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"PRODUCT YEAR" CHANGED TO 2009 FOR ALL
AUDITWARE PRODUCTS
4/1/09 The "product year" was changed to 2009 and passwords established for all
three AuditWare products and updates of each product dated 4/1/09 were published
to this site (see the Downloads page). Since the version numbers of the products
represent how many years they have been in existence, it is notable that some of
them turned over some pretty big milestones. AuditWare for California School
Districts turned 10. AuditWare for Local Governments turned 12 and Audit
I.S.D. for Texas School Districts turned 20 years old!
ANNUAL RENEWALS FOR ALG PRODUCT
DUE APRIL 30TH
3/30/09 Statements were mailed in today for the annual renewal fee for users of AuditWare
for Local Governments (ALG). Renewals are due by the end of April. If you have misplaced your statement,
let us know and we'll fax you another copy.
SEVERAL INTERESTING AUDITWARE CHANGES LATELY
2/16/09 While AuditWare doesn't get a lot of use this time of year by auditors,
we have been busy lately adding features and improving processes. The AuditWare
Engine has been updated 7 times so far since January 1st. See the "Engine
Changes" page for details.
ANNUAL RENEWALS FOR SCHOOL DISTRICT PRODUCTS
DUE JANUARY 31ST
1/21/09 Statements were mailed in early January for the annual renewal fee for
users of AuditWare's two school district products, Audit I.S.D. for Texas School
Districts and AuditWare for California School Districts. Renewals for both
products are due by the end of the month. If you have misplaced your statement,
let us know and we'll fax you another copy.
TEA REQUIRING GASB 45 IMPLEMENTATION THIS YEAR
11/7/08 We have just learned that the Texas Education Agency is requiring all
school districts to implement GASB 45 (OPEB) this year! Click
here
to see the memo from Rita Chase regarding the matter on the TEA web site. Click
here to see the suggested note disclosures posted on the TRS web site. We
have revised AuditWare today to add that note, as well as adding associated
questions to the questionnaire. An update to our Audit I.S.D for Texas School
Districts product is now available on the
Downloads page. An updated AuditWare Engine will also be required.
Paul Shaw called Rita Chase, TEA's Director of Financial Audits, today to ask whether TEA will require this year's audit reports to be revised and resubmitted if they do not include the GASB 45 disclosure. She replied that those districts will receive a comment to the effect of "be sure it is included next year" but they will not require a revision and resubmission this year.
VISTA INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS POSTED
10/18/08 We have added a document to the Downloads page providing instructions
for installing AuditWare when using the new "Vista" version of Windows. See the
final document under "Documents
for Download." It is in PDF format.
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 FOR 2008
3/26/08 Dates and locations for our annual summer seminars have now been
announced. 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 and James, CPAs of Bakersfield, CA; Linger Peterson Shrum & Company
of Fresno, CA; and Mickey, Casanova & Sack of Bakersfield, CA. We also
welcome Holtman, Wagner & Co., L.L.P. of New Braunfels, TX, long-time Audit
I.S.D. users, as a new client for AuditWare for Local Governments.
SKELETON CREW WEEK OF
JUNE 11-17
6/8/01 Most support will be handled on a call-back basis next week.
Paul Shaw will be attending a GASB 34 course in Kilgore, TX on Monday and
Tuesday and will be at a Shaw Family Reunion in Surfside, TX for the rest of the
week. Don't hesitate to call for support, however. It's just that it may be an
hour or two before you receive a return call. E-mail will continue to be
monitored, but on a less frequent basis.
SUMMER SEMINAR SCHEDULE
FINALIZED
6/4/01 The schedule for our Summer seminar series has now been
finalized and a registration mailing will be sent out soon. See the AuditWare Sponsored Seminars
page for details of the schedule. Incidentally, "Taming the 800 Pound
Gorilla" will be the theme of the "AuditWare Update" seminars,
since we will be demonstrating the new AuditWare features designed to deal with
GASB 34 and the new reporting model. The 2001 release of AuditWare promises to
be the most sophisticated and easy-to-use software available for this purpose.
WELCOME TO TWO NEW CALIFORNIA
CLIENTS
4/26/01 Welcome to two new clients of AuditWare for California
School Districts. They are Borhen & Co. of Martinez, CA, who performed 35
school audits last year, and Fini & Fini, CPAs of Arcata, CA (near Eureka),
who performed 10. Remember that the 20% California sale ends Monday, April 30.
CALIFORNIA DEMOS
SCHEDULED FOR MAY
4/4/01 We are blanketing the State of California next month with
free half-day demonstrations by Paul Shaw of AuditWare for California School
Districts (CSD). Following is the tentative schedule: Tuesday May 8 in Pomona;
Friday May 11 in San Luis Obispo; Monday May 14 in San Jose; Tuesday May 15 in
Sacramento; Thursday May 17 in Fresno; Friday May 18 in Bakersfield; and Monday
May 21 in Burbank. In most cases the demos will be held from 8:30 - 11:30 a.m.
