Recommendation: The Commission should direct the appropriate officials to establish and implement written procedures for conducting all physical inventory counts of equipment. These procedures, at a minimum, should outline the processes for (1) planning and executing the physical inventory count and (2) analyzing and documenting the results.
Agency: American Battle Monuments Commission
Status: Open
Comments: During our audit of the American Battle Monuments Commission's (Commission) fiscal year 2011 financial statements, we found that the Commission had not performed independent physical inventory of equipment owned by the Commission at the various cemeteries across the world. We found that although the Commission had a policy to perform biennial physical inventory counts of all equipment over $500, this policy was not adhered to during fiscal year 2011. Further, the policy did not explain how to plan, execute, and analyze the results of an inventory count. As a result, we recommended that the Secretary of the Commission instruct the appropriate officials to establish and implement written procedures for conducting all physical inventory counts of equipment. These procedures, at a minimum, should outline the processes for (1) planning and executing the physical inventory count and (2) analyzing and documenting the results. During our follow-up, the Commission informed us that they plan to implement procedures to address this recommendation but have not dedicated resources to it yet. We will continue to follow-up on this recommendation.
Recommendation: The Commission should direct the appropriate officials to establish a mechanism to monitor implementation of existing Commission policy to perform biennial physical inventory counts of all items of equipment with an obligated balance of $500 or more.
Agency: American Battle Monuments Commission
Status: Open
Comments: During our audit of the American Battle Monuments Commission's (Commission) fiscal year 2011 financial statements, we found that the Commission had not performed independent physical inventory of equipment owned by the Commission at the various cemeteries across the world. We found that although the Commission had a policy to perform biennial physical inventory counts of all equipment over $500, this policy was not adhered to during fiscal year 2011. As a result, we recommended that the Secretary of the Commission direct the appropriate officials to establish a mechanism to monitor implementation of existing Commission policy to perform biennial physical inventory counts of all items of equipment with an obligated balance of $500 or more. During our fiscal year 2012 audit, we found that although the Commission had performed a comparison of the equipment on hand to the data recorded in SharePoint (document management web application to share documents internally), an independent physical inventory was not performed. We determined that the Commission had not established a mechanism for performing an inventory of assets. During our follow-up, the Commission informed us that they plan to implement procedures to address this recommendation but have not dedicated resources to it yet. We will continue to follow-up on this recommendation.
