Somerset Primary Care Trust (PCT) re-engineered its approach to preparing financial statements such as:
- draft annual accounts
- disclosures
- electronic working papers
As a result, it now produces timely and accurately reports much more quickly, and in advance of the submission timetable.
Planning
The PCT began the 2008/09 process immediately after submitting the 2007/08 accounts, by having a debrief session with the auditors to review the annual accounts process. The PCT produced an action plan to address each of the identified weaknesses.
Starting early in the financial year, the PCT ran a series of workshops throughout the year to support its annual accounts process. The aim was to ensure all members of the Finance team understood the information required to support the final accounts process.
Process
The PCT used Microsoft Access to develop a user friendly reporting tool for running key processes and presenting reports. The database also provides the facility for designing validation reports to support the quality checking of the information produced.
There were numerous benefits to using the reporting tool including:
- a high quality suite of integrated reports
- a complete set of validation checks to support the annual accounts
- a clear electronic audit trail from detailed trial balance
- an easy to use system for all Finance staff
As the accounts process continued and data was being updated, the reports were automatically generated through the database. This saved a continual process of manually reconciling the data and therefore sped up the process, improving accuracy and eliminating the manual scope for errors.
Personnel
The structure and competence of the accounting team was paramount in producing a timely and high quality set of accounts. The PCT recognised that the key to a successful team is through continual development and two way communication. Organised events such as workshops and monthly team meetings were held to discuss any issues, and to ensure individuals had the appropriate skills and knowledge.
Presentation
The annual accounts were submitted to the Department of Health in advance of their submission deadline. In addition, the PCT’s auditors received a full set of electronic working papers which were hyperlinked to the External Auditors’ Working Paper Requirements document.
The main benefits from this were to:
- end the need to manually reference and link paper files to other papers
- provide a direct link from the detailed working papers and reconciliations to the annual accounts notes in a consistent form
- provide an easy to follow audit trail which aided the audit process
- develop quality control process, where each working paper was reviewed and signed off prior to submission of the annual account
The PCT reduced the manual process to produce timely and accurate reports by addressing the shortcoming in their accounting procedure.