Wednesday, June 14, 2023

Financial Audits |Academic Audits | School Administration and Supervision | Course code 8616 | B.Ed Solved Assignment |

QUESTION

Write the detailed note on Financial and academic audits

Course: School Administration and Supervision
Course code 8616
Level: B.Ed Solved Assignment

ANSWER

Financial Audits

Financial audits dig deep into an institution/organization’s financial situation, probing accounting records, internal control policies, cash holdings, and other sensitive financial areas. Publicly traded corporations are subject to external financial audits regularly, and even privately owned small businesses can be subjected to an external financial audit by the IRS or other government authorities. Knowing how to perform a financial audit on your own books can help you to prepare for a possible external audit, keep your accounting system in order, and discourage internal fraud and theft.

Step 1

Review the systems put in place to transmit financial information to the accounting department. The first step in the accounting cycle is to gather financial documentation, such as sales receipts, invoices, and bank statements, and forward it to the accounting department for processing. Without timely and reliable information, accounting records can become unreliable themselves, creating discrepancies in a company's financial records.

Step 2

Look into the company's record-keeping policies and check to ensure records are being stored properly. Small businesses should keep at least an electronic photocopy of cash register tapes, canceled checks, invoices, and other financial documentation until the end of the current accounting period. Make sure that archived records can be accessed quickly to shed light on any potential issues that arise.

Step 3

Identify and review each element of the company's accounting system, including individual T-accounts (debits and credits), journal entries, the general ledger, and current financial statements. Systematically work through the accounting system to ensure that all necessary accounts are present, that T-accounts are posted to the general ledger promptly, and that the system can correct human errors, such as arithmetic mistakes.

Step 4

Check into the institution’s internal controls policies to gauge the level of protection they provide from corruption. Internal control policies include things like the separation of accounting duties between different employees, locked safes for holding pending bank deposits, and password-protected accounting software that tracks exactly who does what and when.

Step 5

Compare internal records of cash holdings, income, and expenses against external records. Check the company's stored external records and compare selected transactions against internal records. Compare purchase receipts sent from suppliers for a certain month against internal purchase records, for example, or compare cash register tapes against revenue recorded on the books.

Step 6

Analyze the institution’s internal tax records and official tax returns. Tax records should be kept for seven years to be on the safe side. Browse through the company's tax receipts from the IRS and compare them against records of tax liabilities and taxes paid in the company's accounting records. Take a little extra time to review the range of credits and deductions claimed on the most recent tax return, looking for areas of dubious reporting, such as inflated expense numbers.

Academic Audits

The Academic Audit is a faculty-driven model of ongoing self-reflection, collaboration, teamwork, and peer feedback. It is based on structured conversations among faculty, stakeholders, and peer reviewers all focused on a common goal: to improve quality processes in teaching and learning and thus enhance student success. During the self-study phase of the Academic Audit, the faculty looks at the key activities in place that regularly improve the quality of teaching and learning.

The Academic Audit, like more traditional program reviews, is a peer review process including a self-study and a site visit by peers from outside the institution. However, the similarities end there. Unlike the traditional approach to program evaluation, this process emphasizes self-reflection and self-improvement rather than compliance with predetermined standards. The purpose of an academic audit is to encourage departments or programs to evaluate their “education quality processes” – the key faculty activities required to produce, assure, and regularly improve the quality of teaching and learning.

An audit asks how faculty approach educational decision-making and how they organize their work, using the resources available to them and working collegially to provide quality education in the best interests of the discipline and student learning.

Elements of Academic Audit

· 1- The audit may include structured interviews, questionnaires, attendance at already scheduled meetings, document review, and agenda/minute trails. The detailed program of activity will reflect the methodology set out by the audit team for the Audit purpose.

· 2- The Review Secretary assists audit team members by advising on appropriate contact persons in the Schools/Units where the audit is to take place. However, audit team members will need to arrange the timings of any visits to those Schools/Units according to their individual availability.

· 3- The Team Leader, assisted by the Review Secretary, agrees with members of the audit team which team members will cover particular aspects or venues. For the avoidance of doubt, the Review Secretary will circulate a note of the allocation of the respective tasks to all team members.

· 4- The Team Leader, again assisted by the Review Secretary, agrees with members of the audit team which team members will draft which parts of the audit report. Again the Review Secretary will circulate that allocation in a note to all team members. Upon completion of the audit, the audit team agrees on a draft report.

a) The Team Leader, assisted by the Review Secretary edits the draft audit report. He/she may also consult the AAGC member of the team on editing matters. At this stage of the process, the Team Leader is likely to engage the rest of the audit team in an interactive exchange of electronic drafts to arrive at a draft that reflects the consensus view of the audit team.

b) This draft is then sent to the Head of School/Unit where the audit took place, and other staff as appropriate, primarily for factual correction. Only where it is clearly demonstrated that an error of fact has incorrectly influenced the audit team's findings will the audit team redraft a report to the extent that its findings are amended? Again it is for the Team Leader, with assistance and advice, further to edit the report.

