's Engine Changes for more information.

SEMINAR REGISTRATION FORMS MAILED LAST WEEK
5/13/04 Information and registration forms for our 2004 Summer Workshop Series were mailed to all AuditWare user organizations last week. We plan eight locations in Texas and four in California. If you didn't get yours in the mail you may access the same information by clicking here.

"TEN YEAR" PROBLEM SOLVED
4/8/04 Today's version of the AuditWare Engine solves a potential problem for long-term AuditWare users. Since AuditWare uses only the final digit of the year in the file names of client data files to differentiate between years, "4" for 2004 for instance, client data for 1994 is saved with the same file names as that of 2004. In the past, users had to remember to delete the 1994 year of data (using the AuditWare Tools menu) before establishing 2004 data. Now, AuditWare automatically determines the difference in the two data periods and prompts the user as to whether to delete the old period.

2004 VERSIONS OF ALL PRODUCTS NOW AVAILABLE
4/8/04 Today we published the initial 2004 versions of all AuditWare products on the "Downloads" page and established passwords for each. If you have paid your 2004 renewal fee and have a need to change a client's "year" to 2004, please call us and we'll provide the password for the product you are using. Once we have shipped on CDs that will be unnecessary. Downloading and installing an AuditWare Engine dated 4/8/04 or later is also necessary

DEADLINE APPROACHING FOR TEXAS SCHOOL SUBMISSIONS
1/15/04 The January 28th deadline is fast approaching for all required annual audit submissions by Texas school districts to the Texas Education Agency. This includes the printed audit report, audit reports in PDF format and the GASB Data Feed (text file) submission. Remember that AuditWare is involved in all three. Our software produces the printed audit report and the data feed file (users should select "Utilities," then "Create the data feed" from the main OfficeWork menu), and we offer a service for reproducing audit reports in PDF format and submitting them to the TEA. Currently we are running a one to two day turnaround from receipt of the report to submission to TEA.

MAJOR AUDITWARE UPDATE ALLOWS USE OF ADDITIONAL DRIVES
12/27/03 Major updates of the AuditWare Engine and AuditWare Utilities are now available. Drives other than diskette drives may now be used for saving and loading of client data; updates downloaded from AuditWare's web site may now be installed without having to make an installation disk; the creation of an installation disk on a CD has been made easier and network administrators may now update all computers on the network. These changes are particularly helpful to those using computers which do not have a diskette drive. See the Engine Changes page for more details.

NEW EXHIBIT J-3 EXPLAINED FOR TEXAS SCHOOL AUDITORS
11/10/03 We have received an e-mail from Charles Fankhauser, an audit manager with Long, Chilton LLP, McAllen, TX regarding Exhibit J-3 which should be helpful to auditors of Texas school districts. Click here to see the text of the e-mail.

PDF SERVICE FOR TEXAS SCHOOLS NOW AVAILABLE
10/30/03 Our annual service of producing PDF files for Texas school districts of their annual audit reports and other documents has been launched for 2003. A mailing was sent to all known independent auditors of school districts earlier this month and a mailing will go out in the next day or two to all school districts in the State for which their auditor has not already ordered the service. We are already over 100 districts using the service. This year's service will take a "turnkey" approach, including all needed services in the base price, instead of charging extra for certain additional services as we did last year. Submission of the file to the Texas Education Agency, for instance, will be automatic. See the Electronic Services page for more information. Please feel free to call Dolly Shaw, who coordinates this service, at (800) 688-2333 if you have any questions.

WEB SITE PROBLEMS
10/15/03 Our web hosting company, Yahoo.com, has had problems over the last few days. Earlier today, our site wasn't available at all for a time. We believe those problems have now been corrected and that downloads of AuditWare updates (engine, product, utilities) will now install properly after you download them. How about that internet. 

TYING OUT TO PRIOR YEAR NET ASSETS
10/10/03 I have had several support calls this year about the beginning net assets amount on the Statement of Activities (Exhibit B-1) not tying out with the ending net assets amount for that statement last year. You may not have faced the issue yet, but it will definitely surface when the MD&A is written and the two amounts are compared. Here's the process for assuring that the two numbers tie out:

1) First assure that final, adjusted balances in the capital assets and long-term debt fund(s) from last year are established in this year's fund(s) for capital assets and long-term debt. The easiest way to do that is to use the new utility to do so. It's utility number 5 on the FieldWork module's UTILITIES menu. The balances could be keyed in manually, of course.

2) Check last year's government-wide adjustment journal for any entries that affected a balance sheet account (asset or liability) in funds other than the capital assets and long-term debt fund(s). These adjustments will need to be brought forward to this year's government-wide adjustment journal. In the two schools whose data I have studied it involved only deferred revenue in the general fund and debt service fund. These will be one-sided entries. Alternatively, these amounts could be placed in your capital assets or long-term debt fund and then the amounts would roll forward next year with step #1 above.

3) At this point, if you have made no further entries, your beginning net assets on the statement of activities will match the ending net assets from last year.

4) All subsequent entries must be self-balancing. Government-wide adjustments which affect inflow or outflow must also have a corresponding amount affecting an asset or liability, and vise versa. You will probably want to use the same adjustment number for both sides of the adjustment so that you can easily verify that the adjustment is in balance (in the government-wide journal menu, select "Tools," then "Verify Balance"). I know we said in the seminars last year that the balancing of government-wide adjustments was not that important, but that was because in the first year of implementation the beginning assets number is a hypothetical one (there is nothing to tie it to). This year, however, you must do your adjusting entries in a manner which balances them, at least in the overall.

5) If you made a mistake last year, such as inadvertently omitting some fixed assets or depreciation, and want to correct it, that will need to be handled with a prior period adjustment. You can't just "add" it this year and expect to tie back to the prior year.

I will be studying the automated "look back" adjustment for internal service funds in the next day or two and making a change if necessary to cause it to adhere to the above principles. We will also add features to AuditWare which make it more obvious to the user when there is a problem with beginning net assets and make it easier to find where the problem may be.

TEA REVISES EXHIBIT J-3
9/25/03 Today, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) revised Exhibit J-3 of the audit report, the Fund Balance and Cash Flow Calculation Worksheet, and e-mailed us the new format in Excel format. We have posted it for viewing or downloading on the downloads page just below the 2003 TEA Sample Audit Report. We have made the needed revisions in AuditWare have posted an update dated 9/24/03 on the downloads page.

TEA REQUESTS DELAY IN ELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS
9/5/03 We received a phone call from Tom Purcell of the Texas Education Agency yesterday asking us to notify auditors of Texas school districts not to submit any reports electronically before October 1st. This includes both PDF and data feed files. They are currently updating their site for the 2003 revisions and should be finished by then. If you have questions you may reach him at (512) 463-9596.

GASB 34 NOTES NOW ACTIVE FOR ALG
9/1/03 In updates of the AuditWare Engine and the AuditWare for Local Governments (ALG) product posted on the downloads page today, the notes to the financial statements for the new reporting model are now active and available for that product. They are patterned after the notes for "Common County" included in the second GASB 34 implementation guide. As with the notes for the old reporting model, they are set up for a Texas city and refer to Texas laws but may be edited for use with other entities or in other states.

IMPORT FROM CALIFORNIA SACS FILE REVISED
8/26/03 A correction has been made in the AuditWare for California School Districts product and an update is now available on the downloads page. Fund 35 is now included when importing data by means of a SACS Software file. Click here for more information.

"AUNTIE EM" - by Paul Shaw
8/25/03 Today's my first day back in the office after five weeks on the road in Texas doing seminars and, as Dorothy would say, "It's good to be home, Auntie 'Em." Now I can catch up on several pending support matters and add some AuditWare features I've been promising to try to do. The sale of our house in Bellville is scheduled to close this week. Part of the time away from the office was associated with getting the move from Bellville to Phoenix handled, no small task. Thanks to Jack and Bobbie Sterling of Bellville for doing such a great job helping. One of those new features I'm going to be working on this week is to add the GASB 34 notes to the financial statements to the AuditWare for Local Governments product. I hope to have that project finished by Monday, September 1st.

