As recent incidents of misreporting of student admissions and placement data in both undergraduate and graduate schools have become an area of increased scrutiny in higher education, a prestigious university hired Baker Tilly to help assess potential risks in relation to data reporting and to assist in the audit of reporting processes.
To better quantify and qualify the potential magnitude and likelihood of such potential misreporting, Baker Tilly conducted a series of control tests, including reviewing process documentation for separation of duties and clearly delineated roles for data entry functions, to better understand the university’s internal controls. Baker Tilly worked with process owners to inventory and review the design of controls to determine whether quality assurance processes were in place for data reporting and applied a risk-based approach to select areas to perform detailed testing.
The university is working to improve matriculation of student data between different systems, improving information oversight and review as it moves through reporting systems, and creating documentation to determine how certain information is handled.
For more information on this topic, or to learn how Baker Tilly higher education specialists can help, contact our team.