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PARKS CANADA AGENCY AUDIT OF KEY FINANCIAL PROCESSES AT THE NORTHERN PRAIRIES FIELD UNIT FINAL REPORT OCTOBER 2005 Report tabled at and approved by A&E Committee Parks Canada Agency Audit of key financial processes At Northern Prairies Field Unit ©Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, represented by the Chief Executive Officer of Parks Canada, 2006 Cagalogue No. : R60-3/2-4-2006E-PDF ISBN : 0-662-42929-XPEAG 2 October 2005 Parks Canada Agency Audit of key financial processes At Northern Prairies Field Unit TABLE OF CONTENT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.......................................................................................................4 1 OVERVIEW.....................................................................................................................10 1.1 Background.... 10 1.2 Methodology ....................................................................................................................... 11 1.3 Assurance Statement ........................................................................................................... 12 1.4 Conclusion...... 12 2 OBSERVATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ......................................................13 2.1 Management Control Framework........................................................................................ 13 2.2 Payments to suppliers.................................... ...
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| Publié par | Souk |
| Nombre de lectures | 18 |
| Langue | English |
Extrait
PARKS CANADA AGENCY
AUDIT OF KEY FINANCIAL PROCESSES AT THE NORTHERN PRAIRIES FIELD UNIT FINAL REPORT OCTOBER 2005 Report tabled at and approved by A&E Committee
Parks Canada Agency
©Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, represented by the Chief Executive Officer of Parks Canada, 2006 Cagalogue No. : R60-3/2-4-2006E-PDF ISBN : 0-662-42929-X
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Audit of key financial processes At Northern Prairies Field Unit
TABLE OF CONTENT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.......................................................................................................4 1 OVERVIEW .....................................................................................................................10 1.1 Background ......................................................................................................................... 10 1.2 Methodology ....................................................................................................................... 11 1.3 Assurance Statement ........................................................................................................... 12 1.4 ..12........................................................................................noC.noisulc................................ 2 OBSERVATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ......................................................13 2.1 Management Control Framework........................................................................................ 13 2.2 16 ..........................................................................................................Payments to suppliers 2.3 Acquisition Cards ................................................................................................................ 19 2.4 Travel Expenditures............................................................................................................. 21 2.5 Contracting........................................................................................................................ 22 2.6 ................................................................................27nuveRe.......e........................................ 2.7 Financial Coding ................................................................................................................. 38 Report tabled and approved by A&E Committee at the February 27, 2006 meeting.
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Audit of key financial processes At Northern Prairies Field Unit
E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y BACKGROUND Parks Canada Agency (PCA) is conducting a series of cyclical audits of field units, service centres and the national office to review key financial, administrative and management practices. The audits focus on compliance with Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) and PCA policies and practices. The audit of the Northern Prairies Field Unit was conducted as part of this cyclical audit program.
OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE The objective of this audit was to confirm that due diligence is being exercised in key management processes at the Northern Prairies Field Unit and that the processes and controls in place are adequate to ensure compliance with TBS and PCA policies and practices. The scope of this engagement covered the following key financial process areas: Revenue, Contracting, Use of Acquisition Cards, Payments to Suppliers, Travel Expenditures and Financial Coding. The period from April 1, 2005 to October 7, 2005 was covered in this audit.
METHODOLOGY The audit methodology included a review of relevant background documentation, interviews with Field Unit personnel, and transaction testing in the key financial process areas. The Northern Prairies Field Unit was visited during the periods of October 11 to 14th, 2005 (Elk Island National Park), and October 17 to 21st, 2005 (Prince Albert National Park).
ASSURANCE STATEMENT In our opinion, sufficient audit work has been performed and the necessary evidence has been gathered to support the conclusions contained in this report.
CONCLUSION Overall, the Northern Prairies Field Unit has financial procedures in place that ensure accountability of financial transactions (Travel and Financial Coding); however, due diligence could be strengthened with the definition and implementation of new procedures and controls related to Contracting, Acquisition Card Management, Revenue, and Payment to Suppliers to ensure consistent compliance to Treasury Board Policies and PCA Policies.
