As they gear up for annual financial audits, state and local government leaders must apply more scrutiny to their systems and processes. Preparing for internal and third-party audits is the most important initiative for a government controller and chief financial officer, but sprawling enterprise resource planning, or ERP, systems and complex financial transactions often make it difficult to track and account for government spend.
To “win the audit,” agencies should embrace a process-first and data-driven approach. This approach not only improves efficiency and effectiveness, but it also results in better data—such as reliable overviews of government assets, liabilities and spending—becoming available to the public. Here are a few ways agencies can adopt this strategy.