FAC Transition from Census Bureau to GSA Taking Shape

We can now pretty much say it’s official that that Federal Audit Clearinghouse (FAC) will transfer from the Department of Commerce’s Census Bureau to the General Services Administration (GSA) on Sept.30 as planned, and that it won’t be postposed as it was last year.

GSA issued an Aug. 16 Federal Register notice seeking Office of Management and Budget clearance to be the repository for the collection and posting of single audit information starting Oct. 1, as it will accept single audits with fiscal periods ending 2023 and later. GSA initially planned to host the FAC last October, but delayed the transition by a year to allow for more pilot testing ensure that it was ready for the information. GSA will also begin data collection of 2016-2022 single audit reports currently collected by the Census Bureau.

Nonfederal entities and their auditors should be aware that GSA's new FAC internet collection portal will be https://www.fac.gov/​.

GSA states that it plans to incorporate changes in the single audit submission process that are “intended to make the reporting process easier, improve data integrity and ensure compliance with the Grant Reporting Efficiency and Agreements Transparency (GREAT) Act of 2019 (Pub. L. 116-103)." The following changes are intended to take effect for all audit years collected by GSA, unless specified otherwise:

• end the collection of the DUNS number (which has now been transitioned to the unique entity identifier (UEI));
• upload the majority of data via templates rather than through a graphical user interface in the GSA system;
• collect auditee’s UEI for audits with fiscal periods ending in 2016-2021, as this has already been approved to be collected for audits with fiscal periods 2022 going forward;
• update terminology (e.g., change “award” to “federal award”; change “CFDA” to Assistance Listing”) to be in compliance with the GREAT Act; and
• clarify on-screen and/or through form instructions to improve data collection and accuracy.

Thompson Grant subscribers will be kept up to date on these changes and how to comply with them via the Single Audit Information Service.

We look forward to seeing how well the new procedures will work come Oct. 1

Join us for our following Thompson Grants events:
Federal Grants Forum For Institutions of Higher Education | Sept. 13-14, 2023 | Virtual Event
Virtual Advanced Federal Grants Forum | Oct. 25-26, 2023 | Virtual Event