NCAA Agreed-Upon Procedures: What’s New in 2024?

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has issued its 2024 Agreed-Upon Procedures guide (and a month earlier than normal – surprise!). For the most part, this is a fairly routine update. However, you should take note of a few key points.

The following is a summary of this year’s revisions.

General Updates

1. The NCAA bylaw requiring Division II schools to have an agreed upon procedure performed every three years was updated from Bylaw 7.3.1.5.23.1 to 7.3.1.5.22.1 and all references in the report were updated.
2. The most interesting change of note – the introduction section for Division II now calls out two new NCAA bylaws, both effective Aug. 1, 2025:
   1. Bylaw 7.3.1.5.23 – Discusses that any DII member institution that fails to submit their NCAA FRS report by the applicable deadline will forfeit their Division II Institutional Equal Distribution Funds for the following academic year
   2. Bylaw 7.3.1.5.23.1 – Notes that the membership committee has the ability to waive the penalty noted above if it deems there to be unusual circumstances.

 Updates to Revenue and Expense Category Definitions

1. Category 8 – Contributions: The definition wording has been updated to note that contributions “provided and used by athletics” in the reporting year should be reported.
2. Category 20 – Athletic student aid: The “room & board” wording in the definition was updated to instead reflect “living expenses.”

Updates to Agreed-Upon Procedures

1. Changes to Athletic Student Aid procedures:
   1. Procedure 20(a) – Reformatted and reworded to add clarity to the difference in sample size requirement for schools that use Compliance Assistant vs. schools that do not.
      • Additionally, a note was added to the bottom of this procedure stating that the Calculation of Revenue Distribution Equivalencies Report (CRDE) within Compliance Assistant should provide equivalencies that exclude cost of attendance.
   2. Procedure 20(b) – Reworded to provide clarity that independent auditors should be “reconciling” the total aid received by each student-athlete in the sample to the amount in the report that ties to the NCAA FRS (rather than just “comparing” as it was listed previously).
   3. Procedure 20(c) – Several of the bullet points were reworded to provide clarity, and two new notes were added:
      • New note stating that the NCAA FRS system will automatically reduce the total revenue distribution equivalencies awarded that are reported in the system to adhere to the maximum equivalency limits noted at Bylaw 15.5.3.1.
      • New note explaining that if a school has countable athletic aid for a sport no longer being sponsored, the discontinued sport will have to be manually added to the NCAA FRS revenue distribution data entry webpage.
2. Updates to additional minimum agreed-upon procedures over revenue distribution data:
   1. Updated wording in procedure 1(a) for Grants-in-aid to document that the Sports Sponsorship and Demographics Form must be submitted between “April and June” rather than “May and August” as it was listed previously.
   2. Added notes to the procedures for all three revenue distribution buckets (Grants-in-Aid, Sports Sponsorship, Pell Grants) to explain that revenue distribution data is reviewed by the NCAA and that detailed variance explanations lead to a smoother review process.

The James Moore Collegiate Athletics team will continue to perform inquiries of the NCAA regarding accounting treatment of any unusual issues you face and collaborate with them on solutions to make financial reporting more efficient and valuable going forward. Sign up for our insights to stay informed on this and other news.

You can download the NCAA’s complete 2024 Agreed-Upon Procedures guide here and learn more about James Moore’s NCAA AUP services and the team behind your team.

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