c) The audit team’s report, as amended if necessary in response to factual correction, is then considered by the Chair of AAGC who may consult with the AAGC member of the audit team, other members of AAGC, and the Governance Services Unit, before determining:

which member of the Executive should have an overview of a draft management response and should present that response to the Executive
with advice from that Executive member, which University officer(s) should draft a management response, under the overview of and for the initial approval of that Executive member, for presentation by that Executive member to the Executive.

d) As the key executive manager in the University, the Executive has the authority to commit staffing and other resources to ensure that recommendations in an audit report are implemented. Executive members also have a commitment to and expertise in the assurance of academic standards and quality and their enhancement. The executive, therefore, considers the audit report and a draft management response, as presented by the Executive member so requested by the Chair of AAGC, for approval.

e) After receipt of the management response, AAGC approves an action plan, drafted by officers within GSU setting out the actions required to implement recommendations within an audit report. The action plan identifies the locus of responsibility for specific actions and sets out a timescale for those actions. The timescale will depend upon the particular topic audited but AAGC adopts a default position of expected completion of actions within twelve months.

Purpose of the Academic Audit:

The objective of the academic audit is to evaluate the performance of the institution and to identify the issues that are to be attended to to improve the quality of teaching and research. The following are the major objectives of an academic audit:

1. To understand the existing system and assess the strengths and weaknesses of the Departments and Administrative Units and to suggest the methods for improvement and for overcoming the weaknesses while teaching, learning and evaluation, student support, and progression.

2. To ascertain whether the Departments/centers are functioning efficiently and effectively with proven records of capacity building, research projects, and publications and extension over some time or not.

3. To identify the bottlenecks in the existing administrative mechanisms and to identify the opportunities for academic reforms, administrative reforms examination reforms for a long-term progression with excellence and to face the challenges of Internationalization in higher education.

4. To evaluate the optimum utilization of financial and other resources, issues concerning leadership and organization, functional autonomy,, and financial management.

5. To suggest methods of improvement for maintaining quality in higher education.

The Peer Review

1. Auditors are volunteers (primarily faculty) who receive training on education quality processes and audit methodology.

2. Audit teams (2-4 members) may come from any public and private institutions including outside higher education as long as each auditor participates in a formal training experience.

3. All departments are allowed to nominate up to two peers for service on the academic auditor review team.

4. Because the auditors focus on quality processes, they do not have to come from the academic discipline of the department being audited TBR strives to have at least one faculty from the discipline or a closely aligned discipline on each auditor team.

5. Audit visits are typically one day.

6. Auditors meet with departmental leadership, faculty, students, and other stakeholders.

7. Auditors ask questions similar to the self-study questions cited above.

8. Auditors write a report:

9.  Highlighting examples of exemplary practice,

10  Noting areas for improvement,

11  Evaluating a department’s approach to educational quality practices,

12  If the program is being evaluated for performance funding purposes, the report specifically addresses any “Not Met” cited on the performance funding summary sheet.

Principles of the Academic Audit:

While there is no “hidden agenda” and no “right way” to approach the Academic Audit process, the Academic Audit openly advocates the following underlying quality principles as foundations of good educational practice.

1. Define quality in terms of outcomes

· Learning outcomes should pertain to what is or will become important for the department’s students.

· Student learning, not teaching per se, is what ultimately matters.

2. Focus on the process

· Departments should analyze how teachers teach, how students learn, and how to best approach learning assessment.

· Departments should study their discipline’s literature and collect data on what works well and what doesn’t.

 Experimentation with active learning should be encouraged. Faculty should be encouraged to share and adapt their colleague’s successful teaching innovations.

3. Work Collaboratively

· Teamwork and consensus lead to total faculty ownership of and responsibility for all aspects of the curriculum and make everyone accountable for the success of students.

· Dialogue and collaboration should be encouraged over territoriality and the “lone wolf” approach.

4. Base Decisions on Evidence

·  Departments should collect data to find out what students need and how students perform.

·  Data should be analyzed and findings incorporated in the design of curricula, learning processes, and assessment methods.

5. Strive for Coherence

· Courses should build upon one another to provide necessary breadth and depth.

· Assessment should be aligned with learning objectives.

6. Learn from Best Practice

· Faculty should seek out good practices in comparable departments and institutions and adapt the best to their own circumstances.

· Faculty should share best practices and help “raise the bar” for their department.

7. Make Continuous Improvement a Priority

· Departments should continually and consciously strive to improve teaching and learning.

The Format of the Audit Report

Audit reports have a standard format comprising:

Title of the audit.
Membership of the audit team.
Terms of Reference for the particular audit.
The methodology of the particular audit.

A description of the current policies, procedures, and arrangements for the topic audited. This should preferably be a brief factual synopsis
A risk assessment outlining why the policies, procedures, and arrangements underpinning the topic audited require to be quality assured e.g. what detriment might the University suffer if the current policies, procedures, and arrangements failed?

7. The findings of the audit. These are principally of two types:

Is there compliance with the current policies, procedures, and arrangements for the topic audited?
Could the current policies, procedures, and arrangements for the topic audited be enhanced and be made more fit for purpose? In particular, the audit team may wish to promote across the school/university good practice identified in the Schools/Units where the audit took place.

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