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Audit Reporting Rating Summary Ref Management Process Elk Island National Park 2.1 Management Control Framework
2.2 Payments to Suppliers
2.3 Acquisition Cards
2.4 Travel Expenditures
2.5 Contracting
2.6 Revenue
2.7 Financial Coding
Audit of key financial processes At Northern Prairies Field Unit
Prince Albert National Park
RECOMMENDATIONS Northern Prairies Field Unit Management and Control Framework 1. The Field Unit Superintendent should ensure that an exercise is undertaken to tag IT assets with unique identifier numbers and create an IT asset tracking database. The database should contain the following information: asset number, asset description, date of purchase, date asset assigned to employee, name of employee or section that the asset was assigned to. This database should be updated on a regular basis (i.e. quarterly) to ensure its accuracy and spot checks should be performed to ensure the safeguarding of assets.
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Parks Canada Agency Audit of key financial processes At Northern Prairies Field Unit
2. The combination to the administration office safe EINP should be changed on a regular basis, such as annually, to reduce the possibility of unauthorized access. The safe combination should be kept in a separate secure location, only accessible to those individuals authorized to open the safe. Elk Island National Park
Payments to suppliers 3.The Superintendent should ensure increased training takes place for procurement and the benefits of following standard procurement procedures, including the use of POs and LPOA’s. This should include detailing the beneficial impact on the control environment at EINP as well as the additional financial reporting capabilities that are provided to Parks Canada when the proper procedures are followed. LPOA’s should be signed by an individual with S.32 authorization, and a copy of each LPOA should be forwarded to the finance group. Upon receipt of the invoice, the terms and prices should be matched to the LPOA. 4. The Superintendent should ensure that all goods received by the park are signed for and the packing slip or other form of receiving documentation is forwarded to the Finance group. This procedure provides for written evidence that the goods were received by the purchasing party and were in a condition acceptable to that individual.
Acquisition Cards 5. The Superintendent should ensure that the Elk Island Finance Officer implements the use of purchase logs for all cardholders in order to comply with current PCA policy. The date, amount, financial coding and description of the expenditure should be recorded in the log as incurred and then the log should be reconciled to the Acquisition Card statement at month’s end. 6. The Superintendent should ensure that the Elk Island Finance Officer, as Acquisition Card Coordinator ensures that all cancelled acquisition cards are submitted by the employee to Finance for physical destruction.
Travel 7.The Superintendent should encourage the use of travel cards by all employees required to travel for business purposes. This will facilitate the tracking of travel costs, and enable employees to take full advantage of the additional cost saving benefits to using the government issued travel card.
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Contracting 8. The Superintendent should ensure that a mechanism is in place to monitor contracting transactions against current policy, to ensure ongoing compliance to Treasury Board Policy on Contracting and to PCA contracting guidelines. A contract log should be created and maintained by the Finance group, in which details of all active contracts are documented. 9. The Superintendent should ensure that adequate training in procurement is provided to relevant personnel, and that key policies and procedures are maintained by the Field Unit to ensure ongoing compliance to TBS Policy. 10. The Superintendent should ensure controls are in place to provide adequate clarity in the terms of reference and timelines for contracts to be in compliance with Treasury Policy on Contracting, specifically as it relates to terms of reference. A statement of work or description of services to be performed should be drafted for every contract and a copy of each contract entered into should be forwarded to the Finance group.
