Financial Audit: Statement of Accountability of the House Finance Office for Fiscal Year 1992 (Letter Report, 03/18/94, GAO/AIMD-94-63). GAO audited the statement of accountability for appropriations and other funds arising from cash transactions of the House Finance Office for fiscal year 1992. The House Finance Office handles receipts and disbursements for House offices, congressional committees, and the Capitol Police. GAO found that the statement was reliable in all material respects; internal controls reasonably ensured that losses, noncompliance with laws and regulations, and misstatements material to the financial statements would be prevented or detected; and there was no material noncompliance with laws and regulations. --------------------------- Indexing Terms ----------------------------- REPORTNUM: AIMD-94-63 TITLE: Financial Audit: Statement of Accountability of the House Finance Office for Fiscal Year 1992 DATE: 03/18/94 SUBJECT: Federal agency accounting systems Accounting procedures Financial management Legislative bodies Compliance Cash basis accounting Cash management Accountability Civil audits Financial statement audits ************************************************************************** * This file contains an ASCII representation of the text of a GAO * * report. Delineations within the text indicating chapter titles, * * headings, and bullets are preserved. 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We are unable to accept electronic orders * * for printed documents at this time. * ************************************************************************** Cover ================================================================ COVER Report to the Clerk of the House of Representatives March 1994 FINANCIAL AUDIT - STATEMENT OF ACCOUNTABILITY OF THE HOUSE FINANCE OFFICE FOR FISCAL YEAR 1992 GAO/AIMD-94-63 House Finance Office Accountability Abbreviations =============================================================== ABBREV Letter =============================================================== LETTER B-114864 March 18, 1994 The Honorable Donnald K. Anderson Clerk of the House of Representatives Dear Mr. Anderson: As you requested, we audited the accompanying Statement of Accountability for Appropriations and Other Funds arising from cash transactions of the Finance Office, House of Representatives, for the fiscal year ended September 30, 1992. We found the Statement of Accountability was reliable in all material respects; internal controls in effect on September 30, 1992, provided reasonable assurance that losses, noncompliance with laws and regulations, and misstatements material to the financial statements would be prevented or detected; and no material noncompliance with laws and regulations we tested. The following sections outline each conclusion in more detail and discuss the scope of our audit. OPINION ON THE STATEMENT OF ACCOUNTABILITY ------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :1 The Statement of Accountability for Appropriations and Other Funds was prepared on a cash basis, which is a comprehensive basis of accounting other than that required by generally accepted accounting principles. The statement presents fairly, in conformity with the cash basis of accounting described in note 2, the receipts and disbursements of the Clerk of the House for appropriated and other funds arising from cash transactions of the House Finance Office for the fiscal year ended September 30, 1992. Our audit was conducted for the purpose of expressing an opinion on the basic Statement of Accountability taken as a whole. The Supplemental Schedule of Appropriations and Other Funds is presented for the purpose of additional analysis and is not a required part of the Statement of Accountability. This information has been subjected to the auditing procedures applied in our audit of the Statement of Accountability and, in our opinion, is fairly stated in all material respects in relation to the basic statement taken as a whole. OPINION ON INTERNAL CONTROLS ------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :2 The internal controls we evaluated were those designed to safeguard assets against loss from unauthorized use or disposition; assure the execution of transactions in accordance with laws and regulations; and properly record, process, and summarize transactions to permit the preparation of financial statements and to maintain accountability for assets. Those controls in effect on September 30, 1992, provided reasonable assurance that losses, noncompliance, or misstatements material in relation to the financial statements would be prevented or detected. COMPLIANCE WITH LAWS AND REGULATIONS ------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :3 Our tests for compliance with selected provisions of laws and regulations disclosed no material instances of noncompliance. Also, nothing came to our attention in the course of our other work to indicate that material noncompliance with such provisions occurred. OBJECTIVES, SCOPE, AND METHODOLOGY ------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :4 Management is responsible for preparing the Statement of Accountability in conformity with the cash basis of accounting described in note 2; establishing and maintaining internal controls to provide reasonable assurance that the internal control objectives mentioned above are met; and complying with applicable laws and regulations. We are responsible for obtaining reasonable assurance about whether (1) the financial statements are reliable (free of material misstatement) and presented fairly in conformity with the cash basis of accounting described in note 2 and (2) relevant internal controls are in place and operating effectively. We are also responsible for testing compliance with selected provisions of laws and regulations. In order to fulfill these responsibilities, we examined, on a test basis, evidence supporting the amounts and disclosures in the Statement of Accountability; assessed the accounting principles used by management; evaluated the overall presentation of the Statement of Accountability; evaluated and tested relevant internal controls which encompassed the following areas: treasury, payroll, other expenditures, and financial reporting; and tested compliance with selected provisions of the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act for fiscal years 1990, 1991, and 1992 (Public Laws 101-163, 101-520, and 102-90, respectively); the U.S. Department of the Treasury financial reporting requirements for disbursing officers (Treasury Financial Manual, volume I, chapter 3100); laws and implementing Office of Personnel Management regulations on employee benefits and employer costs (5 U.S.C. 8334, 8422, 8423, 8707, 8708, and 8906); laws and implementing Internal Revenue Service regulations on federal income and social security tax withholding (26 U.S.C. 3402, and 3101); and the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act of 1977 (Public Law 94-440) authorizing voluntary withholding of state income taxes. We limited our work to accounting and other controls necessary to achieve the objectives outlined in the opinion on internal controls. Because of inherent limitations in any system of internal control, losses, noncompliance, or misstatements may nevertheless occur and not be detected. We also caution that projecting any evaluation to future periods is subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions or that the degree of compliance with controls may deteriorate. We performed our audits in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. We completed our audit work on September 5, 1993. Sincerely yours, Charles A. Bowsher Comptroller General of the United States STATEMENT OF ACCOUNTABILITY FOR APPROPRIATIONS AND OTHER FUNDS =========================================================== Appendix 0 (See figure in printed edition.) NOTES TO STATEMENT =========================================================== Appendix 1 (See figure in printed edition.) (See figure in printed edition.) SUPPLEMENTAL SCHEDULE OF APPROPRIATIONS AND OTHER FUNDS =========================================================== Appendix 2 (See figure in printed edition.) (See figure in printed edition.)