GASB 34 NOTES FOR CALIFORNIA SCHOOLS NOW AVAILABLE!
8/8/03 Today, we published updates of our AuditWare for California School District products (SACS and Non-SACS) on the downloads page which activate the notes to the financial statements for the new reporting model (GASB 34). A primary source for wording and for which disclosures to include was the example notes for "Common County" prepared by the GASB staff and made a part of the second GASB 34 implementation guide. However, the example notes in this year's K-12 Audit Guide were also used, to the degree we considered them accurate or required. Finally, AuditWare's notes for the old reporting model were considered.

In addition to installing the product update(s) you will also need to download and install an AuditWare Engine dated 8/8/03 or later.

NOTES QUESTION ANSWERED
8/1/03 A question arose at the San Antonio seminar on Friday as to why AuditWare's default notes to the financial statements don't provide a note on budget policies (budget calendar, etc.).. See News for Auditors for the answer. That page also has an article about the latest news from the Texas Education Agency.

THIS AND THAT - By Paul Shaw
7/29/03 There's still time to enroll at one of our Texas workshops. The full-day workshops (AuditWare Update - GASB 34 Revisited) remaining are Austin - 7/30, San Antonio - 8/1, Longview - 8/19, and Ft. Worth - 8/21. The remaining half-day seminars (Introduction to AuditWare) are  in Longview  - 8/18 and in Ft. Worth - 8/20. The attendance has been excellent at the ones held so far, 19 in Lubbock, 14 in Corpus Christi, 17 in Weslaco, and 20 yesterday in College Station, and I've had a good time presenting them. I plan to stay in Texas through the final summer workshop on August 21st but Dolly will be flying back to Arizona from San Antonio this Friday.

I just got a phone call from Tom Purcell of the Texas Education Agency this morning revising some of the information he had provided me in the last few weeks regarding PDF file requirements for this year. Instead of requiring the files to be searchable, TEA is now saying that they prefer them to be searchable but will accept them if they are not, such as when the pages are scanned into the file. Also, while the requirement for a Comp Ed special procedures engagement by a CPA firm has gone away except for certain schools which TEA will designate, there is a new requirement for school districts and charter schools to submit certain documents associated with Comp Ed in PDF format. These will be the district improvement plan (for charter schools it will be called a charter academic plan), the campus improvement plan, and a new document evaluating the plans, which is yet unnamed. AuditWare will again be offering a service to all districts, charter schools and audit firms this year to produce the required PDF files and submit them to the TEA.

NOW'S THE TIME TO REGISTER FOR TEXAS SEMINARS
7/3/03 With the first Texas seminar starting on Friday of next week, it's high time to get your registration in if you haven't already done so. Click HERE for more information or to download a registration form.

"NAME OF GOVERNMENT" FOR GASB 34 NOW AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD
6/9/03 Sample client data illustrating GASB 34 conversion entries for a local government is now available for download from the Downloads page. The trial balance data and journal entries are taken from the "Name of Government" sample client in GFOA's new Blue Book (GASB 34 version). Users of AuditWare for Local Governments may download the file to their AWBARN folder and select "Load a different Client" from the AuditWare Access Menu to load the client. While there is still a little fine tuning to do, we thought you would like to have this initial version made available to you. This data also illustrates the financial statement setups for the new reporting model. Go to Settings and select Category, then "Set up the Chart of Accounts" to access or print the setups.

RESOURCE CODES ADDED TO AUDITWARE FOR CALIFORNIA SCHOOL DISTRICTS (CSD)
6/7/03 Optional use of the resource account code in trial balances is now supported for users of the CSD product. This was done primarily as an aid in identifying program revenue vs. general revenue under the new reporting model, but those producing reports under the old model may wish to use it as well. This detail may be captured automatically when converting a SACS ASCII file (see 5/26/03 article below) by answering Yes when asked whether to capture these codes. However, be aware that resource codes will add significantly to the length of the trial balance. In the one test file we have run, the general fund was about 800 lines without resource codes and about 1200 when they were included. For a very large school or county office you could even exceed AuditWare's maximum capacity, which is 8000 lines maximum for any one fund. For those who are keying data in manually, resource codes have also been added to the default account codes used for manual entry.

Thanks to Kenneth White of M. Green and Company, Visalia, CA for assisting with this effort.

RESTRICTED NET ASSETS MAY NOW BE ENTERED MANUALLY
6/4/03 In today's update of the AuditWare Engine a new feature was added allowing the AuditWare user to enter the "restricted for" amount manually, if desired, when running the new (GASB 34) reporting model. Alternatively, this amount will be calculated automatically from entries in the AW column of the trial balance using equity amounts at the government-wide level. To access the new feature, select Go To, Input, Other Input from the FieldWork module menu. 

SACS ASCII FILES MAY NOW BE IMPORTED INTO AUDITWARE FOR CALIFORNIA SCHOOL DISTRICTS (CSD)
5/26/03 In a major enhancement, AuditWare will now import the data automatically from an ASCII file created with SACS software. That software is provided by the California Department of Education (CDE) and is available for download from their web site. While SACS files do not include budget data, this should be a tremendous time saver for users of CSD. The entire process takes less than 5 minutes. From the ASCII Master menu, just select the file to use, select it's type and select "Create...". You don't even have to establish the funds or fund types first. Just select "Start a New Client" if it doesn't already exist or "Change the Date of the Current Client" to the new year if it does exist, select "Run the Current Client," then "I will use an ASCII file to import the data." This feature is not active when using AuditWare's CSN (Non-SACS) product.

Since SACS files are comma-delimited, meaning that the fields are enclosed in quotation marks and the fields are separated with commas, AuditWare first converts the file into a non-delimited one, assigning the new file a ".PRN" file extension so as not to overwrite the original file, then captures the trial balance data from the file.

Thanks to Kate Lane of John Robertson and Associates, CPA of Lakeport, CA for "pressing" this issue and providing us an example file for use in initial testing.

REGISTRATION FORMS IN THE MAIL FOR SUMMER WORKSHOPS
5/22/03 Over the last several days a mailing regarding our summer workshops has gone out to all Texas and California school audit firms which are on our mailing list. Another mailing to the membership of the GFOA of Texas is in process. Note that the registration form for the California workshops has two typos regarding the day of the week (Monday, Tuesday, etc.). The dates are correct in these cases even when the wrong day of the week is referred to. The registration forms which may be downloaded from this web site have been corrected.

TEA NOW REQUIRES FOOD SERVICE BUDGET COMPARISONS FOR GENERAL FUNDS
5/14/03 The Texas Education Agency is in the process of calling Texas school districts which carry food service as a general fund to tell them they are required to have a budget comparison schedule for that fund in their 2002 audit report as Exhibit J-4. This in spite of the fact that it is not mentioned in any of their guidance materials. Their guidance states that it is required for the "child nutrition fund" only when it is not a major fund. When it is carried as a general fund, however, it is a major fund by definition and GAAP require multiple general funds to be presented in a single column on the financial statements. That being said, what the TEA wants the TEA gets. The AuditWare Engine was revised today to generate that schedule when applicable. It is still included in the normal general fund budget comparison carried in the RSI section. The only change in input is that you will need to assure that original budgets were entered separately in the trial balances for funds 101 and 199.

SORRY FOR THE DOWN TIME
5/12/03 We apologize for that our web site was down over the weekend through mid-day Monday. We were switching web site hosts. It was supposed to go smooth as glass with no down time. How 'bout that internet? Aren't computers fun?

OFFICE OPENED IN SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA
4/10/03 As many of our clients know by now, we opened a new office in Scottsdale (Phoenix), Arizona late last month. It is now serving as our administrative headquarters. Paul Shaw is currently sharing time between the Texas and Arizona offices but ultimately the Bellville, Texas office will be closed. Please direct all correspondence to 14980 N. 78th Way, Suite 206, Scottsdale, AZ 85260. Those currently mailing us reports for purposes of our converting them either to PDF or data feed format should direct them to the Arizona address. Otherwise, they will be delayed for a day or two in the forwarding process. Our toll free telephone and fax numbers have not changed and our e-mail address remains auditware@theaudit.com.

