If your unit of government had a single audit performed under the federal requirements found in the Uniform Guidance §200.501 for fiscal year ending June 30, 2023, this is to remind you that your unit’s audit report is required to be submitted to the federal government via the Federal Audit Clearinghouse (FAC) by March 31, 2024, if you have not already done so. To submit an audit or to determine if your 2023 audit has been received by the FAC, you can go to the new General Service Administration (GAS) website located at https://fac.gov.
As most of you may know, the management of the federal audit clearinghouse (FAC) has moved from the US Census Bureau to the GSA. During this transition period, there are temporary changes to requirements for submitting audits to the FAC and within the deadline for submission. The requirement that the audit must be submitted 30 days after the audit is presented to the unit (Uniform Guidance (§200.512(a)(1)) has been waived for audits with fiscal years ending in January 2023 through September 2023. The audit is still required to be submitted within nine months after year-end. If you submit an audit to the FAC, you will need to create a login account to the new website.
Most units of governments and their auditors are probably aware of the FAC transition and the audit submission requirements. However, we have noticed a few units do not file audits with the FAC, as required. We have informed State Agencies that we will send reminders to the units and their auditors of the submission requirements, per their request. Due to the COVID -19 pandemic funding, there has been an increase of single audits performed under federal requirements.
According to the federal requirements (Uniform Guidance (§200.512(a)(1)), the unit is responsible for submitting the audit to the FAC. Our understanding is that the audit firms often do some of the submissions. There is a federal document, Data Collection Form (form SF-FAC), that is to be submitted along with the audit. A section of the form must be completed by the audit firm. Our LGC-205 “Contract to Audit Accounts” recommends that the unit and their auditor agree on who will be responsible for this submission prior to the audit engagement.
Again, this requirement is only for audits that were performed under the federal requirements (Uniform Guidance), meaning that the unit incurred $750,000 or more of federal award expenditures during the fiscal year. If your unit had an Alternative Engagement audit, our understanding is, at this time, that the FAC is not accepting these audits. Audits performed under Alternative Engagements need to be submitted to US Treasury. Also, if your unit has not submitted an audit that was performed under federal requirements with a year-end prior to March 2023, you should do so. The submission or a resubmission of a prior year audit should be submitted to the new GSA website that is referenced above. The requirement that audits must be submitted the earliest of 30 days or nine months after the end of the fiscal year will resume for audits with fiscal years ending after September 30, 2023.
If an audit is not submitted timely to the federal audit clearinghouse, it cannot qualify as a low-risk auditee. A low-risk auditee has benefits, such as only requiring twenty percent of the total federal award expenditures to be audited as major. This potentially could reduce audit costs. To find out more about low-risk auditee status, discuss this with your audit firm or contact our office.