MAS NEWSLETTER

A quarterly publication distributed by UMBC Management Advisory Services

Web Site: http://www.umbc.edu/mas

 

VOLUME 1, NUMBER 1

MAR, 2001

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HELLO

… and welcome to a new service provided to the UMBC community. This newsletter should be informative, timely and relevant. We will strive to provide information on this page that will help you to manage your departments in compliance with applicable rules, regulations, policies and procedures. We will also use this forum to keep you apprised of audit findings and related corrective actions. Please let us know if there is any information you would like to see covered in future issues.

 

ABOUT MAS

Management Advisory Services (MAS) is a department within the Office of the Vice President for Administration and Finance. MAS has been assigned the primary responsibility for addressing compliance issues on campus. We design and conduct reviews of critical operations and business practices to assist the campus to comply with existing audit recommendations, to avoid future audit exceptions, to promote improved compliance and to operate more efficiently. Where necessary, we will work with you to identify what corrective actions can be implemented.

 

NEW ADDITIONS

Please welcome two new members of the Management Advisory Services (MAS) team: Frances Toth and Sharon Doherty-Ritter. Frances and Sharon are both CPAs and come to UMBC with backgrounds in government, public and corporate accounting and auditing. They will be great assets to MAS and UMBC in our continuing compliance efforts.

 

UPDATE ON INTERNAL CONTROL EDUCATION

SESSIONS

MAS held Internal Control Education Sessions in November 2000 to update the campus community on the importance of establishing and maintaining a proper system of internal controls. We had a great turnout and appreciate all the comments we received. As an added service to those community members who were unable to attend one of the November sessions, we are planning to hold a repeat session. The information covered in the repeat session will be exactly the same as that covered during the November sessions, so we suggest you only sign up for the repeat session if you did not attend one of the November sessions. If you would like to attend the repeat session, contact Sylvia Wickham via e-mail at wickham@umbc.edu. When we determine the number of participants, we will notify you via email regarding the place, date and time.

 

DID YOU KNOW ?

MAS is responsible for monitoring audits conducted on campus and coordinating UMBC’s response to the resulting audit reports. To adequately carry out this responsibility, we need all departments to contact us when an audit is being conducted in your area. Your timely notification will help us do our job better.

 

MAS WEB SITE

The MAS web site will be premiering soon. Some areas that are planned will include information on frequently asked questions and current audit topics. We welcome your comments and suggestions. If there is information you really hoped to see that we have not included, let us know. We will do our best to respond. Also, we ask you to use the MAS web site to view our newsletter. We do not plan to issue a hard copy of each publication.

 

AUDIT REMINDER

 

P-cards

During their last audit, the Legislative Auditors reviewed our purchasing card usage and record keeping and commented that we were not always adhering to State and Campus purchasing card policies. Please remember that purchasing card policy requires all cardholders to maintain monthly transaction logs and appropriate supporting documentation, to ensure purchases comply with program restrictions, and to complete monthly reconciliations between the transaction log and supporting documentation, the VISA statement and the transaction log, and the FAS statement and the VISA statement. Additionally, all supervisors are required to review and approve the reconciliations and to document the review by signing the monthly transaction logs. The cardholder reconciliations and supervisory review should be completed within 30 days after the end of the billing cycle. Please visit the Procurement Department=s web site for the detailed Purchasing Card Program Users Guide.

 

MANAGEMENT ADVISORY SERVICES

Michele L. Evans, CPA

Manager

Email: mevans@umbc.edu

Extension: 1354

 

Frances Toth, CPA

Management Analyst

Email: ftoth@umbc.edu

Extension: 6257

 

Sharon D. Doherty-Ritter, CPA

Management Analyst

Email: doherty@umbc.edu

Extension: 1620

 

Shared fax: 1009