NEW DATA FEED SERVICE OFFERED TO TEXAS SCHOOL DISTRICTS AND THEIR AUDITORS
3/24/03 A mailing is on its way to 400 plus Texas school districts which have not yet submitted their "annual financial report audit data feed" electronic submission to the Texas Education Agency offering to perform this submission for them. See the "Electronic Services" page for more information.

EXCEL VERSION OF "DATA FEED" MAY NOW BE USED
2/3/03 The recommendation to suspend use of the Excel version of the data feed template in the article below dated 1/23/03 is no longer valid. It has now been revised to be consistent with the Lotus 1-2-3 version and may now be used for input.

TEA SETS "OBJECTIVE" OF MID-FEBRUARY FOR ELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS
1/28/03 The TEA staff is now verbally telling those who call not to worry about being late on electronic submissions as long as the paper submission is on time and that submission by mid-February is acceptable. They are not making this statement formally, such as by placing it on their web site, since it is a matter of state law. AuditWare is current in regard to uploading PDF files to TEASE except for the reports received today, and most if not all of those will be submitted by the end of the day. To date we have created PDF files for 167 school districts. In most cases this involved both the annual audit and Comp Ed reports and the submission of both to TEASE.

LOTUS VERSION OF "DATA FEED"  MAY NOW BE USED
1/28/03 The recommendation to suspend use of the Lotus 1-2-3 version of the data feed template in the article below is no longer valid. It has been checked out and the version dated 1/27/03 may now be used. There is very little change from the 1/24/03 version, except that the output (text file) now includes only those lines which have input, making it easier to view or edit the file if necessary. The Excel version is not yet finished but we hope to have a new version on the web site by Wednesday or Thursday. As noted previously, there is also a template on the TEA's TEASE web site where school districts can key in this information.

SUSPENSION OF "DATA FEED" INPUT RECOMMENDED
1/23/03 We are commending the temporary suspension of any further input in either of AuditWare's data feed templates (the Lotus 1-2-3 one or the Excel one). An e-mail was sent to all users to that effect today. We are continuing to experience problems uploading the output (the "flat file") to TEA's TEASE site and transferring your input from one template to a revised one is rather time consuming. We will let you know in a few days when the two templates can be reliably used. A part of the problem is that TEA continues to call us revisions (as late as yesterday) and they have not yet revealed to us the "check" routines the site uses to either accept or reject a file.

MORE "DATA FEED"  INFORMATION
1/22/03 Today we uploaded a revised data feed file for the Excel version (DATAFEED.EXE) to the Downloads page. Both the Excel and Lotus 1-2-3 versions now carry a 1/20/03 version date. See also the article below. 

"DATA FEED"  UPDATE
1/19/03 First a review. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) is requiring all schools this year to upload an "Audit Data Feed" file (which they call a "flat file") of certain data in the annual audit report by means of their T.E.A.S.E. (TEA Secure Entry) web site. It includes the dollar amounts from certain key financial statements and schedules in a specified format. The upload is a delimited ASCII (text) file.

The T.E.A.S.E site has been inoperable for several weeks while they revised it to allow direct input of this data by school districts. On January 13th they activated it again and now allow that input, although other entities which have a password to access T.E.A.S.E (AuditWare, certain audit firms, etc.) cannot perform the input. According to Tom Purcell of the TEA staff, when a school district accesses the site, an "Enter Schedules" option appears which others do not see. When it is selected and "Display" then is selected the input can be performed. There are also three pages of help available to the user. Depending on the fund types of the district, the data feed can require up to 1500 lines of information. The data feed has the same deadline as the hard copy submission and the PDF file submission (January 28th), but TEA has indicated that they will be patient regarding both electronic submissions when the hard copy (paper) submission is on time.

AuditWare provides two templates (see the downloads page) for keying in this information, one in Lotus 1-2-3 format and another in Excel format. Yesterday (version date 1/18/02) we revised the Lotus 1-2-3 one to add some leading zeros to data control codes and make a correction to the Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards (SEFA) entry section. We also revised the help screen to clarify that J-4 is the food service fund and J-5 is the debt service fund, not the reverse. The Excel version should be updated in the next few days. You should download one of these revised templates before keying in any more data to assure that TEA does not reject the file. Naturally, if you have a file named "datafeed" which contains input for a school you should either rename it or download the new file to another folder so that your input is not overwritten.

PDF CONVERSION UPDATE
1/18/03 We are now receiving around 20-30 Texas school district reports a day for conversion to PDF files (annual audit reports and comp ed reports). In most cases we are being asked to upload them to the TEA's "TEASE" web site as well. We are receiving a number of calls asking for our physical address so reports can be sent overnight. It is 1420 Bell Oaks Drive, Bellville, TX 77418. We are currently in good shape in terms of turnaround time, with only 32 reports on hand to convert as of today (Saturday), but don't let that delay you. We need your report(s) as soon as possible to assure that all of them can be submitted by the deadline. This coming week we could start receiving substantially more per day, which would change our turnaround time considerably.

THIS AND THAT
12/24/02 First of all, Merry Christmas! We have received 52 August 31st reports for PDF conversion to date. We remain within our 7-10 day turnaround standard. We have hired Bobbie Sterling to help with this project, so give her a welcome if you have occasion to talk with her by telephone. Since she has a strong computer background she's helping us in other ways as well. If you have reports ready, send them to us ASAP. We expect a lull during the holidays while schools are closed and then an onslaught in January. Instead of waiting to get signatures on the certificate of the board you could use a statement to the effect of "Original signature on file with the T.E.A." in their place. We're working on the annual renewal forms for the Texas and California school district products and hope to have them in the mail in a few days. As you may have noticed on the home page, "hits" to our site have now topped 15,000! The Lotus 1-2-3 version of the audit data feed template on the downloads page has been revised to include function 81 on the statement of activities when needed. The Excel version will be revised soon.

TEA NOW WANTS SCHEDULE L-1  INCLUDED IN PDF FILE SUBMISSION
12/4/02 The Texas Education Agency called us today with a new requirement for the PDF files which are to be submitted to them. See today's article on the News for Auditors page for details. The order form referred to in the previous article has now been revised but neither document has been updated for this latest change from TEA,

PDF DISTRICTS TOP 150
11/30/02 The number of indicated orders for our PDF service now stands at 157 Texas school districts. The number of audit firms planning to do their own remains at one. Regarding the recent change in our service guidelines (see 11/25/02 article below) we have revised the Questions and Answers document accessed from the PDF Service page, but the order form hasn't been revised yet. Keep in mind that this service is not limited to users of AuditWare products. It is a stand-alone service available to all school districts and auditors in the State.

AUDIT DATA FEED TEMPLATE NOW AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD
11/26/02 Texas school districts with June 30th fiscal years can now meet tomorrow's deadline for uploading their data as a "flat file" to TEA's web site. Today, we posted a template on the downloads page which may be downloaded free of charge by any district or auditor in the State (you don't have to be an AuditWare users). Since it is a WK4 file, it does require Lotus 1-2-3, but any version from release 5 and later can be used. While the data must be keyed in manually, we estimate that input can be done in less than a half hour by a fast 10-key typist. Considering another half hour for proofing, the entire process can be accomplished in an hour! Once input is complete just click on the "Save the data feed" button and it converts your input into a DOS text file in the proper format.

WE'RE SHIFTING GEARS ON PDF CONVERSION SERVICE
11/25/02 With the number of districts now up to 134 and likely to increase significantly, we have decided to shift gears and simplify the PDF conversion process. We have ordered high speed, duplexing scanners and will now be scanning your printed reports, rather than asking for the files to be sent to us by e-mail. We will finish the June 30th reports using the old method, which should be finished tomorrow (unless we get more orders), but for the August 31st reports we now need you to send us a copy of your printed report only. The appropriate pages (certificates of the board, auditor reports, etc.) need to be signed and the report should be unbound. The pages can either be duplexed (printed front and back) or printed on one side only. While we will accept bound reports, the benefit of sending the report unbound (and unpunched) is that you will not have punch holes showing down one side of the pages in the PDF file. The orders for August 31st districts we have on hand and all new orders will be processed by scanning.