Registration forms will be mailed to all California school audit firms later
this month.
Last year, almost 10% of California school audit firms purchased CSD during its introductory year. This year we hope to increase that level closer to 50%. We are aided greatly by the fact that there is no other product of its type in California. We also should have increased "credibility" now that we have an existing user base to serve as references.
AUDITWARE FOR CALIFORNIA
SCHOOL DISTRICTS NOW ON SALE
4/2/01 AuditWare for California
School Districts is being offered at a 20% discount this month for initial users
who purchase before the April 30th deadline. A letter to this effect and an
order form was mailed to California audit firms on March 31st, but if you didn't
receive one, please call us and we'll fax it to you.
TOLL
FREE SUPPORT ANNOUNCED FOR ALL PRODUCTS!
3/31/01 Beginning today,
telephone support for all AuditWare products is not only free and unlimited as
in the past, but is also toll free! The new support number is (800) 688-2333.
Support by fax will also be toll free. That number is (877) 898-0865. This
should assist greatly in situations where auditors need support while in the
field and don't want to charge calls to the client. It is also just another sign
of our ongoing commitment to make "second and third mile" support the
driving force of our company.
COMPATIBILITY
WITH WINDOWS 2000 ANNOUNCED
3/30/01 A several week project
has just been completed designed to increase AuditWare's compatibility with
Windows 2000. While some users have been running AuditWare under Windows 2000
for a year or more, we felt the need to install that operating system on one of
our computers and test out any differences in operation. New updates of the
AuditWare Engine, AuditWare for Local Governments and Audit I.S.D. for Texas
School were posted to the Downloads page today. An
update of AuditWare for California School Districts will be posted soon.
ADJUSTMENT JOURNAL
UPDATED AGAIN FOR SAS 89
3/30/01 An Update of the
AuditWare Engine now provides materiality information for passed entries for all
funds collectively, not just for the current fund. See last sentence of the
article immediately below.
ADJUSTMENT JOURNAL
REVISED FOR SAS 89
2/6/01 In support of SAS 89,
which is required for periods ending 12.31/00 and later, adjustments are now
divided into three categories: adjustments (normal posted adjustments which are
also posted by the client), reclassifications (adjustments posted for reporting
purposes only which are not to be posted by the client) and passed (unposted
adjustments determined to be immaterial both individually and in the aggregate).
There is a new column of the adjustment journal in which will appear either A, R
or P, representing these adjustment types. By selecting VERIFY from the journal
menu, then PASSED, you can determine the affect of all passed entries in that
journal on assets, liabilities and net income. You may also now sort the journal
by adjustment type if desired. The "Adjustment Journal" report type in
Report Master has been revised to allow you a choice of which type of entries to
include in the report, or whether to include all entries. For existing journals,
where this column is blank, reposting the journal to the trial balance causes
all entries to be marked with an A (normal adjustment). From there you can
change them as appropriate either by selecting EDIT or escaping from the menu
and typing them in manually. Thanks to Lewis Crain, Rutledge & Crain,
Arlington, TX, for suggesting this in his annual user survey. A future update
will provide a materiality report for passed entries in all journals
collectively.
ANNUAL RENEWALS MAILED
FOR ALG
1/28/01 Annual renewal notices
are in the mail for users of the AuditWare for Local Governments product. A $50 discount is
available for renewal by February 28, 2001. Your current product can continue to
be used for fiscal periods ending in 2000 and audits for those periods will be
supported indefinitely at no additional charge. The renewal is for fiscal
periods ending in 2001.
CALIFORNIA
DEMOS RESCHEDULED FOR MAY
1/5/01 The demonstrations of
AuditWare for California School Districts tentatively scheduled for January have
been rescheduled to May, 2001, to avoid tax season. It will also allow time in
January for working with vendors of school accounting software to arrange for
ASCII files for the 2001 school year.
ANNUAL RENEWALS MAILED
FOR SCHOOL PRODUCTS
12/1/00 Annual renewal notices
are in the mail for users of all school district products. A $50 discount is
available for renewal by December 31, 2000. Your current product can continue to
be used for fiscal periods ending in 2000 and audits for those periods will be
supported indefinitely at no additional charge. The renewal is for fiscal
periods ending in 2001. The renewal notices for AuditWare for Local Governments
are scheduled for mailing in January.
ALG CAPABILITIES CONTINUE
TO GROW
11/24/00 "To/From"
accounts can now be used with AuditWare for Local Governments (ALG) without
having to invent additional accounts separating the Due To's and Due From's.
Also, "Incode Custom" and "Lubbock County" have been added
to the "File Type" list on the ASCII Master menu. See the ALG and
AuditWare Engine "Changes" pages for more information.
LEAD SCHEDULES FOR SAGs
NOW AVAILABLE
11/13/00 In a major improvement
to Report Master, lead schedules may now be generated for SAGs (Specified
Account Groups) by users of AuditWare for Local Governments (ALG). Previously,
selecting "Financial Statement" from the lead schedule menu only
listed the financial statement lines which used a minimum and maximum in the
setup as available.
