Financial Stewardship for Public Entities
Local governments answer to taxpayers, regulatory bodies, and oversight agencies. Your accounting must meet GASB standards, maintain fund integrity, and provide the transparency that public trust demands.
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How can we help?
Understanding Your Industry
Cloonan & Associates provides accounting and advisory services to municipalities, townships, special districts, and other public entities. We specialize in governmental fund accounting, GASB compliance, grant management, and the financial reporting requirements that public entities face. Our work helps your finance team maintain accurate records, prepare for audits, and produce reports that satisfy state oversight agencies and inform public stakeholders.
Common Challenges We Help Solve
GASB Compliance Requirements
Governmental Accounting Standards Board pronouncements create ongoing implementation requirements. Recent standards covering leases (GASB 87), subscription-based IT arrangements (GASB 96), and other topics require adjustments to financial reporting, note disclosures, and accounting procedures that many small governments struggle to implement without outside expertise.
Fund Accounting Across Multiple Funds
Local governments maintain general funds, special revenue funds, capital project funds, debt service funds, enterprise funds, and others. Each fund must balance independently, and interfund transfers must be properly documented. Errors in fund accounting can result in audit findings and regulatory action.
Federal and State Grant Management
Grants from federal and state agencies carry specific compliance requirements, match obligations, and reporting deadlines. Tracking expenditures against grant budgets, maintaining required documentation, and preparing timely reports is essential to avoid disallowed costs and loss of future funding.
Audit Preparation Burden
Annual audits require assembling trial balances, supporting schedules, reconciliations, and documentation that auditors will test. For governments with limited finance staff, audit preparation can consume weeks of time. Poor preparation leads to audit delays, additional fees, and potential findings.
Public Transparency and Reporting
Taxpayers, elected officials, and oversight agencies expect clear, accessible financial information. Producing annual financial reports, budget documents, and responding to public records requests requires financial data that is organized, accurate, and available on demand.
Budgetary Compliance and Monitoring
Many states require local governments to adopt balanced budgets and prohibit expenditures that exceed appropriations. Monitoring actual spending against budgeted amounts throughout the fiscal year, processing budget amendments, and ensuring legal compliance requires disciplined accounting practices and regular reporting.
How We Help
Services for Local Government & Public Entities
These are the services most commonly used by businesses in your industry.
Local Government Accounting Services
Local government entities must follow Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) pronouncements, maintain fund-based accounting systems, and demonstrate accountability for public dollars. We provide the specialized accounting services that boroughs, townships, municipal authorities, and other local government bodies need, including fund accounting, grant compliance tracking, annual financial report preparation, and audit readiness support.
Learn MoreBudget Development & Review
We help small businesses create realistic, actionable budgets tied to their actual financial performance. Our process includes building annual operating budgets, setting revenue and expense targets, and establishing a regular cadence of variance analysis and forecasting updates. The result is a financial roadmap that helps you manage cash flow, allocate resources, and make confident decisions throughout the year.
Learn MoreFinancial Statement Preparation
We prepare professional financial statements including profit and loss statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements. Depending on your needs, we can provide compilation or review-level reports. Our statements are formatted for clarity and include the detail that lenders, investors, and management teams need to make informed decisions.
Learn MoreRegulatory Compliance Advisory
Regulatory compliance is not just a big-company concern. Small businesses face requirements from federal, state, and local regulators that can carry significant penalties for noncompliance. We conduct compliance reviews, assess your internal controls, identify process improvements, and help you build systems that keep you in good standing. Our approach is practical and proportionate to the size and complexity of your business, giving you confidence without unnecessary burden.
Learn MoreData Analytics Services
Data analytics services help small businesses extract actionable insights from their financial and operational data. We build KPI dashboards, develop forecasting models, create automated reporting packages, and perform ad-hoc analysis to answer your most pressing business questions. We work with tools like QuickBooks Online, Excel, Power BI, and Tableau to deliver the right level of sophistication for your business without overcomplicating things.
Learn MoreCommon Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
What GASB standards should our government be focused on implementing?
The most impactful recent standards include GASB 87 (leases), which requires governments to recognize lease liabilities and right-of-use assets for virtually all leases, and GASB 96 (subscription-based IT arrangements), which applies similar treatment to cloud computing and software subscriptions. GASB 101 (compensated absences) changed how governments calculate and report liabilities for paid leave. We help you identify which standards affect your entity, develop implementation timelines, and adjust your accounting procedures and financial statements accordingly.
How do you help with annual audit preparation?
We work with your finance team to organize the information auditors will need before they arrive. This includes preparing adjusted trial balances, reconciling bank statements and investment accounts, documenting interfund activity, compiling grant expenditure reports, and drafting notes to the financial statements. We also review prior year audit findings to ensure corrective actions have been implemented. Our goal is to reduce the time your staff spends on audit preparation and minimize the risk of new findings.
Can you help us with our Comprehensive Annual Financial Report?
Yes. We assist with the preparation of Annual Comprehensive Financial Reports (ACFRs) that comply with GASB standards and Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) guidelines. This includes the government-wide financial statements, fund financial statements, required supplementary information, and statistical sections. For governments seeking the GFOA Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting, we help ensure your ACFR meets all program requirements.
How should we handle federal grant compliance under the Uniform Guidance?
Compliance with 2 CFR Part 200 (the Uniform Guidance) requires documented procurement procedures, time-and-effort reporting for employees charged to grants, proper cost allocation methods, and maintaining financial records that tie expenditures to specific grant objectives. Governments spending $750,000 or more in federal awards must also undergo a single audit. We help you establish the internal controls, documentation practices, and accounting procedures needed to comply with each grant's specific requirements and the overarching Uniform Guidance standards.
What fund types does our municipality need?
At minimum, most municipalities maintain a General Fund for core operations and may need Special Revenue Funds for legally restricted revenue sources (highway funds, library funds), Capital Project Funds for major construction or acquisition projects, Debt Service Funds for principal and interest payments, and Enterprise Funds for self-supporting activities like water or sewer utilities. The specific funds you need depend on your state's requirements, your revenue sources, and the services you provide. We evaluate your current fund structure and recommend adjustments to ensure compliance and useful financial reporting.
How do you help with budgeting for local governments?
We assist with budget development by analyzing historical revenue and expenditure trends, projecting property tax and other revenue for the coming fiscal year, and modeling different spending scenarios. During the fiscal year, we help you monitor actual results against the adopted budget, identify variances that need attention, and prepare budget amendment documents when appropriation changes are necessary. Our reporting gives department heads and elected officials clear visibility into the financial status of each fund throughout the year.
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Learn MoreConstruction & Contractors
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Learn MoreReady to Work With a CPA Who Understands Your Industry?
Schedule a free consultation. We will review your situation, explain how we can help, and give you a clear picture of what working together looks like.