NCAA Agreed-Upon Procedures: What You Need to Know for 2017

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has issued its 2017 Agreed-Upon Procedures guide. While most of the contents have remained the same, you should be aware of some key changes—both for your own purposes and to know what your CPA firm should be doing for you.

Pell Grants reporting – There are three changes regarding the reporting of these grants:

• Pell Grants cannot be included in your statement of revenues and expenditures because they are provided by the government and not the institution or athletic department.
• The value of Pell Grants also cannot be included in the calculation of scholarship equivalency.
• You must report the number of people receiving these grants.

Revenues and expenses reporting – Two changes apply to both:

• If a specific reporting category is less than 4.0% of the total revenues or expenditures, no procedures are required for that category. (This is an increase from 0.5% in the previous guidelines.)
• Variances in revenues or expenses that are greater than 10% must be reported. (Previously it was the lesser of that percentage and $1 million; the dollar figure guideline has been dropped.)

Scholarship testing – There is now a cap of 40 applied to the number of scholarships to be tested when an institution uses the NCAA’s Compliance Assistant (CA) software to prepare athletic aid detail. If CA is not used, that cap rises to 60. (Previously there were no caps for either case.)

Minimum AUP procedures for other items – There are several new minimum agreed-upon procedures for additional reporting items, including:

• Excess transfers to institution and conference realignment expenses
• Total athletics related debt
• Total institutional debt
• Value of athletics dedicated endowments
• Value of institutional endowments
• Total athletics related capital expenditures

It’s best to contact your CPA firm to make sure that you fully understand (and are compliant with) these changes. You can also download the complete guide from the NCAA’s website.

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