Also, lead schedules now read all three sets of minimums and maximums when active in a financial statement setup. Previously only the first set was used. Since lead schedules are now created in exactly the same manner as the financial statements are created, the need to use "Custom" lead schedules should be much less frequent for users of ALG.
In a related change, the title bar of lead schedules now reports all categories and ranges of accounts included in the schedule, including SAG names.
ANOTHER
"BREAK-THROUGH" IN ALG TECHNOLOGY ANNOUNCED
10/31/00 In almost two years of
use, AuditWare for Local Governments (ALG) has seen substantial improvement in
its technology, but none any more significant that the change announced today.
As most readers know, the ALG product is no different than any of our other
products except that the user must set up each client's chart of accounts. It is
that process that was a real challenge in the early days of ALG when dealing
with an inconsistent chart of accounts or one where account numbers are used out
of sequence. The first major break-through was the ability to use Specified
Account Groups (SAGs) to list the specific accounts which are to sum up to a
particular line of the financial statements, rather than using a minimum and
maximum as a range. The second was the ability to place the SAGs in the
Individual Object Codes definition file, making SAGs easier to work with.
Now comes the third major break-through. The AuditWare Engine made available to our users on our web site today allows up to three sets of minimums and maximums to be used for the same account code type. This should dramatically cut down on the need to use SAGs and greatly speed up the setup process when dealing with problem charts of accounts. When specifying the object codes to use for the "cash" line of a financial statement, for instance, you could say to use minimums and maximums of 1110-1119, 1121-1122 and 1124-1149, which would omit 1120 and 1123. Previously, you would have had to list all 37accounts individually in a Specified Account Group (SAG).
According to Paul Shaw, AuditWare president, "The thing I like best about this change is that it saves the auditor substantial time in the setup process. Most of the other major changes in ALG since its inception have been just new ways to work around problem charts of accounts. This one actually helps you do it easier and faster. I like it not just because it will likely increase the sales of ALG but it contributes to our software's bottom line objective, saving the auditor time."
INCODE TO PROVIDE FILES
IN ALG FORMAT
10/27/00 Lubbock, Texas based
INCODE, one of the major providers of software to cities and counties in Texas
and in several other states, will now provide ASCII file output of client data
in a format usable by AuditWare for Local Governments (ALG). This resulted from
a series of telephone conversations leading to an in-house demonstration of ALG
by Paul Shaw to INCODE's management in September. This new format includes the
ability to have all fields consistently appearing in all records. The department
code, for instance, which typically isn't used by the city in balance sheet
accounts, will now be a part of all records in the ASCII file, with zeros used
as filler when inactive Thanks to Dustin Womble, C.E.O., Steve Nieman,
President, and the rest of the excellent INCODE staff for their cooperation and
support in this matter. To learn more about INCODE, log on to www.incode-inc.com.
To get an ASCII file, have your client contact INCODE and ask for one in
AuditWare format.
THIS AND THAT
10/27/00 We just acquired three
new AuditWare for Local Governments (ALG) clients and two of them hired us to
set up the chart of accounts for their first client, one county and one city. We
welcome J. Keith Feile & Co., CPAs of Marshall, TX, as a new AuditWare
client. While the Long, Chilton firm of McAllen, Harlingen and Brownsville, TX
is a long-time Audit I.S.D. user, we welcome them to the ALG family of users.
The third new ALG customer is West Central Texas Council of Governments of
Abilene. We also welcome Charles E. Reed & Associates, CPAs of Port Arthur ,
TX as a new Audit I.S.D. client. Support calls have been quite light lately,
considering what time of year it is, 3 or 4 calls a day on average. It makes us
wonder if everyone has left us for another program or have we just improved the
program enough to make support unnecessary. By the way, the estimated fee for
our setting up an ALG client ranges from $500 to $1000, depending on the size
and complexity of the client and its audit report, and the consistency of the
client's chart of accounts. To get a quote, send us last year's audit report and
a copy of the client's general ledger printout. In most cases, depending on your
preference, the quote includes on-site training after initial setup. The whole
idea of our setting up one client is for you to use it as an example for setting
up other clients yourself.
CAFR ADD-IN TO BE MADE
SCHOOL-SPECIFIC
10/25/00 Karen A. Jacks and
Associates of Longview, TX has agreed to revise the 16 tables in the CAFR add-in
which are included in a comprehensive annual financial report to use the
functions and terminology of a Texas school district and to share those changes
with us. The tables are currently set up for a city, as in the GFOA blue book
example report. We will continue the city version for the ALG product but use
these new formats for Audit I.S.D. This should be completed by next Spring and
be available for 2001 reports.
AUDITWARE
SUPPORT JOURNAL UPDATED
10/23/00 Recently we have added
15-20 questions based on support calls, e-mails and faxes to our AuditWare
Support Journal. It may be helpful to review and/or print that page to
assist you in answering questions and solving problems.
