Health Department Purchase Card Audit

Read the executive summary on this page and download the pdf for the full report.

Report Highlights

What we found

The Health Department uses purchase cards (p-cards) for a significant portion of their supplies and training costs. We tested a sample of the Health Department’s p-card activity for fiscal years (FY) 2016 and 2017. We found overall, the Health Department has adequate controls in place over the majority of its p-card activity. However, there is room for improvement.

What we found to be working well:

• Use of centralized purchasing processes.
• Use of the County’s web-based shopping tool, Multco Marketplace (MMP), to facilitate the approval process.

Areas needing improvement:

• Lack of review of monthly bank statements.
• Missing documentation. One cardholder had 64% of their entire support missing for FY2016.
• A few unallowable purchases noted in our sample.
• Lack of segregation of duties for the travel and training purchase process.

Why we did the audit

The Health Department was included on our 2016-17 audit schedule. We chose an initial focus of the Health Department’s p-card activity due to their inherent risk. Further, we focused our attention on cardholders with high expenditure volume as well as other potential high-risk card use.

What we recommend

The Health Department should:

1. Immediately address adequate documentation issue with cardholders and responsible mangers/supervisors. Take corrective action as deemed necessary.
2. Provide training to staff on allowable purchases and required documentation compliance.
3. Review internal processes to ensure adequate and timely reviews are occurring on bank statements and travel & training reconciliation forms.
4. Evaluate cardholders that are not part of centralized processes.
5. Review processes to ensure they are adequately staffed and have segregation of duties.
6. Ensure segregation of duties are appropriate and adequate to mitigate risks.

The Health Department should work with Central Accounts Payable to:

7. Revise required documentation for gift cards to prevent duplication of efforts.
8. Determine if the current policy of limiting monthly gift card purchases is still necessary.
9. Review the County’s administrative procedures to ensure policies are sufficient and clear.