The Issue
Local Government operations are complex. With Councils being responsible for a wide variety of assets, managing multiple maintenance and improvement projects and programs, there are assets ranging from infrastructure and property to machines spread across a large area.
With responsibilities spread across several departments, it means that the Council’s assets are under the scrutiny of many different sets of eyes and hands. Keeping track of Council assets can be challenging.
What we do for you
Expenditure on assets, be it large or small, is a key budget item. We recognise that Council needs to know at all times the status of asset projects and be able to account for them. Whilst the problem is challenging, we see it as a core requirement.
Because we have assisted many Councils in this area, we know what works and we know where the gaps can lie. We can help you by:
- Establishing the starting point for asset reconciliation – working through the current asset schedules and balance sheets. We can also do this by providing guidance to your finance team and checking in with them on progress and the outcomes.
- We can examine balance sheet reconciliations to identify transactions, pinpoint timeframes around acquisitions and guide the team on just what we are looking for.
- We can assess your current system and processes to see if there are any gaps. We can then make suggestions to shore up the asset management and reconciliation process.
- Asset reconciliation should be an ongoing process, as well as having an annual determination to identify any key areas of concern. We can work with the finance team to establish the appropriate processes and design a year-end asset reconciliation and audit process tailored to your Council's needs.
Every Council has its own approach, but at the end of the day, the financial issues, such as asset management and reconciliation, have common traits.
At UHY, we ensure that your processes and systems support accurate accounting and reconciliation of Council assets.
The benefits to you
- Council can have confidence in the assets reported on the balance sheet.
- Council resources are accounted for correctly.
- The year-end audit period will be a smoother process when it comes to accounting for assets.