MAILING TO ALL CLIENTS
10/21/00 A general mailing by
diskette was made to all clients on October 19th of the AuditWare Engine, and of
the product's) to which they subscribe if that product has changed since the
last general mailing. It was made because there have been several important
changes made recently, particularly to the AuditWare Engine.
EDP CHANGES ASCII FILE
MENU
923/00 School districts using EDP software have selections on their
menus as to whether to include minus signs in the file and whether to include
decimals. Ask them to select NO for both of these items. If they select YES to
either item you will need to select "Change the operational settings"
from the ASCII Master menu and change one or both of these settings before
converting the file.
CALIFORNIA DEMOS AND
SEMINARS SLATED FOR CSD
9/9/00 Demonstrations and seminars for AuditWare for California
School Districts (CSD) will be held in Irvine (L.A. area), Bakersfield and
Fresno this month on September 25, 27 and 28 respectively. The free
demonstrations are 9:00 - 12:00 AM in all three locations Seminars entitled
"Using AuditWare for California School Districts" will be from
1:00-4:30 PM and will be held in Irvine and Fresno only. These seminars will be
hands-on in nature (bring your own notebook computer or at least one for each
two or three people attending from the same firm), will provide 4 CPE credits
and cost $75 per person. We have not yet posted a registration form to the web
site, but send us an e-mail or give us a call and we'll fax you one, along with
more information. Paul Shaw, President of AuditWare, will be the presenter. He
will also be available September 22nd through October 3rd to make free on-site
visits or provide in-house seminars or demonstrations in these three areas to
current or prospective clients.
TEXAS SEMINARS A HUGE
SUCCESS
9/4/00 The Texas summer seminars series is now history.
Registrations reached 158, an all time record for this series, topping last
years attendance by about 30. Adding two more locations for a total of 12
undoubtedly helped, as well as the "hands-on" feature added this year,
with participants encouraged to bring their own computers.
SUBOBJECTS NOW AVAILABLE
FOR AUDIT I.S.D.
8/13/00 Several Audit I.S.D. users, including Michael Kiefer and
Denise Almond, have asked for the ability to capture the subobject code from
Texas school district ASCII files and include it in the trial balance. An update
of the Audit I.S.D. product was posted to the Downloads page today which
provides that option. When active, this 2-digit code is carried as two decimal
positions of the object code, as in 1110.15 for a particular type of cash. The
process by which the adjustment journal posts has not been changed, so object
codes in the journal will need to be entered with the same decimal positions as
those in the trial balance, in addition to entering the subobject code.
Also, since you will not have these decimal positions in prior year data, a new setting has been added to Report Master which allows you to exclude them when running reports which include the prior year (or if you simply want to shorten the report).
AUDITWARE SUPPORT JOURNAL
ACTIVATED FOR 2000
8/12/00 Last year we added a new feature to our website, "AuditWare
Support Journal" which is a "log" of phone calls, faxes and
e-mails received from our clients who want to know "How do I . . .?"
or to get help with a problem. By reading through this journal you will find
answers to a variety of situations. This feature is active again and can be
accessed under the Information button on the home page.
SEMINAR REGISTRATIONS SET
A RECORD
8/11/00 Total registrations for our Texas summer seminars have now
reached 135, our highest attendance ever. The "final four" stack up as
follows: Jacksboro (8/16) 15; Fort Worth (8/17) 22; Corpus Christi (8/28) 11;
and Weslaco (8/29) 11. There's still time, brother. Fax your registration
today.
CALIFORNIA NOTES TO THE
FINANCIAL STATEMENTS COMPLETED
8/10/00 Updates of the AuditWare for California School Districts
and of the AuditWare Engine which activate the footnotes have been posted to the
Downloads page. This now allows users to produce a complete audit report.
CALIFORNIA NOTES NEAR
COMPLETION
8/4/00 Programming of the notes to the financial statements for our
new California school products is nearing completion. We apologize for missing
the July 31st projected date, but it was a bigger project than we realized.
Users of those products should be notified by e-mail within the next few days
that an update is available for download.
FOUR MORE CHANCES TO BECOME A
HUNDREDAIRE
8/4/00 the final four seminars in our Texas Summer Seminar Series will
be held 8/16 in Jacksboro (13 enrolled), 8/17 in Fort Worth (11 enrolled), 8/28
in Corpus Christi (11 enrolled) and 8/29 in Weslaco (8 enrolled). Our "Who
Wants To Be A Hundredaire?" game is continuing to get rave reviews as a fun
and non-intimidating way to learn about GASB 34. Don't miss being a part of the
"Final Four." Enrollment/attendance for all seminars now stands at
123.
DOLLY'S MOTHER CELEBRATES HER
80TH
8/3/00 Paul and Dolly Shaw will be flying to Virginia on August 19th to
help celebrate the 80th birthday of Dolly's mother, Marie Ward, on the 20th.
