The Accounting Information System used by the City of Manchester
is actually quite outdated. This system is used to track payroll,
purchasing card expenses, as well as other expenses and revenues
within the city. This information is collected and then used to create
the yearly ACFR (Annual Comprehensive Financial Reports) for the
Board of Alderman and the Mayor to review, as well as the citizens of
the city to review. Currently the system has many flaws when it
comes to the internal control process, such as ways to circumvent
certain approvals and necessary backup for charges and payments. It
also is very difficult to run reports to review the information within
the system to confirm it for accuracies
If I were the accounting manager, I would be reviewing better
software to switch to for the city to use. There are really no other
options for the city to use other than to switch software. The change
will not be easy, especially where a majority of the employees within
the city have been working with the current system for 15+ years.
We would want to slowly transition to a new system and continue to
review the information for accuracy as the transition progresses. We
would want to do city wide training for the different departments to
learn the internal controls in place to be compliant with audit. The
City of Manchester is decentralized, which means each department is
responsible for their own accounts receivable and payable, so
training would be a huge necessity for everyone to be on the same
page.
