Last week, I attended NPMA’s Spring Educational Training Seminars in Baltimore. The hotel venue in downtown Baltimore was a great setting to soak up the latest topics of concern for Property Managers from around the country.
Pat Jacklets and I delivered a session with focus on audit-readiness for federal government contractors. Audit Readiness is a hot topic in the Defense Industry right now and there is quite a bit of concern on how to properly be prepared. After all, DoD Comptroller David Norquist says “being under audit will be our new normal.”
The Rules are changing
A filled room proved that timing for the topic was perfect. Pat did a masterful job in navigating the complex policies and contract interpretation while emphasizing that the rules for being “audit-ready” have already changed.
For instance, reasonable notification that an audit will be forthcoming could be as short as 10 business days. Pat also explained that there are more asset and inventory classes, both serialized and non-serialized items, that are being scrutinized by auditors for accuracy and accountability.
The Take-away
Preparing for and supporting an audit is not a seasonal or annual event anymore. Audit-readiness is a business practice that needs to be integrated into your day to day activities.
Precision tracking and regular inventories need to be a key part of your audit readiness program. Organizations need to streamline this process by leveraging modern technologies such as cloud-software with automated features to capture and send data to government systems. Programs need to take advantage of mobile computers that have the ability to scan both barcodes and RFID tags to increase efficiency and accuracy in order to create a robust audit trail.
The Property Managers that I spoke with at NPMA have too many assets to keep track of and limited time to maintain accountability. Smart technology investments across the Defense Industry has to be a part of the formula to be prepared for that inevitable audit.