Revenue 11. The Finance & Administration group should designate one finance clerk to retrieve the mail from the mailroom. This individual would make a listing of cheques received, and forward the cheques to another finance clerk to enter into SAP. Finally, a third individual would be responsible for making the necessary bank deposits. Note that the individuals getting the mail and making the bank deposits should not post any entries to revenue accounts within SAP and, if possible, should have their access to these accounts restricted. 12. The listing of cheques received should be reconciled with the bank deposits on a quarterly basis by one of the finance clerks. The Elk Island Finance Officer should formally review this reconciliation. 13. The Superintendent should ensure that a supervisor verifies the accuracy of all cash summary sheets prepared by gate attendants and provides a signature to this effect on each cash summary sheet. The amount of cash included in the bank deposit prepared by the attendant should be counted by a second individual, either a visitor supervisor or a different gate attendant than the one who prepared the deposit. This should be done prior to the sealing of the bank deposit envelope in order to verify that the amount of cash in the envelope agrees to the amount indicated in the cash summary sheet and the deposit slip. Due to staffing resource limitations this may not be a feasible procedure for every shift ending deposit, but at the very least spot counts should be performed. 14. The Superintendent should ensure adequate segregation of duties with respect to the collection and recording of specific revenue streams: self registration camping fees and automated pass machine fees. The collecting and counting of cash should involve
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two individuals in each process, and a different individual in the Finance group should be responsible for entering these revenues into SAP. 15. The Superintendent should ensure adequate monitoring of self registration campers is implemented in order to reduce the possibility of visitors using camp sites without a valid permit. The Superintendent should consider the introduction of a roving park attendant during periods where the campgrounds operate on a self registration basis. The attendant should maintain a log book of the number of visitors in the campground and their respective vehicle plate numbers. This information should then be reconciled against the number of registration envelopes, including the amount of cash, deposited in the lock boxes at each campground entry point. 16. The Superintendent should request that audited financial statements be provided from the operator of the Elk Island Golf Course in order to substantiate the amount of license fees being paid under the current agreement. 17. The Elk Island Finance Officer should ensure that all revenues, including those generated from school programs, are input into the financial system as receivables immediately upon issuance of an invoice. This will facilitate the monitoring and collection practices of outstanding amounts.
Prince Albert National Park
Acquisition Cards
18. Cardholders at Prince Albert National Park should be re-sent a formal e-mail from the Field Unit Manager of Finance and Administration defining the proper use of acquisition cards, including the requirement to have an independent Section 34 authorization for each statement. The finance group should verify all acquisition card statements received over the next several months to ensure that the correct individual is providing the Section 34 authorization, and any exception to this should be taken up with the relevant individual. 19. The Superintendent should ensure that the Prince Albert Finance Officer implements the use of purchase logs for all cardholders in order to comply with current PCA policy. The date, amount, financial coding and description of the expenditure should be recorded in the log as incurred and then the log should be reconciled to the Acquisition Card statement at month’s end.
Revenue 20. The Superintendent should ensure adequate segregation of duties with respect to the collection and recording of specific revenue streams: self registration camping fees
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and automated pass machine fees. The collecting and counting of cash should involve two individuals in each process, and a different individual should be responsible for entering these revenues into the financial system. 21. The Superintendent should review current staffing levels or consider hiring an seasonal staff member in the Finance group to assist with the processing of revenue transactions into SAP, which would help to prevent backlogs. 22. The Superintendent should consider implementing appropriate control mechanisms relating to the safeguarding and reconciling of park entry permits. As passes are serially numbered; a database should be maintained of the pass numbers issued to each gate at the beginning of a season. Also, at the beginning of every shift, the gate attendant should record the serial number of the first pass to be issued. At the end of the shift they should record the serial number of the last pass they issued. These numbers should be recorded on their shift summary reports and reconciled against the number of passes recorded as being sold in the computer system (CAMIS). On a quarterly or annual basis, a separate reconciliation should be performed by management where permits are physically counted and compared to sales totals recorded in the system. Significant discrepancies should then be investigated by supervisors in the Visitor Services group. 23. The Superintendent should ensure that cash deposit amounts generated at park and campground entry gates be independently counted and verified by a supervisor or other gate attendant who did not prepare the deposit bag. If this is not feasible because of staff resource limitations than at the very least, spot counts should be performed by a Visitor Services supervisor on a random basis. 24. The Superintendent should consider implementing a new sales computer system at each of the gate entry kiosks at PANP. The new system should be linked to the cash drawer, which should be programmed to open only upon completion of a sale entered to the system. In the meantime, the cash drawers should be equipped with locks and the drawers should be kept locked when staff do not have visual and close proximity control. 25. The Field Unit Manager of Finance and Administration should ensure that the stamped bank desposit slips returned from the bank are matched to the applicable sales report and unstamped deposit slip prepared by the Visitor Services attendant. This is necessary to comply with PCA policy regarding the Receipt and Deposit of Public Monies.
