How to Prepare for Education Audits

No one likes education audits. However, they’re necessary to keep your school's budget in check. Since most schools are public institutions, state governments want to ensure they use their funds appropriately.

District administration and state governments require you to track asset and financial information for regular review. School audits ensure your school’s financial activity is in line with your state’s education regulations and helps you continue to receive funding for years to come.

Different Types of Education Audits

Internal and external education audits help keep schools accountable for appropriately using public funds. Below is a typical procedure of a school audit.

The school or district itself generally conducts internal audits. These are smaller audits and can help enact a district’s system of checks and balances. Board members may conduct a monthly budget audit to ensure a school’s finances are as auditors reported them.

An outside organization usually conducts external audits to ensure schools are conforming to government standards. Most of the time, you conduct educational audits through a Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR). Auditors are responsible for checking district records and determining whether those records match actions taken in each school or educational facility.

Steps to Help You Prepare for School Audits

Leaving education audit preparation to the last minute will only create more work and stress for everyone involved. Instead, you can use a workflow process that makes audit preparation part of your school’s daily tasks.

Here are some easy ways to include audit preparation into your existing workflow process.

Use an Asset Tracking System for Educational Facilities

Educational assets help your teachers educate your students in different disciplines.

Your sports teams need gear to practice. Your art department needs supplies to learn techniques. There are hundreds of assets your students rely on to learn skills and prepare to enter the job market once they’ve graduated.

Asset Panda is here to help you create an asset tracking system that makes sense for your school's operations. You don’t want to use any old system because most asset tracking platforms are specific to one industry or lack the functionality your school needs. We’ve helped various educational institutions set up their asset tracking platform in ways that supplement how they already operate.

Implement Check-in and Check-out Procedures

A school asset tracking system is only helpful if you can track each item wherever it ends up. Check-in and check-out procedures require your students to be more careful with the assets they borrow. It’ll go on record that those students have borrowed specific equipment. If anything happens to that equipment, the burden of replacing it will be on the student.

These procedures will also help you see where specific assets are at any given time. An asset tracking system can help you plan for busy seasons, such as midterms and end-of-year tests, when assets are in more demand.

Identify Popular and Unused Assets

Knowing what types of tools your students are more likely to request will help you prepare for the next time your asset budget comes up for review. Investing in assets that don’t actually help your students will only waste valuable dollars your school needs to operate.

Alternatively, suppose your school needs more computer hardware to support students who need the internet to complete coursework. In that case, you can plan ahead and ensure that hardware is available before it’s needed.

Asset Panda to Help Your Organization with Educational Audits

Asset Panda wants to help you create the best educational experience for your students. That means having the educational assets they need to focus on lessons. Your educational facility can configure our tracking platform in a way that makes sense to you and your teachers, so they can get back to supporting your students.

Want to see how our platform can help support your students and your school audit process? Test out our platform free for 14 days! (No credit card required.)

With your free trial, you'll get access to user guides, video tutorials, free mobile apps, and call-in and live chat support from our fantastic Asset Panda support team.