One benefit of the new process is that the one week turnaround time we announced earlier should be significantly reduced, at least after our higher speed scanners arrive in mid-December. Another is the absolute assurance that the PDF file is the same as the published report. In a few cases dealing with the June 30th reports, AuditWare users have e-mailed us data that was not the same as their final, published report. The only way we caught that was either to notice that some schedule was not created or that there was some other apparent problem in the report. Naturally, we called them to correct the problem and get the latest data, but the new process takes out all of the guesswork and possibility of error.

We have not yet revised the order form or the questions and answers document, but that will be done soon.

125 DISTRICTS NOW IN THE MILL FOR PDF CONVERSION SERVICE
11/24/02 We are now will begin reporting to you in terms of number of districts instead of audit firms. Auditors responding to us to date have now indicated that we will be converting 125 Texas school districts to the PDF format for submission to the TEA.. This means 250 reports, counting the annual reports and comp ed reports, by the January deadline, with another 125 dropout reports in the spring. We are in good shape to accomplish this, since our current staffing covers up to 400 reports and we can adjust rather easily if needed to handle up to 600.

MORE "YES" ANSWERS RECEIVED FOR PDF CONVERSION SERVICE
11/20/02 The responses to our e-mail (see previous article) now stand at 18 audit firms who have indicated that they will use our service and one firm who indicated they will do their own. One of the firms who previously indicated they will do it themselves have looked into it and have decided to use the service. The "Yes" responses audit 77 school districts. See the PDF Service page for more information.

NEW PDF CONVERSION SERVICE ANNOUNCED TO AUDITWARE USERS
11/19/02 An e-mail  was sent to all AuditWare users in Texas on Sunday announcing a new PDF Conversion Service for Texas school districts and/or their auditors. This fee-based service creates the electronic data submission file of the annual audit report and/or the special procedures reports in PDF format as required by the Texas Education Agency this year. More information will be provided on the web site in the next day or two. In the e-mail we asked our users to give an indication as to whether they would likely use the service to help us know how to staff up for the service. While we have had only a few responses so far, the count is 13 audit firms Yes, 2 No (they will do their own). The Yes responses represent about 63 school districts and education service centers (126 reports counting Comp Ed reports). We received our first actual orders today. See the PDF Service page for more information.

Those wishing to use the service for June 30th audits (whether AuditWare users or not) should contact us immediately, since the deadline for submission of this file is November 27th. We are also working on the GASB Audit Data Feed (ASCII file upload) and should have a template version available within a few days which accomplishes that requirement as well.

TEA POSTS AUDITWARE REPORT AS AN EXAMPLE
11/18/02 The Texas Education Agency has posted an audit report created with AuditWare as an example report on the finance page of its web site. There are only two examples shown, one a CAFR by Deloitte and Touche and the other by AuditWare user McClanahan & Holmes of Paris, TX. Congratulations to Becky Sikes and all the staff, as well as the staff at Bonham Independent School District. Click here to see the examples.

MD&A WITH NO ENTERPRISE FUNDS NOW AVAILABLE
11/17/02 We have added a version of MD&A for a Texas School District with no enterprise funds to the downloads page. This should save editing time, since most Texas schools don't have them.

OPINION ON FINANCIAL STATEMENTS UPDATED FOR GASB 34
10/28/02 The AICPA's new opinion on the financial statements is now a part of AuditWare as a result of an update of the AuditWare Engine dated yesterday. Really it's "opinions" instead of "opinion" because there are up to four expressed, depending on the fund types, in what AICPA calls opinion units. The only known issue awaiting a future update is to provide the proper wording for when the budgetary comparisons are carried in the basic financial statement section instead of the RSI section. That requires some additional programming because the major funds must be specified by fund name.

The new opinion paragraph, when all opinion units are active, reads "In our opinion, the financial statements above present fairly, in all material respects, the respective financial position of the governmental activities, the business-type activities, each major fund, and the aggregate remaining fund information of [client name] and the respective changes in financial position and cash flows, where applicable, thereof for the year then ended in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America."

MAJOR UPDATES POSTED
10/24/02 Major updates to the AuditWare Engine and to the TSD and CSN products were posted to the site in the last few days. See the AuditWare Changes page for details. The TSD (Audit ISD) update includes the changes referred to in the 10/22/02 article below.

GASB'S "COMMON COUNTY" FOOTNOTES NOW AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD
10/24/02 The illustrative notes to the financial statements included in the second GASB 34 implementation guide may now be downloaded. These are the notes used as the primary pattern by AuditWare when designing it's default notes for the new reporting model, since they include all GASB statements through 38 and were prepared by the GASB staff to illustrate minimum requirements. See the documents section of the downloads page.

REVISED TEA SAMPLE AUDIT REPORT TEMPLATE NOW ON DOWNLOADS PAGE
10/22/02 The Texas Education Agency has revised its sample audit report template to provide additional detail for function 71 on operating statements (a new line for "Bond Issuance Cost"). Click on the link above to download it or go to the Downloads page and scroll down near the bottom. This is an update of the original version published as a part of release 10 of the Resource Guide. AuditWare will soon be providing an update of its TSD product which reflects this change.

FIRST GASB 34 AUDIT REPORT SUBMITTED TO TEA BY AUDITWARE USER
10/15/02 In a telephone conversation with the Texas Education Agency today they told us that they had received their first GASB 34 audit report. It was for Post I.S.D., and was created in AuditWare by one of our long-time users in Lubbock. Congratulations Post, and to Ken Robison of Robison, Johnston, Patton, CPAs for breaking new ground in Texas!

SEMINARS FOR NEW USERS AND FOR GASB 34 SCHEDULED FOR OCTOBER 11TH
9/26/02 We have scheduled two half-day seminars in San Antonio for October 11, 2002. The morning seminar (8:30-1200) will be "Introduction to AuditWare." It is designed for new and prospective users of AuditWare products and will cover the basics. The afternoon (1:00-4:30) will be "Using AuditWare to Implement GASB 34." It is essentially an updated and condensed version of the full-day "GASB 34 Made Easy" seminar presented during the summer. It should be attended by those who either missed that seminar or who want updated training on the latest AuditWare features for implementing GASB 34. Both seminars offer 4 CPE credits. The cost for AM only is $95 and PM only is $125. Attending both is discounted to $195. Click here for the registration form in MS Word format. Let us know as soon as possible your intention to attend. October 11th is just around the corner.

The location is the Pear Tree Inn by Drury, 143 N.E. Loop 410, (210) 366-9300. Shuttle service from and to the airport is available.

"BLUE BOOK" FOOTNOTES ADDED TO  DOWNLOADS PAGE
9/18/02 The illustrative notes to the financial statements in GASB 34 format for "Name of Government" included in the latest GFOA blue book have been added to the Downloads page (Documents section). Be aware that GASB 38, which adds additional disclosures, had not been issued when the blue book was published.

MD&A TEMPLATE FOR A CITY NOW ON DOWNLOADS PAGE
9/17/02 A template for Management's Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) and in Microsoft Word format for a city is now available for downloaded from the Downloads page. It is in the same format as the ones for school districts but edited in regard to functions, etc., as appropriate for a city. On the Downloads page, scroll to the Documents section. Download of these documents is not limited to AuditWare users. Anyone may do so, including auditees.

CAFR ADD-IN NOW TAILORED FOR SCHOOL DISTRICT PRODUCTS
9/16/02 The statistical tables which are a part of AuditWare's CAFR (Comprehensive Annual Financial Report) add-in now reflect typical functions of a school district as their column headings in the school district products (TSD, CSD and CSN), rather than functions for a city as in the past. The CAFR add-in for the ALG product continues to include the city functions. The CAFR add-in is a supplemental product which is purchased separately as an add-in to each base product. This change should save considerable editing when producing a comprehensive annual financial report for a school district. Thanks to Peggy Lantz, CPA, with Karen Jacks and Associates, Longview, TX for helping with this change.