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1 O V E R V I E W
Audit of key financial processes At Northern Prairies Field Unit
1.1 BACKGROUND Parks Canada Agency (PCA) is conducting a series of cyclical audits of key financial, administrative and management practices for all field units, services centres and the national office. There are 32 field units and four service centres in the PCA. Field units are groups of national parks, national historic sites and national marine conservation areas that are usually in proximity to one another. Their proximity allows them to share management and administrative resources. The service centres support the organization in a variety of professional and technical disciplines. Directors of the service centres and field units are responsible for ensuring that the policies, directives and guidelines issued by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) and PCA are followed. On behalf of Performance, Evaluation and Audit Group, Deloitte & Touche LLP (Deloitte) conducted the audit of the Northern Prairies (NP) Field Unit as part of this cyclical audit program. The Northern Prairies (NP) Field Unit is responsible for Elk Island National Park (EINP) and Prince Albert National Park (PANP). Located less than an hour from Edmonton, Alberta, EINP was created in 1906 as a wildlife preserve to protect what was thought to be the last remaining elk on the Canadian prairies. The park is now home to herds of free roaming plains bison, wood bison, moose, deer, elk, as well as 250 different species of birds. Located an hour’s drive north of Prince Albert Saskatchewan, PANP protects a slice of the ‘boreal’ forest, and is also a meeting place or transition zone between the parkland and the northern forest. The park features many natural wonders and cultural treasures, including the only fully protected white pelican nesting colony in Canada, the isolated, lakeside cabin of conservationist Grey Owl, and a free ranging herd of plains bison. Objectives and Scope The objective of this audit was to confirm that due diligence is being exercised in key management processes at the NP Field Unit and that the processes and controls in place are adequate to ensure compliance with TBS and PCA policies and practices. To achieve this, the audit reviewed the management control framework in place and covered the following key financial process areas: ♦Revenue; ♦Contracting; ♦Use of Acquisition Cards; ♦Payments to Suppliers; ♦Travel Expenditures; and
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Audit of key financial processes At Northern Prairies Field Unit
♦Financial coding Transactions were examined that occurred during the period from April 1, 2005, to October 7, 2005
1.2 METHODOLOGY The methodology used in conducting this audit included a visit to the NP Field Unit and the execution of the following activities: ♦Review of relevant documentation including: Northern Prairies Field Unit Sustainable Business Plan, PCA Financial Resource Management Principles, PCA Delegated Signing Authorities Chart, TBS and PCA policies dealing with the above key financial process areas, and financial reports prepared by the Field Unit Manager, Finance and Administration; ♦with the NP Field Unit management and personnel responsible for theInterviews key financial processes; ♦Examination of a sample of transactions in each of the key financial process areas. Upon completion of the fieldwork, a debriefing of our preliminary observations was held with the Superintendent of Elk Island National Park and the Manager of Finance and Administration for the Field Unit. The Field Unit Superintendent was unable to attend the debriefing session. Our observations and recommendations have been made in accordance with the Audit Reporting Rating System described below: Audit Reporting Rating System Controls are not functioning and/or fraudulent activities have Unsatisfactory been detected which will or have a material impact on both the financial statements and operations of the Agency. The control environment is lacking and/or has degraded since the Significant Improvements last audit and is a contributing factor to non-achievement of Needed program/operational objectives. Immediate management actions need to be taken to address the control deficiencies noted. Some controls are in place and functioning; however, several Moderate Improvements major issues were noted that could jeopardize the accomplishment Needed of program/operational objectives. Minor Improvements Many of the controls are functioning as intended; however, some Needed minor changes are necessary to make the control environment more effective and efficient. Controlled Controls are functioning as intended and no additional actions are necessary at this time. For certain processes, audit ratings have been assigned on a Field Unit level, while for others, the ratings are park specific. This was necessary due to substantial differences in procedures
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