Consistent Findings Across the Board
I reviewed more than 50 publicly released audit reports from school districts across 10 states that included findings on student activity funds. The consistency was striking. No matter the district’s size or location — urban or rural — the same issues surfaced.
Approval-related findings most often involved inconsistent or incomplete approvals, missing documentation, or approvals that occurred after the money had already been spent.
Documentation findings frequently cited missing receipts or invoices, incomplete records, or unclear explanations of why funds were used. Deposit-related findings pointed to delayed deposits, weak point-of-collection controls, incomplete receipt logs, and inadequate cash-handoff records.
Reconciliation findings followed a similar pattern. In many districts, reconciliations were completed but not clearly reviewed. In some cases, the same individual prepared and reviewed the reconciliation. Others were completed months late or included reconciling items that remained unresolved.
Findings related to student involvement were also consistent. Student roles existed on paper but not in practice; there was little or no evidence of student-led activity and supporting student documentation was often missing.
The consistency of these findings points to a deeper issue.
I’ve spent many years designing systems, both manual and technology-based, and one lesson repeats itself: When the same problems show up across different people, buildings, and districts, the root cause is almost always the system design.
Audit findings often read like technical compliance issues. But what auditors are really looking for are breakdowns in clarity, oversight, and day-to-day workflow design.
What Auditors Are Really Pointing Out
Audit findings often read like technical compliance issues. But what auditors are really looking for are breakdowns in clarity, oversight, and day-to-day workflow design. That includes how, or whether, students are incorporated into the process.
From my earlier experience working as an auditor, I have seen this from both sides of the table. Audits are rarely about catching mistakes. Far more often, they are about identifying where systems fail to support consistent, repeatable practices.
The same underlying questions surface again and again. Who initiates transactions? Who approves them, and at what point in the process? Where does the documentation live? How does oversight function in practice, not just on paper?
When those answers are not obvious, consistent, and visible, accountability becomes difficult to demonstrate, even when everyone involved is acting in good faith.
As we know, auditors are not just checking boxes. They are testing your systems. Their findings signal whether the system consistently supports clarity, visibility, and accountability. This is especially true around approvals, documentation, oversight, and student involvement.
When an auditor finds a missing approval or a late deposit, they are not just looking at a single mistake. They are seeing evidence that the system allowed that mistake to happen. If the system was designed to make the correct action the only path forward, the error would have been caught or prevented at the moment of the transaction.
When districts treat audits as diagnostic tools rather than fault-finding exercises, they gain a real opportunity to improve how systems function day to day. Audit feedback can help districts simplify processes and identify and resolve weaknesses in their systems.
Simpler Systems Reduce Audit Risk
Districts with fewer student activity fund audit findings tend to share one defining characteristic: simplicity.
Simple in design. Simple to understand. Simple to use.
Their systems clearly define roles and responsibilities, capture documentation as part of the process, and require approvals as part of the normal workflow rather than as an afterthought. These systems create natural audit trails and provide visibility without turning oversight into micromanagement.
Don’t get me wrong. Designing a system that feels simple is hard. It requires understanding not just who the users are, but how often they use the system. In environments like student activity fund management, where many users only engage for a few months each year, simplicity is not a preference. It is a requirement.
Just as importantly, strong systems do not remove student involvement. They support it. When students, advisers, and administrators understand their role in the process, records improve, communication becomes easier, and errors decline.
When Compliance Becomes the Default
In a strong student activity fund system, students, advisers, school and district administrators are all part of the system.
Each role has clear responsibilities, defined touchpoints, and appropriate visibility. Students initiate and track activity-level records within guardrails. Advisers guide and approve transactions as they occur. Administrators oversee trends, exceptions, and compliance without managing day-to-day details.
The system coordinates these roles so the work moves forward consistently and transparently. Following the correct process is not an extra step. It is simply how the work gets done.
When systems function this way, compliance becomes the natural outcome rather than something layered on afterward. When they do not, even well-intentioned people are forced to choose between efficiency and adherence. Over time, those choices surface as audit findings.
Systems that make the right action the default will reduce risk, ease day-to-day pressure, and reinforce accountability for students, advisers, and administrators alike.
This is the difference between fixing audit findings after the fact and designing systems that prevent them in the first place.