They will be back in the office in Texas on Wednesday the 23rd. Support will be
handled on a callback basis on Monday and Tuesday.
SEMINAR ENROLLMENT TOPS 100
7/15/00 Total enrollment for the Texas seminars now stands at 108. There's
still time to enroll for Tyler and Nacogdoches this coming week if you hurry. Enrollments
at these seminars stand at 15 and 13, respectively.
ALG ON FREE TRIAL AND SALE
7/11/00 All current AuditWare clients may have AuditWare for Local
Governments on a free trial basis between now and September 30th, 2000, with full support.
Also, this product is on sale at a 20% discount until August 31, 2000 ($1,275 versus
$1,595, a savings of $320).
To get your free trial software, just download it from the "Downloads" page. Download the AuditWare Engine as well if yours is dated prior to 7/11/2000 (this date appears in the bottom right corner of the AuditWare Access menu screen). Then load AuditWare, select "Use AuditWare Tools," then "Make a free trial install disk for ALG." We strongly suggest you go to Help (press F1 key at the Access Menu), print the chapter on setting up the chart of accounts and read it before starting your set-up activities, since a printed user manual is not being provided with this free trial.
NEW HUNDREDAIRES IN LUBBOCK AND
ABILENE
7/8/00 There are 21 new hundredaires walking the streets of Lubbock and
Abilene even as we speak. They attended the AuditWare Update seminars and played the
"Who Wants to be a Hundredaire?" game. Actually, they didn't each win $100; they
did so collectively, but they now know a lot more about GASB 34. In each seminar the
attendees are asked to read (or skim) the passout materials and then are divided into two
or more teams. First there is a "fastest fingered" question which pays no money.
It determines which team gets to answer the next question, which does pay money. At that
point a question and four possible answers appear on the screen. The team has 30 seconds
not only to give the right answer, but find the documentation for their answer in the
passout materials. No one needs to know anything about GASB 34 before coming to the
seminar.
A maximum of $100 is given out per seminar. The questions and the passout materials are limited to just two aspects of the new reporting model: the changes in fund types and the new MD&A document. Considering the amount of laughing during the first two seminars, I think everyone would agree it's a fun way to learn. By the way, this is not a serious game, only the subject matter. The rules are sometimes made up as the game proceeds and if a team gets too far behind they are sometimes given a break. The whole idea is to have fun learning GASB 34, not winning the money.
CAFR
ADD-IN ANNOUNCED
7/6/00 As promised on June 30th (see below), a major new add-in which is
available for all AuditWare products was announced today. When activated, this add-in
expands the capability of the product in use to produce a full comprehensive
annual financial report (CAFR)! This includes the 16 required statistical
tables and the various documents in the introductory section required by the GASB and
GFOA. It was announced and briefly demonstrated at the Lubbock seminar today, as it will
be at all of the summer seminars.
The even bigger news, at least from your standpoint, is that all AuditWare clients get the initial version on a free trial basis until September 30th to try it out with full support. It requires no separate installation. Instead, it is activated with a password. You can activate it and take a look at it now if you like, if your AuditWare Engine is dated July 2, 2000 or later. Just go to Settings, select the "Exhibit Creation Settings" category of settings, then select "Use the CAFR add-in." When prompted for the password, enter 021538. This password will be valid through 9/30/00. The cost of the add-in is $500, but is on sale through August 31st for $400.
AUDITWARE TO MAKE MAJOR
ANNOUNCEMENT ON JULY 6TH
6/30/00 AuditWare Development Company is poised to announce a major add-in
for all of its products at the opening seminar of the summer seminar series in
Lubbock, Texas on July 6th, 2000. In development for two years, this add-in will
revolutionize the capabilities of AuditWare software in producing governmental audit
reports according to Paul Shaw, President. More later....after the announcement.
SEMINAR ENROLLMENTS CONTINUE TO RISE
6/29/00 Seminar registration for all 12 Texas seminars is now at 85, even at
this early stage. It appears that these hands-on workshops (bring your own computer) are a
popular idea. If you haven't registered, do so ASAP. A registration form can be printed by
selecting "Information", then "CPE Seminars" from the home page.
WELCOME BACK, SALLY
6/26/00 Sally Heflin, who works for us on a contract basis, has been off for
the last few months buried in tax returns at her own business (Heflin Tax Service in
Bellville). It's nice to have her back where she belongs, doing programming and testing
for AuditWare products on a part-time basis. She's currently working on setting up a
county for an AuditWare for Local Governments user who hired us to do so.
CALIFORNIA NON-SACS PRODUCT SHIPPED
6/24/00 A new product, AuditWare for California Schools Non-SACS, was mailed
to our California clients today. "SACS" stands for the Standardized Account Code
Structure to which some, but not all, California school districts have converted. This
companion product is being provided at no additional charge to those who purchase the SACS
product, "AuditWare for California School Districts" during 2000. It is set up
for the non-SACS chart of accounts, has options for fund numbers when establishing funds,
and allows editing of the chart of accounts of each auditee. This editing is to allow for
the additional flexibility of account coding afforded school districts which operate under
a non-SACS chart of accounts, as compared to a SACS environment.
