In September, the Office of the Washington State Auditor republished and updated a set of tips from May 2022 to help local Washington governments ward off trouble with the federal Single Audit.  Those tips all relate to following federal procurement requirements, which it found to be the most common single audit finding that it reports – accounting for 26% of problems.

The ten tips are here. Some seem somewhat obvious to us – like maintaining careful policies or paying heed to documentation of procurement steps. But we’ve seen similar findings ourselves in enough audits to know that the advice is worth repeating. Here’s a sampling:

• Train staff on federal procurement requirements.

• Have written standards of conduct.

• Justify non-competitive procurement, and

• Make sure no contractors are being used that have been banned from doing business with the federal government.