Take Some of the Pain Out of the Federal Perkins Loan Program Closeout
Schools exiting the Federal Perkins Loan Program only have 45 days to submit an audit report to the Department of Education (DoE). That isn’t much time when you consider all the steps that will be underway:
That’s why you need the support of a trusted and experienced firm like Belt Harris Pechacek. Our team is ready to help you with a trouble free, seamless audit process that meets the DoE audit requirements so that you can focus on other tasks.
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form
Exiting the Federal Perkins Loan Program can be time consuming, complicated, and frustrating, but the audit portion doesn’t have to be. We work diligently by your side to make your job easier and protect the interests of your institution.
It all goes back to the one thing we do best – help you navigate the complex process for a successful outcome.
Your goal is to get out of the Federal Perkins Loan Program, and our role is to help you resolve this issue in a timely manner. We have a streamlined process that we have developed over years after performing single audits for education grant programs. More specifically, the scope of our audit is tailored specifically to meeting the minimum requirements using the minimum prescribed sample sizes specified by DoE. Fewer sample sizes mean fewer records to sort through and locate, saving you and your team significant time.
Rest assured that we’re committed to attesting to the closeout in accordance with federal standards. However, we recognize that on our first pass through, the records submitted to us will almost always result in exceptions. It’s a natural part of auditing to detect abnormalities and we are great auditors.
Our approach differentiates Belt Harris Pechacek from other firms. We scrub our initial findings and work with management to eliminate as many exceptions as possible. Then, we work with management on any remaining findings to provide a response that best articulates relevant facts and offers corrective actions based on countless previous management submissions accepted by grantors.
If all the records are assembled and can be sent in one batch, and subsequent individual loan files selected for sampling can be provided within one or two days, the process can take as little as one to two weeks. What causes the project to extend beyond that time is not the audit process, but rather the institution’s readiness and ability to provide requested records. If records are disorganized or the third-party processor is not cooperative with the institution, the process can take many months. These risks can be mitigated with early selection of auditors and ensuring the records that will be needed can be easily accessed.
For large programs where the program life is over 10 years with thousands of loans, and an external service provider is used or records are in less than stellar shape, a safe estimate for budget and audit delegation purposes would be approximately $30,000. The actual negotiated fee will be significantly less if all records can be provided in one batch and follow-up work is not required.
The institution, in theory, should already be fully prepared in terms of its documents. Coordinating the auditors request for documents and ensuring the correct documents are provided may take additional time, which will be directly correlated to the length of participation in the program, number of loans, and quality and involvement of external service provider.
Inmost cases, the project can be handled remotely. We will provide access to our proprietary secure FTP exchange site, AuditBox, for you to upload documents. It is extremely unlikely that onsite work will be required. At the institution’s request, we can perform the services onsite for an additional fee. Our experience is that having auditors onsite increases anxiety and disrupts normal operations.
The Federal Perkins Loan Program closeout audit process can be performed in conjunction with a single audit, performed as a separate program specific audit, or use the DoE specific scope for the closeout. The DoE specified scope is the least intrusive and least costly and is our recommendation.