CARTER PERTAINE ASCII FILES ADDED TO TEXAS MENU, POTENTIAL FOR CALIFORNIA
9/10/02 Today's update of the Audit I.S.D. for Texas School Districts (TSD) product now allows for automatic importing of ASCII files from schools using Carter Pertaine software. It is a major, multi-state company providing a full range of software to larger school districts. Thanks to AuditWare user Jason Wickel, business manager at Channelview I.S.D., for pursuing this and to Steve Figueroa, senior systems analyst with Carter Pertaine, for developing a file layout compatible with AuditWare and e-mailing us an example file.

Carter Pertaine's parent company is Quintessential School Systems (QSS), a major provider of software for California school districts and county offices of education, so we plan to pursue this for users of AuditWare for California Districts as well. As a matter of fact, Steve says they can use the same system now (the LSPOOL Download feature) for creating such a file and are welcome to contact him through their normal support channels if they need help producing such a file for AuditWare. If normal channels fail, his direct number in Houston is (281) 558-1270 x107. Briefly, the instructions for both Texas and California are: 1) Identify the account line, the actual amount and the budget amount; 2) Extract to a flat file of the space-delimited type.

NEW REPORTING MODEL NOW ACTIVE FOR ALG PRODUCT
9/7/02 Today's updates of the AuditWare Engine and of the AuditWare for Local Governments (ALG) product posted on the Downloads page activate the ability to switch to and from the new (GASB 34) reporting model when using the ALG product. As with other products, work done in the new reporting model (creating financial statements, etc.) does not disturb or overwrite data created in the old (pre-34) model, so you can switch back and forth at will.

THIS AND THAT - by Paul Shaw
8/30/02 Whew. Our summer seminar series ended day before yesterday in Huntsville, Texas, having begun June 14th in Ontario, California. I don't know where my summer went, but I certainly enjoyed meeting with hundreds of our new and existing clients, not to mention old friends. It was also great to have my wife Dolly along for most of the seminars. A total of 277 people registered for 22 seminars, an all time record for us both in number of seminars and attendance. I was also pleased with the responses on the evaluation forms for our "GASB 34 Made Easy" seminars. Almost all were marked "excellent." Some people were even nice enough to add remarks, either about the seminar or our approach to GASB 34. Here are a few:

"GASB 34 can be overwhelming, but this presentation broke it up into digestible chunks. I like the way that a practical approach has been used [by AuditWare] to organize the necessary adjustments to convert to government-wide and their tie in to the reconciliations. This should be a real time saver in preparing reports." Lewis Crain, Rutledge & Crain, Arlington

"I think your 'trial balance' approach to GASB 34 will be great. Thank you for helping us avoid spreadsheet nightmares!" - Karen Jacks, Karen A. Jacks & Associates, Longview

"Very well done. Your approach is light years ahead of [the competition]." - Elton Reneau, Holtman, Wagner & Co., New Braunfels

I am thinking about scheduling one or two more seminars in late September or early October if there's enough interest. One would be a "wrap up" seminar for "GASB 34 Made Easy" for people who couldn't attend one of our regularly scheduled ones. The other would be "Introduction To Audit I.S.D. for Texas School Districts," covering the basics of using AuditWare. I'm considering this one because we have so many new users this year and we were not able to spend much time on the basics in the GASB 34 seminars. I am thinking about San Antonio as the location for both, but let us know if you or your staff members are interested and we'll try to centralize the location to the attendees. 

GASB 34 NOTES FOR TEXAS SCHOOL DISTRICTS NOW AVAILABLE
8/18/02 You want GASB 34 notes? You got 'em! We have uploaded a major update of the Audit I.S.D. for Texas School Districts product and of the AuditWare Engine, both dated August 17, 2002, in which the notes are now active for the new reporting model. We think you will like what you get. More has been moved into the "Significant Accounting Policies" section and sections in the old model not required under the new model have been removed, making for fewer sections overall. However, some of the new disclosures will require some work on your part to come up with the numbers, particularly the section on capital assets. Nobody said GASB 34 was going to be easy. AuditWare just tries to make it as easy as we know how. As noted in the 8/16/02 article, we will proceed with GASB 34 notes for the other products soon, as well as activating ALG for the new model. The final two weeks of seminars begin tomorrow, after which we should have significantly more time to program.

GASB 34 NOTES FOR TEXAS SCHOOL DISTRICTS NEARING COMPLETION
8/16/02 For the last few days we have been working on notes to the financial statements for Texas school districts under the new reporting model. It's been a real eye opener. Since the TEA has provided no example notes for GASB 34 we have used a combination of the illustrative notes for "Common County" in the second GASB 34 Implementation Guide (published in January), PPC guidance in it's "Governmental Financial Reporting Model " guide and the GASB Codification (GASB 34 Edition). Likely the most onerous new disclosures will be those for capital assets. These must be divided between "governmental activities" and "business-type activities" and separated between those not being depreciated and those being depreciated. You must also report the amount of depreciation applied to each function. There are a number of other new disclosures required as well, several of them as the result of GASB 38, "Certain Financial Statement Note Disclosures." All of this has resulted in a wholesale rewrite of most of the AuditWare notes. When these notes are published we will proceed with the GASB 34 notes for California school districts, then the notes for the AuditWare for Local Governments (ALG) product. Incidentally, the ability to change to the new reporting model in ALG (without the notes) is also nearing completion.

TWELVE MONTHS' TAX DATA NEEDED FOR JUNE 30TH TEXAS SCHOOL DISTRICTS
8/12/02 We learned from The TEA Friday that Texas schools which have changed their fiscal year to June 30th this year will still need to report 12 months of collections on the Delinquent Tax Schedule in the audit report (9/1/01 thru 8/31/02). We have added a note to that schedule when that is the case. 

SEMINAR AGENDA CORRECTION
8/11/02 Seminar agendas passed out prior to our August 9th (Abilene) seminar contained a typo stating that "Invested in Capital Assets, Net of Related Debt" can't be reported as a negative amount on the statement of net assets. That should have said that no component of "Restricted Net Assets" can be reported as a negative amount (the amount of unrestricted net assets is reduced instead). There is no problem with reporting a negative amount on the "Invested in Capital Assets..." line.

MAJOR NEW MODEL UPDATE POSTED
7/31/02 A major update of the AuditWare Engine associated with the new reporting model dated 7/30/02 has been posted to our web site. All required statements and schedules are now active except the notes to the financial statements. See the AuditWare Engine Updates page for more information.

MD&A TEMPLATE FOR 2002 NOW ON DOWNLOADS PAGE
7/28/02 The downloads page now includes a template file in Microsoft Word format with the dates set for 2002, as well as one for 2001. To find it, scroll down to Documents and Sample Clients on that page.

CORRECTION OF POSSIBLE MISINFORMATION AT SEMINAR - by Paul Shaw
7/27/02 During discussion at the 7/26/02 seminar in Huntsville, TX, the question was asked whether the Statement of Changes In Assets and Liabilities was required for agency funds under GASB 34. I answered no. While that answer may be technically correct, it may be misleading. Statements not included in either the Basic or Required Supplementary Information sections of the report (such as combining statements) are not required under GASB 34, nor are they required by the Texas Education Agency this year. However, the 6/30/01 GASB Codification (GASB 34 Edition) par. 2200.181 lists it as required for a Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR). The example audit report in GFOA's new "Blue Book" ( a complete CAFR) does not include it but does not have any agency funds. The example report for a county in the latest GASB 34 Implementation Guide, which states that it includes all "required" statements, includes the full complement of combining statements but omits that statement, even though the county has several agency funds. Statistical tables and other aspects of a full CAFR are omitted as well. I judge from all of this that it is not required except in a full CAFR.

REMAINING QUESTIONS ANSWERED ON "HOW DO I...?" SUPPORT PAGE
7/15/02  As noted on 4/28/02, there is now a "How Do I...?" support facility available by selecting Support from the home page. When it was initially established some of the questions had no answers. These have now all been provided but there are still a few topics with no questions. Click here to select a topic and see the "How Do I" questions and answers. This "knowledge-base" will be expanded with new topics and new questions over time, especially concerning the new reporting model.

