Single Audit Readiness
Checklist

The auditor starts here. Every number in your reports has to trace back to the ledger, and unreconciled books turn a routine audit into a long one.

Monthly reconciliations are the basic evidence that your internal controls operate. Gaps here widen the auditor’s testing everywhere else.

The SEFA is the audit’s foundation document. Auditors test whether it is complete and accurate, and a missing program or a wrong Assistance Listing number is itself a finding.

A Schedule that does not tie to the financial statements is one of the most common findings in the sector. Reconcile it before the auditor does.

Whichever you use, the auditor verifies that the rate you charged matches the rate you were entitled to, applied to the right base.

The award terms are the compliance criteria the auditor tests against. Missing amendments mean testing against the wrong rules.

Terms incorporated by reference are still terms. The auditor reads them even if you never did.

Spending outside the approved budget without an approved revision is a common finding, and the approvals are what prove yours were allowed.

Auditors trace what you reported to funders back to your records. Keep the as-submitted versions, not just drafts.

The single most common finding in the sector. Documentation must reflect the work actually performed, not budgeted estimates. Charging salaries at the percentages in your proposal, without records showing reality matched, is exactly the pattern auditors flag.

Salary is usually the largest cost on a federal award, so payroll is usually the largest test.

Auditors check that pay charged to awards is consistent with a policy applied across the organization, not set award by award.

If the proposal claimed licensed or credentialed staff, the files need to show the licenses and credentials.

The auditor tests purchases against your policy and the federal standards. A policy that conflicts with 2 CFR 200 fails both tests at once.

You need to show which method applied, micro purchase, small purchase, or competitive, and that you actually followed it.

Undocumented competition is treated like no competition. Keep the quotes, the scoring, and the written rationale.

The check itself is easy and free at SAM.gov. The finding comes from not documenting that you ran it before you contracted.

The auditor evaluates both design and operation. A policy nobody follows reads worse than an honest gap.

The same policy from the procurement section above, present in the policy binder your auditor requests on day one.

The auditor asks how you decide a cost is allowable before you spend it. This policy is the answer.

Drawing federal cash before you need it is a finding on its own. This policy proves you time drawdowns to immediate need.

Required by the Uniform Guidance and checked by name. Auditors also look for signed annual disclosures.

Federal awards generally require records kept at least three years from the final report. Your policy has to meet that floor.

If you pass funds through, you own your subrecipients’ compliance. Informal check-ins with no written record is a frequent finding.

Travel charged to awards has to follow a written policy with reasonable rates. Low dollars, but high frequency in findings.

For programs with eligibility rules, the auditor pulls a sample of participant files. Missing documentation means questioned costs.

Reported figures that cannot be traced back to source records are a growing finding area, not a theoretical risk. Auditors test what you told the funder against what your records can prove.

Match has to be verifiable, allowable, and not counted toward any other award. It is tested like federal dollars.

Every program carries its own requirements in the annual OMB Compliance Supplement. Your award terms tell you which apply.