{"id":4419,"date":"2014-02-20T06:31:10","date_gmt":"2014-02-20T11:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=4419"},"modified":"2014-02-20T06:31:32","modified_gmt":"2014-02-20T11:31:32","slug":"4419","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=4419","title":{"rendered":"Officials: D’town\u2019s finance dept. using outdated software"},"content":{"rendered":"

Audit again shows need to change from 12-year-old system<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Nate Adams<\/strong>, Correspondent, The Times<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"<\/a>

Downingtown Finance Director Judith Walters explains to Mayor Josh Maxwell and the Borough Council the detail of a financial audit that again shows a need for the borough to upgrade its accounting software.<\/p><\/div>\n

DOWNINGTOWN \u2014 The Borough\u2019s finance department is operating on outdated and ill-supported software, according to a recent audit of the borough\u2019s 2012 budget.<\/p>\n

Judith Walters, the borough\u2019s Director of Finance, shared the audit\u2019s findings at Wednesday\u2019s meeting, saying that the recommendation to upgrade has been made \u201ca number of times\u201d in previous audits.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil we want to put serious money into new software, we\u2019re operating on [an out of date] basis,\u201d she said.\"\"<\/p>\n

The borough currently accounts its finances on a \u201ccash-based\u201d system developed and purchased by the borough in 2002. Walters says that accrual accounting, which is considered the industry standard and measures finances based on time of transaction and not time of received payment, would allow borough audits to proceed more smoothly.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur software was a collaboration between a CPA and a computer R&D firm and was designed specifically for municipalities,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s fine for our day-to-day stuff, but the software isn\u2019t capable of accrual basis, which are standard now. It\u2019s just a suggestion from the audit firm, but it\u2019s one that has been made for a few years now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walters said that the borough paid roughly $17,000 for the software in 2002, which she said made it \u201ca great deal less expensive\u201d than other accounting programs, which cost between $70,000 and $100,000 in 2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not getting in the way of anything, but it keeps coming up,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Council member Cara DeStefano spoke in support of finding funding for updating the accounting software.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been stretching $17,000 for 12 years now,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need to look into this, because if this software crashes, we won\u2019t be able to get it back,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Walters called the 2012 audit \u201ca clean opinion\u201d that verified that the borough\u2019s 2012 budget deficit came in under projections. Walters said that the borough is expected to receive it\u2019s bond rating in March.<\/p>\n

The next borough council meeting is scheduled for March 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Audit again shows need to change from 12-year-old system By Nate Adams, Correspondent, The Times DOWNINGTOWN \u2014 The Borough\u2019s finance department is operating on outdated and ill-supported software, according to a recent audit of the borough\u2019s 2012 budget. Judith Walters, the borough\u2019s Director of Finance, shared the audit\u2019s findings at Wednesday\u2019s meeting, saying that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2908,2909,240],"class_list":["post-4419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-audit","tag-borough-council-accounting-software","tag-downingtown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}