TEA REVISES INDIRECT COST SCHEDULE
7/14/02 As a part of Texas Education Agency's revised template file referred to in the article immediately below, the indirect cost schedule has been revised to add two lines. An update of the Audit I.S.D. product containing this change dated 7/12/02 was posted to the Downloads page last night. See the Audit ISD Updates page for more information.

TEA SAMPLE AUDIT REPORT CAN NOW BE DOWNLOADED
7/12/02 The most recent version of TEA's sample audit report template can now be downloaded from the Downloads page. Scroll down to "2002 TEA Draft Sample Audit Report." Please note the remarks on that page which accompany the file. 

SEMINAR REGISTRATIONS TOP 200
7/12/02 Total registrations for our summer seminar series now stand at 215, an all time record. The first four in Texas were held earlier this week with two in Weslaco (Rio Grande valley), and one each in Corpus Christi and San Antonio. Fort Worth is coming up this coming Wednesday, July 17, with an enrollment of 23. While we earlier cancelled the Waco and Wichita Falls locations for low enrollments, it appears that most remaining full-day (GASB 34 Made Easy) seminars are firm. The only one in question is Houston on August 27th, where we currently have 3 enrollments (the new Huntsville location this year has drawn many people who previously came to Houston). If you're planning to enroll for Houston, get it in soon. We are deciding on the half-day seminars (Setting Up The Financial Statements For GASB 34) for users of the AuditWare for Local Governments product on a case-by-case basis, since these are smaller seminars by their nature, but the ones in Longview and Lubbock are now firm.

ANOTHER TEA UPDATE IN THE WORKS
7/1/02 The Texas Education Agency has just published Version 9 of its Resource Guide to its web site, but discussions we have had with the staff indicate that another update (version 10) is in the works, and  this one will affect the standards for 2001-02 audits reports! Tom Canby, chief TEA auditor, indicated that it will likely be August or September before the new update is published. At the School District Conference in San Antonio last month, Mr. Canby announced that it is likely that the new update will require submission of the audit report electronically. The staff has indicated that this probably will be in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format on a CD. We are looking into this matter and will be ready to advise AuditWare users as to how to meet this requirement soon

Currently, any audit report exhibit or document can be opened in Excel and saved in PDF format, provided the user has the Adobe Acrobat software and Excel. Adobe Acrobat is different from the Acrobat Reader, which is a free download from Adobe's web site. The full Adobe Acrobat software costs about $240 and, of course, one would need a CD read-write drive as well to produce the CD. We will keep you informed. It sounds like TEA will require specific file names for different exhibits and documents of the audit report, such as A102.PDF, meaning exhibit A-1 for the year 2002. If that is their final decision, we will add a feature which automatically saves the file with their required file names. Stay tuned.

GASB 34 SAMPLE CLIENT DATA NOW AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD
6/30/02 An archive file for Texas New Model School District is now on the Downloads page available for downloading and running by AuditWare users. It includes all of the input necessary for GASB 34 and should be helpful to our users as they prepare for GASB 34. On the Downloads page, scroll down to Documents & Sample Clients to see the file. After downloading it to the AWBARN folder of your hard disk, select "Load a different client" from the AuditWare Access menu. The first time you do this, it will show up with only its archive file name (NEWMODTX.ARC). Thereafter, it will list the school name as well. To view or print the adjustments for the government-wide financial statements go to the FieldWork module and select GO-TO, INPUT, JOURNAL, GOVERNMENT-WIDE.

SEMINAR REGISTRATIONS NEARING 200
6/29/02 Total registrations for our summer seminar series now stand at 181, an all time record. This is especially impressive since it's so early in the summer and many firms have yet to enroll. At the same time, we are announcing that a few of the new locations we had chosen for seminars this year have failed to materialize due to insufficient enrollments. The seminars in Waco, TX, Wichita Falls, TX and Ruidoso, NM have been cancelled.

MD&A NOW AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD
5/10/02 A template version of Management's Discussion and Analysis for a Texas school district in Microsoft Word format is now available for download by anyone on the Downloads page (scroll down to the Documents for Download section). Previously, this file was included within AuditWare software and was thereby restricted to AuditWare users.

RESPONSES FROM TEXAS SCHOOL AUDIT FEE SURVEY
5/7/02 Today we did a survey by e-mail among auditors of Texas school districts, asking for their plans (in generic terms) regarding increasing audit fees this year, considering the implementation of GASB 34 required for all schools. Following are the responses, which we will update as additional ones are received. Audit firms will not be identified by name or location, but will otherwise be reported verbatim. You may respond even if you did not receive the e-mail.

Response 1 -  5/7/02 Paul, I was planning on raising everyone's fee 50% because of GASB 34. I was delighted to find out from more than one of my districts that they had budgeted at least that much and some a little more without even asking me (I think the service centers have been warning them of fee increases).  We do 9 school districts. Also planning on charging $2500-3000 each for the attendance and compensatory program audits.

GASB 34 RECONCILIATIONS NOW PRODUCED AUTOMATICALLY
4/30/02 There are entire seminars being given in how to produce the two reconciliations required by GASB 34, with training on myriads of calculations and "virtual" spreadsheet adjustments. Would you believe that with AuditWare, once you finish making the adjustments for the government-wide statements you can just push a button and generate the reconciliations automatically in final format in less than 10 seconds? We know of no other software that will do that. Today's update of the AuditWare Engine provides that capability.Incidentally, AuditWare's default wording of the reconciling items avoids "combined" ones so that they don't have to be explained further in the notes. Naturally, the government-wide financial statements themselves are produced automatically as well, but that capability was already a part of AuditWare.

NEW WEB-BASED SUPPORT INITIATED
4/28/02 You likely noticed that a "Support" button was added to the home page today. That link leads to the new Support Page which is the start of a major web-based support facility for AuditWare users. A "How Do I...? knowledge base has been added which answers "How Do I...?" questions on 21 topics ranging from ASCII file use to trial balance input to printing and formatting issues. While not every topic yet has questions and there are a few questions not answered, it will be fleshed out over time and expanded as new questions are received by telephone, fax and e-mail.

MAJOR AUDITWARE UPDATE POSTED
4/15/02 Major updates of the AuditWare Engine, AuditWare Utilities and of all products have been posted to the Downloads page. While most changes relate to GASB 34, many of them relate to the old reporting model as well, including the major new feature for ALG users noted below. Click here for an overview of the changes. A major feature is that both government-wide statements can now be created automatically. We will not be mailing this update unless requested to do so since it will be included in the official 2002 update which will be mailed soon.

CALIFORNIA SEMINARS RESCHEDULED FOR ONE WEEK LATER
4/10/02 Due to an unforeseen conflict, all of the summer seminars scheduled for California have been postponed one week. They will now begin on June 14th in Ontario and conclude June 24th in Eureka/McKinleyville. Click here to see the revised schedule.

MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH FEATURE FOR ALG ANNOUNCED
3/30/02 In a major breakthrough for users of AuditWare for Local Governments (ALG), SAG (specified account group) names may now be entered directly in the trial balance, rather than having to place them either in the function or object code definition lists or in a stand-alone list. SAGs are used in ALG for setting up the financial statements when the client's chart of accounts does not accommodate use of a minimum and maximum account number. The feature is functional for all SAGs except those which include equity closing accounts in AuditWare versions dated today or later. This change will save a great deal of time in setting up the financial statements when account numbers have different meanings in different funds. SAGs in the old locations continue to function. For easier viewing or entering of trial balance SAGs, execute either the CTRL L (lock) or CTRL W (window) quick keys while in the trial balance..

SEMINARS DATES AND LOCATIONS NOW COMPLETE
3/29/02 Dates and locations for AuditWare's summer seminars have now been finalized. Click here to see the descriptions, dates and locations, or to print a registration form.

WELCOME TO PADGETT STRATEMAN  AS A NEW USER
3/29/02  We welcome Padgett Strateman and Co., L.L.P. of San Antonio and Santos Fraga, partner, as new users of Audit I.S.D. for Texas School Districts. Padgett Strateman has more than 100 employees and is a major player in audits of school districts and local governments in the central and south Texas areas.