SEMINAR REGISTRATIONS ROLL IN
6/20/00 Registrations for the 12 seminars planned for Texas this summer are
running well ahead of previous years. For the first time we are encouraging participants
to bring their computers for "hands-on" training if they would like to. To learn
more about the content of the seminar, go to "Seminar
Information". If you have not registered yet, we urge you to do so right away.
You can print the registration form by going to the "Registration & Information"
page.
CALIFORNIA PRODUCT SHIPPED
6/20/00 An interim version of AuditWare for California School Districts was
shipped on 6/17/00. This version handles all schools which have converted to the SACS
chart of accounts. Plans are to ship a version late this week which will accommodate all
schools which have not converted to the new SACS system.
ANNUAL PRODUCT UPDATES SHIPPED
6/3/00 Yesterday we shipped the annual product updates to all users of Audit
I.S.D. for Texas School Districts and AuditWare for Local Governments who have paid their
annual update fee. These versions allow the fiscal year to be changed to 2000 and may be
used for all fiscal periods through 12/31/00. The major changes included will be covered
at our summer seminars (see the "CPE Seminars" page).
CALIFORNIA TRIP RESULTS IN NEW
CLIENTS
6/3/00 Paul & Dolly Shaw arrived back in Bellville last Sunday to find
that 4 of the audit firms attending California seminars had already placed orders for our
new "AuditWare for California School Districts" product. One of the firms also
bought "AuditWare for Local Governments" as well. We received two more orders
for the school product today and many others who are "on the brink.". We welcome
the following new California clients to the AuditWare family of users: Jorge &
Yribarren, Selma; Haws, Theobald & Auman, Susanville; M. Green and Company, Visalia;
Harlan & Boettger, San Diego; and Quesada & Godsey, Monrovia. Thanks to Gloria
Lipper and Brenda Boyce of our marketing staff for their advance work and followup.
TEXAS SEMINAR SCHEDULE NOW
FINALIZED
6/3/00 The schedule of summer seminarsin Texas on the CPE Seminars page has now been
finalized. We have expanded the schedule to 12 cities this year, adding Beaumont, Abilene
and Jacksboro. Click "Information" above, then "CPE Seminars" for more
information.
CALIFORNIA SEMINARS SCHEDULED FOR MAY
We recently mailed seminar registration forms and information to over 1,100
CPA firms in California, and next month we will be traveling to eight California cities to
conduct "Introduction to AuditWare" seminars featuring AuditWare for California
School Districts (CSD) and AuditWare for Local Governments (ALG).
ARIZONA SCHOOL DISTRICT PRODUCT
ANNOUNCED
We are pleased to offer a new software product which automates the production
of annual audit reports for Arizona school districts. This product, AuditWare for Arizona
School Districts, will be in full compliance with the requirements of the Arizona
Department of Education and the Office of the Auditor General, as well as those of federal
and professional standards. It will also produce the USFR Compliance Questionnaire
required by the Office of the Auditor General.
WEAVER AND TIDWELL IN TOP 100
U.S. ACCOUNTING FIRMS
3/20/00. Congratulations to AuditWare client Weaver and Tidwell of Fort Worth
for again achieving status as one of the top 100 accounting firms in the Country according
to the survey published in the March, 2000 issue of "Accounting Today." They
moved up from #92 on last year's list to #88 this year. Revenues of $14.4 million (12%
increase) and 155 employees are reported, with 50% of total revenue from auditing. Weaver
and Tidwell has used Audit I.S.D. software for its school district audits since 1996. They
have three offices in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex.
ALG PRICE INCREASED
2/11/00. A price increase has gone into effect as of February 1, 2000, for
our software product, AuditWare for Local Governments (ALG). The new price for initial
purchase of the product is $1,995.00 (including the Engine) as compared to the original
price of $1,495.00. The annual renewal price remains the same at $695.00.
SHAW ATTENDS ARIZONA CONFERENCE
2/11/00. Paul Shaw attended the 14th Annual Governmental Accounting
Conference on February 4th sponsored by the Arizona Society of CPAs in Phoenix. The
one-day conference played host to about 240 participants and provided a well-rounded and
informative schedule of sessions, including "The New Financial Reporting Model - GASB
Statement No. 34" presented by the keynote speaker, Jay Fountain, in the morning's
general session.
ARIZONA SCHOOL DISTRICT PRODUCT
EXPLORED
2/11/00. A meeting was held on February 8, 2000, in Phoenix with CPA firms
who conduct school district audits to determine if there was sufficient interest in our
developing an automated software product for Arizona similar to the Audit I.S.D. product
for Texas. Our Audit I.S.D. product was demonstrated at the meeting. The five firms who
were represented at the meeting represent some of the major producers of school audits in
the State. All of them expressed a positive interest and indicated they would likely buy
such a product were it offered. A final decision will be made within the next couple of
weeks about whether to offer an Arizona product.
