USCF AUDITED FINANCIALS: CPA COMMENTS

Following are two emails we recently received regarding the lateness of the USCF Audited Financials and the issue of how to report prior year adjustments.  Both writers are CPAs.

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Dear Bill,

 
I would appreciate you posting this email on your web site.
 
"The current USCF fiscal year ends each May 31st.  It is now September and we have no certified financials statements.   During my tenure as Treasurer (84-90) the fiscal year ended a month later, i.e. June 30, and certified financial statements were available at the finance workshop and the Delegates' Meeting.
I find the current delay to rest squarely on the shoulders of Frank Camaratta and Frank Niro.
An Enron and a Worldcom can happen to a non-profit, as where did a million dollars of
LMA money go!
 
Best Regards, Tony Cottell, The Villages, FL

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This is from William E. Mendus. I'm a CPA in Kansas City, Missouri, and
a USCF member. I just want to put in my two cents worth on the USCF
financial statements.

We CPAs have a now much maligned concept called "Generally Accepted
Accounting Principles or GAAP. In my humble opinion, if the big
accounting firms who have been responsible for the recent audit failures
reported in the press had been adhering to GAAP and also to auditing
standards, most of the failures would not have happened. The truth is
that, despite their flaws, United States GAAP are the best accounting
standards in the world.

From what I have read, under GAAP, there is only one way to properly
reflect the needed changes in USCF's financial statements, and that is
to restate the prior financial statements. GAAP are crystal clear that
where a material error is discovered in prior financial statements, the
only proper treatment is to restate those financial statements.

There are arguements about what constitutes a "material error," but
under any reasonable standard, the errors in the USCF financial
statements are material.

To reflect the changes in the current financial statements only
compounds the error because this treatment not only leaves the errors in
the prior statements, it also distorts the current statements.

Post this if you wish.

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