What Is a SEFA?

The SEFA — Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards — is the key report required for organizations subject to single audits. It indicates what federal awards were in play during an audit period, and summarizes the expenditures incurred under each federal program.

The SEFA becomes the crux for determining what major programs your auditors will be testing, and it is submitted to the federal government as part of the single audit reporting package.

What is included on the SEFA and where to find it

On its face, the SEFA is simple. It requires you to outline some basic award-specific details for the year under audit:

• Federal grantor and pass-through grantor names (when applicable) — These should be easily identified in your grant agreements.
• Program and cluster titles — Again, these should come from the award agreements, however some awards are not as easy to navigate as others. You can check the correct federal award titles by searching for your programs on SAM.gov.
• Federal assistance listing numbers (ALNs) — A five-digit code is assigned to each federal program and is often the primary way to verify if you are the recipient (or subrecipient) of federal funds. If you do not see an ALN on your award agreement, check with your granting agency to verify if that funding is federally sourced. Note, ALN was changed from Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) Numbers, so you may see that on older award agreements.
• Pass-through entity (PTE) identifying numbers (when applicable) — If you are a subrecipient of federal funds, your PTE is responsible for telling you their Federal Award Identification Number.
• Amounts passed through to subrecipients — Ideally, this is tracked in your financial or grants management software.
• Total federal expenditures — This should also be tracked in your financial or grants management software. Remember, the SEFA is a schedule of expenditures, not revenue or reimbursements (although there are some exceptions).

How the SEFA is prepared

Review all your active grants and determine which are federally sourced. It may be useful to keep a running SEFA draft updated regularly as new awards are announced, or as programs expire.

It’s important to have an accurate tracking system to determine which expenditures were incurred under each federal program. Most organizations benefit from having program-specific identification codes tagged to each expenditure tracked in the general ledger.

Remember, the SEFA should accumulate information based on activity incurred during the audit period; it should not be based on the award periods.

How we can help

Take time to review your organization’s grant management and expenditure tracking processes. Review these tips to avoid error and verify accurate federal reporting.

If you’re unsure where to get started, or if your organization lacks the bandwidth, CLA’s experienced team can help with accurate and compliant SEFA preparation and reporting at any level you need.