NEW PRODUCT FOR CALIFORNIA
SCHOOL AUDITS IN THE WORKS
1/7/00. A new product is under active development which will produce the
annual audit report for California school district audits. A beta version should be
complete within 30 days and shipment of the initial product is scheduled for April. It
will not only create the basic audit report but will include all of the special schedules
and reports required by the State. We expect to be conducting seminars in California
during the months of May and June.
AUDIT I.S.D. RENEWALS DUE THIS
MONTH
12/8/99. All AuditWare clients using Audit I.S.D. for Texas school districts
should have received their annual renewal notices which are due this month. Note that
there is a $50.00 discount for payment by December 31, 1999. Also, all renewals
received in December are fully refundable for any reason upon request through
August 31, 2000. This is for the benefit of those who only do one or two school audits and
are not sure at this point that they will retain the audits.
NEW FLORIDA PRODUCTS A POSSIBILITY
We are looking into developing two new products for the State of Florida, one
for school districts and another for cities, counties, and special districts. We
appreciate the help of Janice Dugger of the Florida Auditor General's Office for her help
in our search for information. The State looks promising, since a uniform chart of
accounts is used for cities, counties and special districts and another uniform chart is
used for school districts.
EDP UPDATE CHANGES OVERPUNCHING
10/26/99. EDP Enterprises has shipped an update to all of its Texas school clients which
gives users a choice of creating ASCII files with minus signs for negative numbers or with
overpunching as in the past. The problem is that they inadvertently changed the method of
overpunching from the use of symbols to the use of alpha letters in the final penny of the
data. This means you may get an ASCII file in one of 3 formats, depending on whether the
school has installed the EDP update. Audit I.S.D. currently handles either the old
overpunching or minus signs (select EDP file type, then "Minus Signs" from the
"Operational Settings" menu). We will be revising Audit I.S.D. soon to handle
the third option (the new overpunching).
Incidentally, some of you recently received EDP files in which the records would not line up properly on the screen. A representative of EDP said this is probably because their user selected "Binary Sequential File" instead of "ASCII Sequential File" on the EDP menu.
TEA
PLANS A COMMON GASB 34 IMPLEMENTATION DATE FOR ALL TEXAS SCHOOLS
10/20/99. Rather than utilize the three year "phase in" allowed by GASB 34 based
on the total revenue of each entity, the Texas Education Agency plans to implement the new
reporting model for all schools in the State in the same year.
According to Tom Canby, Coordinator of the Division of Financial Audits, "Tentative
plans are for full implementation by all districts on September 1, 2001. The tiered
implementation permitted by GASB 34 is not feasible because of the PEIMS system.
Consistency in PEIMS data is an absolute requirement." He further stated,
"Preliminary discussions related to strategic plans for implementation of GASB 34 are
underway. The primary objective will be to minimize the impact and fully implement the new
requirements. Accordingly, changes to existing PEIMS codes will be minimal, to the
greatest extent practical; however, additional codes will be necessary in order to
appropriately record and report new information required by GASB 34, such as certain types
of full accrual transactions."
WEB-FIRST PHILOSOPHY HAS IMPACT
10/8/99. After reading about AICPA's recently announced "Web First" philosophy,
we began to think about our web site and our internal operations. This resulted in the
establishment of the "AuditWare Support Journal" page. While gutsy (what other
software company do you know that reveals its support calls?), it's a natural outflow of
this philosophy. We were keeping the records anyway and using them for employee training
and other uses; why not share them with everyone? Our employees can read them from there
as well, rather than from the notebook binder we were passing around.
KANSAS
CITY SALES OFFICE ESTABLISHED
10/7/99. We are in the process of establishing a Kansas City sales office, from which
almost all of AuditWare's sales and marketing activities will take place. Effective in the
next day or two our 800 number, 261-2834, will be transferred to that office. The local
number is (913) 685-2932. E-mail regarding sales will continue to be directed to
auditware@TheAudit.com but will be forwarded there for replies. We are pleased to announce
that Brenda Boyce of Overland Park, KS, has joined the AuditWare team as Sales Manager.
HIGH PARTICIPATION IN DOWNLOADING
AUDITWARE UPGRADES
10/7/99. The ability to download AuditWare version upgrades from our web site this year is
being used by most of our clients. Currently 80% use this feature to update their
computers when changes have been made to the software and that percentage is growing. The
procedure allows clients to have access to changes immediately, rather than having to wait
for diskettes to come by "snail mail."
NEW "AUDITWARE SUPPORT
JOURNAL" PAGE ADDED TO WEB SITE
10/7/99. Under the Information button on the home page a new feature, "AuditWare
Support Journal" has been added. This is a "log" of phone calls, faxes and
e-mails received from our clients who want to know "How do I?. . ." or to get
help with a problem. By reading through this journal you will find answers to a variety of
situations.