WELCOME TO EAGLE MT-SAGANAW ISD AS A NEW USER
3/28/02 We welcome Eagle Mountain-Saganaw Independent School District of Fort Worth, TX and Gayle Hall, Business Manager, as new users of Audit I.S.D. for Texas School Districts.

TYLER SEMINARS MOVED TO LONGVIEW
3/20/02 The seminars initially scheduled for Tyler, Texas on July 23 and 24 have been rescheduled for Longview, Texas on the same dates due to a major convention which has taken up all hotels' meeting rooms for that week in Tyler. Keep in mind that all seminar locations are tentative until we get the actual meeting room reservations made.

"BEAT THE HEAT" SEMINAR SCHEDULED FOR RUIDOSO, NM
3/10/02 A "Beat the Heat" seminar has been tentatively scheduled for Friday, August 2nd, in Ruidoso, New Mexico, at the Ruidoso Convention Center (Hawthorn Suites). It will ostensibly be a "GASB 34 MADE EASY" seminar, but since the attendance is anticipated to be relatively small, it will be tailored to the attendees (whether from Texas or California and whether ALG users or not). August in Ruidoso is "fireplace weather" and Paul and Dolly Shaw plan to take a few days off after the seminar and enjoy it. How about you? We'll even cook breakfast for you Sunday morning if you're staying over! Ruidoso has casino gambling at the Inn of the Mountain Gods, a first class horse racing track and lots of quaint shops. See Ruidoso.net for more information.

SCHOOL AUDIT CONFERENCE SET FOR CALIFORNIA
3/7/02 The 2002 conferences for auditors of California school districts have been announced by the California CPA Education Foundation. They will be held May 13 at the Doubletree in Sacramento and at the Ontario Airport Marriott on May 14. AuditWare users Bob Wilkinson and Felipe Quezada serve on the planning committee and may other California users will undoubtedly be attending. Call the Foundation at (800) 877-5897 to register.

TENTATIVE SUMMER SEMINAR DATES SET
3/6/02 Dates and locations for this summer's seminars have been tentatively set. Some of the descriptions on the "Descriptions" pages have not been changed yet  Click HERE to see the tentative dates and locations. Because of GASB 34 we are planning more seminars (29 this year), since we expect a record attendance and we don't want any one seminar to be too big.

ALG RENEWAL DISCOUNT EXPIRES TOMORROW
2/27/02 Just a reminder for those of you who subscribe to AuditWare for Local Governments (ALG) that your renewal should be postmarked by February 28th to receive the $50.00 early renewal discount. Call or e-mail us if you need another form faxed to you.

AUDITWARE IMPLEMENTATION PROGRESS
2/27/02 As reported earlier, all of the basic financial statements are essentially done except the two government-wide (GW) ones. The delay in those has basically been our struggle to make this complex procedure as easy and understandable as possible for the user. Up until recently, the process we were working on was similar to that espoused by PPC, the Blue Book and others, that of making "virtual" adjustments which didn't post anywhere but to the GW statements themselves.

In the last two weeks we have revamped this process and found a way, we believe, to place the conversion adjustments at the trial balance level. While the GW statements will likely never be a piece of cake, this breakthrough should provide the easiest and most understandable way available for producing those statements. Report Master will think it died and went to heaven, because it will allow trial balance and lead schedule reports either at the fund or GW level.

CALIFORNIA CSAM  ACCOUNTS REVIEWED
2/19/02 The SACS and Non-SACS charts of accounts in the new California School Accounting Manual (CSAM) dated December, 2001 have been reviewed to determine the changes included since the prior year. No changes were noted in function codes but the following new SACS object codes were found and added to AuditWare: 4400 Non-capitalized equipment, 6900 Depreciation expense, 7638 Debt service - interest, 9111 Fair value adjustment to cash in county treasury and 9795 Designated for the unrealized gains of investments and cash in county treasury.

In non-SACS, the new accounts were 6900 Depreciation expense, , 7140 State special schools, 7190 Other tuition excess costs and/or deficits, 7638 Debt service interest, 8450 Cal-SAFE county classroom, 9111  Fair value adjustment to cash in county treasury, 9585 Compensated absences payable and 9715 Designated for unrealized gains of investments and cash in county treasury. Thanks to Sally Heflin, Dolly Shaw and Emily Horne for performing this review.

WINDOWS XP COMPATIBILITY PROVIDED
2/1/02 Updates of the AuditWare Engine and of AuditWare Utilities were posted on the Downloads page today which provide compatibility with Windows XP for users of AuditWare. See the Engine Changes page for more information.

WELCOME TO NEW ALG CLIENT
1/17/02 We welcome Haws, Theobald & Auman of Susanville, CA as new users of our AuditWare for Local Governments (ALG) product. John Auman, and the firm, has used AuditWare for California School Districts for two years.

AUDITWARE FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENTS PRICE CUT BY $500!
1/7/02 Effective today, the price for our AuditWare for Local Governments product (ALG), including the AuditWare Engine, has been reduced from $1,995 for a new user to $1,495. For users of other products, who do not need to purchase the AuditWare Engine ($400) , the price decrease is from $1,595 to $1,095. This $1,095 price applies for all users of Audit I.S.D. for Texas School Districts and AuditWare for California School Districts. ALG produces the annual audit report for a city, county or special district which uses governmental accounting. The notes to the financial statements are set up for a Texas city, but may be revised to meet the requirements of other states.

HITS NEARING 10,000
1/7/02 As may be seen from the hit counter on the home page, hits to this site are now nearing 10,000. This is since its inception about two years ago. And to think, a few months before that, someone suggested that we needed a web site and I said "What on earth do we need a web site for? No one would use it if we had one." Now I don't know what we'd do without it.-- Paul Shaw.

GASB 34 ENGINE RELEASED
12/11/01 In major news, the initial version of the new GASB 34 AuditWare Engine has been made available to those firms who have notified us of their intention to produce draft GASB statements for Texas school districts this fall or winter. Since this version is dedicated to draft statements it is not yet provided for general use. Those firms are being notified of enhancements and changes to that version by e-mail.

INTEREST IN ALG HEATING UP
12/9/01 We have received five telephone calls requesting information about AuditWare For Local Governments (ALG) from users of our other products in the last week or so and one immediate order, this without any mailings or marketing on our part. Maybe it's the view of GASB 34 on the horizon for cities and counties or maybe our recent mailing of renewal notices for our school products that sparked the interest. Whatever the reason, we are happy to provide the information to anyone who requests it, along with a list of current user firms and their telephone numbers. We welcome the firm Edwards, Tate and Fontenote, LLP of Beaumont, Texas as new users of ALG. We also belatedly welcome Clay County, Henrietta, Texas, as a direct user of ALG. Their order was placed in October.

VIRUSES MAY BE ON THE MOVE
11/28/01 This is just an alert to encourage you to install effective virus detection software. If our experience is any example, we have received 4 virus-infected e-mails in the last 24 hours while not receiving any in the last two months or so. We use Norton Antivirus 2002 (which we recommend) on most of our computers and McAfee's Virus Scan on one (just in case Norton misses one) and update virus definitions weekly. All viruses we have received have been detected and handled but we thought it was a good time to let you know that there's apparently a lot of bad stuff flowing around right now by way of e-mail. Many viruses populate themselves by using Microsoft's Outlook address book to send itself to everyone on the list. That's why we don't use that software for our e-mail. We use Eudora (which we also recommend and is a free download) and have never had that problem.

GASB 34 UPDATE 
11/05/01 We continue to work hard on the GASB 34 AuditWare version with a view of having it available late this fall for those who plan to issue draft statements for Texas school districts this year. To date, the following firms have responded to our request for all firms to notify us if they are planning to issue draft GASB 34 statements: Mathis, West, Huffines & Co., CPAs (Wichita Falls), Richard M. Burriola, CPA, P.C. (San Antonio), Burl D. Lowery, CPA (Brownwood) and West, Davis & Company, LLP (Austin). Some of you may have experienced a slight delay when calling for current year support in the last two weeks, resulting in the need for call backs later in the day. That's because Paul Shaw has "moved to a secure location" to give his undivided attention to this project.

