Finance consultant: city close nearly finished but auditors, missing entries slow formal audit

South Pasadena Finance Commission Chair Peter Giuliani and finance staff received an update from a finance consultant from LSL that the city’s fiscal-year 2023–24 year-end close is approaching completion but key reconciliation and reporting gaps remain, delaying the formal audit and complicating midyear budgeting.

The consultant, Kelly (finance consultant, LSL), told the commission the team is “probably close to about 90% completed with the year end close for 2024.” She said the finance team has finished bank reconciliations through June 30 and begun July and August, and that one repeating discrepancy of $1,100 has not been found but will be corrected by booking a journal entry.

The update matters because the auditors will not begin fieldwork until the city produces a stable trial balance. “If [auditors] were to start the audit and there were journal entries that were gonna be posted after, the city would end up incurring quite a bit of additional costs,” Kelly said. She said the city and auditors agreed to delay the audit start until the trial balance is stable and estimated the audit could begin in March with financial statements issued no sooner than June.

Why it matter…