"AUDITWARE NEWS" PAGE
RESTYLED
10/7/99. Previously, explanations of AuditWare software changes were appearing on this
page. To keep this page strictly a "news" page we have moved these change
descriptions to a new page. You may now go to the "AuditWare Changes" page to
read about any software upgrades.
AUDITWARE FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENTS
(ALG) BREAKTHROUGH
9/16/99. One of the challenges for users of ALG has been setting up the financial
statements to read the chart of accounts when an object code or function code has
different meanings when used in different funds. That's because ALG's fast, top-down
approach to setup generally assumes that the object code for salaries in the general fund,
for instance, will also mean salaries if used in other funds. Up to now, the only
solution has been to use a work-around, assigning arbitrary codes to straighten out the
difference in meanings.
That's all over, since a fund number or fund type may now be optionally included in Specified Account Groups. In the example below, the 410 account means salaries in fund 100 but it means cash in all other funds. Cash, on the other hand, is account 120 in fund 100 but 410 in all other funds. When no fund is specified, such as for account 115, it means that the definition will be used for all funds except those specified.
| Names | Accounts | Fund |
| Salaries | 410 | 100 |
| Cash | 410 | |
| Salaries | 115 | |
| Cash | 120 | 100 |
Chapter 8 of the User Manual, "Setting Up The Chart of Accounts," has been revised to give additional samples and further explanation of this feature. To print out this chapter, go to on-line help (press F1 at the Access Menu or select HELP from any menu), then select PRINT, CHAPTER.
Note that this new feature is included in the AuditWare Engine update dated 9/16/99. It is not necessary to download the AuditWare for Local Governments product file.
"LUCILLE" AD PUBLISHED
9/3/99. Have you seen our ad in the current issue of TSCPA's Today's CPA magazine?
It's the first ad in the "Miscellaneous" section of the classifieds and reads
"PERSONAL TO LUCILLE: Just after you left me I found www.TheAudit.com and now
I'm finally making money on my local government audits. You picked a fine time to
leave me, Lucille." It will appear in the Journal of Accountancy in October.
"MUNICIPAL AUDITORS" PAGE
ADDED
9/2/99. Click on "Information," then "Municipal Auditors" to see a
list of all cities in Texas and their auditors. We hope eventually to publish lists
for other entities. If you have any comments or suggestions, let us know.
CHART OF ACCOUNTS SET-UP SERVICE
We are pleased to offer a new service of setting up the chart of accounts for
users of ALG. If your time and/or manpower resources are limited, you may want to
consider letting us do this work for you on one or more of your governmental entities.
This is an initial, one-time set-up for each of your clients which can then be used
in ensuing years to generate your audit reports. Our estimated charge for each
governmental entity is $350, subject to review based on the size and complexity of the
client's chart of accounts and audit report presentation.. If this is a service you
think would be of benefit to you, contact us for more information.
TEN
YEAR ANNIVERSARY SALE
7/15/99. To celebrate our tenth year in business, both of our major products, AuditWare
for Local Governments and Audit I.S.D. for Texas school districts, is on sale to initial
users at a 10% discount through September, 1999. Also, 50% of all registration fees
for any our "Introduction to..." seminars may be applied toward initial purchase
of either product during this period.
NEW MEXICO, HERE WE COME!
7/15/99. There will be a free demonstration of AuditWare for Local Governments in
Albuquerque on August 6, 1999, 9:00-11:30 a.m., for New Mexico auditors of local
governments. Call, e-mail or fax us to register your attendance.
TASBO SEMINAR DATES POSTED
3/2/99. The dates and locations for the summer series of seminars on school district
accounting and auditing sponsored by the Texas Association of School Business Officials
and EdMIS have now been posted on the TASBO
web site.
WEB SITE ESTABLISHED
3/1/99. Thanks to Debbie Krupala of our staff for developing this initial version of our
web site. The software used was Microsoft's FrontPage 98. Debbie, along with
Dolly Shaw, will also handle its ongoing maintenance.
See the "Our Company" page for our web site mission statement. Over time we plan to stock our site with a substantial amount of current information which is valuable to auditors of local governments and to auditees. Over the longer term we are thinking about listing the software of other non-competitive companies, as well as a "Find an Auditor" feature which will list auditors and their contact information under various audit categories. Any ideas or suggestions are welcome.
ANNUAL USER SURVEY TABULATED
3/1/99. Dolly Shaw recently completed the tabulation of our annual written user
survey. The response level was 50%. Of the respondees, 41% run our products in
Windows and 59% in DOS. However, several mentioned that they plan to switch to
Windows this year.
For the second year running we received 100% positive responses to the question "What did you think of AuditWare in general? What was your overall experience this year?". Of all respondees, 81% volunteered to serve as a reference and 58% helped us by making suggestions for changes or new features they would like to see in the future. Some of these suggestions have already been implemented in the current version of AuditWare for Local Governments and will be included in Audit I.S.D. when it is updated this summer.