Accounting Basics for Tribes

October 4 - 5, 2022

KIVA developed this course to for tribes and tribal organizations that manage federal awards and general (unrestricted) funds.

Finally, a course that will cover the fundamentals of governmental accounting for tribal finance and accounting staff. Tribes suffer from lack of in-house expertise on the fundamentals of accounting and must depend on costly outside consultants to perform their accounting functions and to comply with federal grants and contracts requirements.  Too often tribes have trouble completing their annual audits, face sanctions, and are designated as “high risk tribes” by federal funding agencies.

This course is designed to provide the basics and fundamentals of accounting for tribal finance and accounting staff so they can perform their work more efficiently and effectively.  It provides an introduction to basic accounting principles, concepts, and terminology such as: revenues, expenses, assets, liabilities, income statements, balance sheets, and statement of cash flows; and an overview of indirect cost principles. Attendees will learn the importance of monthly account reconciliation, complying with federal financial reporting requirements, performing basic accounting functions to be prepared for annual financial audits.

Attendees will learn governmental accounting and how it applies to tribes and tribal organizations, the basic accounting concepts and the “Accounting Equation”, double-entry accounting (debits/credits), T-accounts, normal balances, journals, ledgers, how transactions are processed; accounting transactions (accounts receivables, accounts payables, general ledger, payroll, activities); fund accounting (purpose, fund categories, interfund loans, interfund transfers, activities); basis of accounting (cash, accrual, modified accrual, measurement focus), accounting for federal grants & contracts, program revenues); becoming audit ready (accounting transactions, reconciliation, grants management, indirect costs, fixed assets, trial balance, internal controls, investments, loans); and etc.