Taking a Look at the New FAC.gov Site

What a week it’s been for the federal grants and audit community! The federal government shutdown was avoided (at least temporarily) by a last-minute agreement, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) made available a version of its proposed revisions to Title 2, including and the uniform guidance (with the Federal Register version specifying the comment period slated for publication Oct. 5) and the official transition of the Federal Audit Clearinghouse (FAC) on Oct. 1 from the Department of Commerce’s Census Bureau to the General Services Administration (GSA) (https://www.FAC.gov) for the submission of single audits for federal fiscal year (FY) 2023 and later.

When preparing to submit information to the new FAC.gov site, the first thing users will notice is the requirement for them to sign in via authentication provided by Login.gov. Users cannot use their previous Census FAC credentials to access the new GSA system. Once logged in, users can view the status of audits associated with their email address to determine if they have been fully submitted or if more information is required. At this time, the FAC is not accepting submissions for alternative compliance examination engagements. OMB has granted an automatic extension for these entities for audit year 2023.

The new GSA FAC requires users to provide their unique entity identifier and names of officials that may have access to the audit submission. Users then will provide audit information similar to previous audits submitted to the Census Bureau, but in a new webform format. Users will be required to merge all components of their audit report package into a single PDF file before uploading. FAC.gov urges users to ensure the file is: less than 30MB; unlocked with no password requirements; converted from an electronic document and text searchable; unencrypted; and printing and content copying allowed.

The site also includes the use of workbooks to provide information about the audit (i.e., notes to the Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards, award findings, award findings text, and corrective action plan). The site includes a validation tool to enable users to check for workbook errors. Indian tribes or tribal organizations will need to opt in or opt out of making their reporting package publicly available. After the audit has been certified by the auditor certifying official and auditee certifying official, it is locked within the system.

GSA has noted that:

• search and download of audit data from 2016-2022 will remain on the Census Bureau's site through Dec. 31. This data will migrate to FAC.gov by the end of the year.
• single audit data for fiscal year 2023 will be available via search in mid-October.
• 2023 audit data will be available immediately via the FAC API.
• FAC.gov is now accepting single audit submissions for Indian tribes and tribal organizations.

• FAC.gov will begin accepting late audit submissions for prior years on Nov. 1. Auditees won't be able to amend audits until later in the year.

OMB previously announced that for any 2023 submissions with fiscal periods ending between Jan. 1, 2023 and Sept. 30, 2023, the requirement §200.512(1) stating that single audits are due to the Federal Audit Clearinghouse 30 days after receipt of the auditor’s report(s), is waived. These audits will be considered on time if they are submitted within nine months after their fiscal period end date.

Becoming familiar with the new FAC.gov site now rather than later would be especially beneficial going forward. We recommend checking the site out today.

Join us for our following Thompson Grants events:
Virtual Advanced Federal Grants Forum | Oct. 25-26, 2023 | Virtual Event
Thompson Grants Workshop: Procurement | Nov. 16, 2023 | Virtual Event