The 21st Minute

School Districts

CaseWare IDEA Applications

Here are some examples of analyses that can be performed using IDEA. Data from different systems can be brought together for complete analysis. Ultimately, you are only limited by your imagination.

Schools have many of the standard ledgers, payroll and accounts payable can be key concerns. Typical test areas include:

Asset Management

• Identify fully depreciated items and assets higher than replacement cost
• Recap asset values, in value order, by net or cost amount
• Recalculate expense and reserve amounts using replacement costs
• Compare useful lives of assets by category
• Extract assets with useful lives or depreciation rates beyond set norms.

Kickback or Conflict-of-Interest Schemes

• Look for vendor prices greater than the standard
• Identify price increases greater than acceptable percentages
• Check for continued purchases in spite of high rates or returns, rejections, or credits
• Look for high volume purchases from one vendor

Phantom Vendor Schemes

• Match names, addresses, and phone numbers between employee and vendor files
• Check vendor addresses against marketing address lists

Policy Compliance

• Monitor the retention of various records and documents to ensure compliance with government (Federal State) and/or local regulations
• Extract transactions by funding code, fiscal year, and obligation control level and then compare to encumbrances
• Analyze rates and license fees on licenses to determine bylaw compliance
• Match vendor address files with employee address files to ensure compliance with vendor restrictions
• Extract purchase orders below the dollar amount requiring compliance with sealed bids
• Extract transactions of assets funded by federal grants to ensure compliance with grant requirements
• Sort contracts databases by contract or cost types to test compliance with government contract terms

Questionable Invoices

• Identify invoices without a valid purchase order
• Look for invoices from vendors not in the approved vendor file
• Find invoices for more than one purchase order authorization
• Identify multiple invoices with the same item description
• Extract vendors with duplicate invoice numbers
• Look for multiple invoices for the same amount on the same day
• Find invoice payments issued on non-business days (e.g., Saturdays and Sundays)
• Identify multiple invoices at or just under approval cut-off levels