We think you will like the end product when it is finished. As it's shaping up it will have three "cross walk" journals:  Beginning Balances and Accrual Entries associated with the government-wide statements and Eliminations associated with all Statements of Net Assets.  These are entries which will already be made for you, based on the state-wide chart of accounts, which will post automatically for the current and all future periods. While we refer to these as "permanent" journals, they can be edited by the user for special situations. Indeed, for ALG users they will be entered in their entirety, since each chart of accounts is different. Of course, there will also be current period journals for each of these, but we are doing the cross walk journals to hold down the number of entries necessary. Also, the plan is to have these journals post directly to the line-items of the government-wide statements in most cases, not to trial balance account codes. This means there will not be a need to use account codes for that side of the entry, although you may do so for your own reference if desired  This overcomes the fact that in some cases, such as when ALG users are dealing with a city, the client may not have an account set up for such items as "invested in capital assets, net of related debt" or "restricted net assets." Naturally, some of the above may change as we get to the testing phase, but our goal is to make it as easy as possible for the user and to make it the "Cadillac" product in the industry for producing GASB 34 financial statements.

Our planned sequence for enabling GASB 34 in our various products is as follows: 1) Audit I.S.D. for Texas School Districts (TSD) - basic statements and table of contents only for use with draft statements this fall; 2) AuditWare for Local Governments (ALG) - basic statements and all documents for use with 12/31/01 and later conversion dates; 3) AuditWare for California School Districts (CSD & CSN) - complete report except notes; 4) All remaining required items for standard report for all products; 5) Statistical tables and other exhibits for the CAFR add-in; 5) In the course of all steps we will be progressively setting up the "Name of Government" client included in the illustrative audit report of GFOA's new "blue book" and use it for testing. These financial statement setups will then become the beginning defaults for ALG users when setting up a new client under the new reporting model; 6) In most cases we are doing the "help" and additions to the printed user manual as we go along. Ultimately there will likely be two and possibly three new chapters associated with GASB 34. We also realize there will be a need for training seminars and workshops. We have tentative plans for two or three in Texas in January, 2002, for the benefit of those doing draft statements and a full series for all users starting probably in May, 2002.

HITS EXCEED 9,000
10/13/01 The number of visitors to this site have now exceeded 9,000 and we thank you for your support.

SOURCES AND USES DETAILED IN NEW AUDIT I.S.D. UPDATE
10/12/01 An update of the Audit I.S.D. for the Texas School District product has been posted which details Other Financing Sources and Other Financing Uses in the operating statements. This brings it into conformity with the illustrative statements provided by the Texas Education Agency. For more information, see the changes page for that product.

UPDATES  MAILED TODAY
10/4/01 AuditWare updates on CD-ROM discs were mailed today to all users of Audit I.S.D. for Texas School Districts (TSD) and those who use of both TSD and AuditWare for Local Governments (ALG). Tomorrow, CDs will be mailed to users of ALG only. Within the next few days we will be mailing to users of AuditWare for California School Districts (CSD and CSN) and/or ALG in California. While we generally expect users to download their updates from the web site, occasionally we elect to mail updates to all users, since it reduces support contacts and therefore is in our self-interest.

PROBLEM EDP ASCII FILES TACKLED
9/24/01 After several calls this year from users of Audit I.S.D. for Texas School Districts about EDP files which are "wrapped" (part of each line wraps to a short second line) and our correcting such files for several users, we have added a utility to the ASCII Master menu which will correct such files before conversion. See the Audit I.S.D. Updates page for more detail.

CD INSTALL DISKS IMPLEMENTED
9/4/01 Updates to the AuditWare Engine, Utilities and all products dated today have implemented the ability to use CD-ROM disks for installation, as well as to place multiple installations on the same diskette when downloading updates from our web site. Not only can you use CD-ROM disks mailed to you by us, you can also burn your own if you like and if you have a CD-RW drive. See Utilities Updates for more details.

WELCOME TO NEW USERS
8/28/01 We want to welcome several clients as new users of AuditWare products. There are three new AuditWare for Local Government (ALG) users: Harrell, Rader, Bonner & Bolton, L.L.P. of Palestine, TX; Weaver and Tidwell, L.L.P. of Dallas, TX; and Malnory, McNeal & Company, P.C. of Paris, Texas. We have two new users of Audit I.S.D. for Texas School Districts: Region XI Education Service Center in Ft. Worth, TX and Bryan Independent School District in Bryan, TX.

TEA RESOURCE GUIDE VERSION 8 PUBLISHED
8/23/01 Version 8 of the Texas Education Agency's Resource Guide has been published on their web site. Under the "What's New" section it states that Exhibit C-2, the indirect cost schedule, has been changed and that a note has been added to the footnotes of the example audit report for this year. However, their site is not functioning for viewing or downloading these items. We will let you know on the News for Auditors page more once these problems have been corrected. Thanks to Michael Kiefer of Wathen, DeShong & Junker in Beaumont for letting us know about this. He has e-mailed TEA about the web site problem and so have we.

ALG ON SALE AT 20% OFF DURING AUGUST
8/7/01 Our AuditWare for Local Governments product may now be ordered at a 20% discount this month only. For new AuditWare users, who must also order the $400 AuditWare Engine, this reduces the price from $1,995 to $1,595. For existing users of another product, who already have the Engine, the price is reduced from $1,595 to $1,275.. Join us in Weslaco on the 22nd (see article below) if you want some training on setting up the chart of accounts or just want to take a closer look at how the product works. Call or e-mail us if you need an order form or seminar registration form faxed to you

WESLACO SEMINAR CHANGED, TOTAL REGISTRATIONS NEAR 150
7/24/01 The emphasis of the "Introduction to AuditWare" seminar to be held in Weslaco, TX, on August 22nd will be on use of the AuditWare for Local Governments (ALG) product (other introductory seminars have and will emphasize our school district product). While an overview of AuditWare will be provided, at least one hour of this half-day seminar will be devoted specifically to setting up the chart of accounts in ALG, including use of the new chart of accounts features introduced this year. We are pleased that overall seminar registrations continue to grow. They now stand at 143 with 8 seminars yet to be held!

SEMINAR REGISTRATIONS TOP 100
7/7/01 Registrations for our summer seminar series are already up to 113. It appears we are heading for another record year (last year's record total was 158)! If you have not mailed or faxed your registration form, do it today, even if you plan to attend one scheduled for later in the summer. This helps us a lot in our planning for room size, etc. The two seminars are "Introduction to AuditWare" and "AuditWare Annual Update." Click here for more information.

NEW "UTILITIES" DOWNLOAD ESTABLISHED
7/3/01 The AuditWare Engine has been broken into two files on the downloads page. One is still called the AuditWare Engine but a new second one is called AuditWare Utilities. This resulted from the work we are doing in association with GASB 34 features. The new files and routines caused the  AuditWare Engine installation disk to no longer fit on a single diskette so we broke the Engine into two files. There is not a separate page describing the Utilities changes at this time. The AuditWare Engine changes page will double as both.

The first time you select "Create an install disk from a file downloaded from the internet," there will be no selection available to make a Utilities install disk. However, if you will select the AuditWare Engine and then answer Yes when asked "Update this computer?" the command will then appear on the AuditWare Tools menu. Incidentally, before this version is installed, do not answer the question "Update this computer?" until the light on your floppy disk drive goes off or you hear its sound stop.

SEMINAR DESCRIPTIONS UPDATED
6/10/01 Descriptions of content and other information about our Summer seminars have now been posted. Select Information, then CPE Seminars, then AuditWare Seminars, or just click this. Incidentally, our telephone service has been restored, allowing us to upload this update of the web site.

HIGH AND DRY
6/9/01 We have had no flooding in Bellville associated with the heavy flooding in Houston since Thursday but our telephone service has been out all day today (Saturday). We have been told it should be restored by tomorrow.

WELCOME TO SEVERAL NEW CLIENTS
6/8/01 We have six new clients of AuditWare for California School Districts. They are Boden & Downes, CPAs of Sacramento, CA; Patel & Associates of Oakland, CA; Burkey, Cox, Evans & Manning of Lancaster, CA; Roberts a