Education (K-12)

Inspired to Serve Educational Organizations

Transform your organization with a team of advisors who know and understand your challenges. Education represents one of the top five industries we serve. Eide Bailly works with the entire spectrum of organizations to address not only their financial issues, but their business and operational issues as well. Throughout the firm, we work with 500 school districts and education organizations, both public and private.

As with most other public accounting firms, the core services of tax and assurance form the foundation of amenities offered to our education clients. However, unlike other firms, Eide Bailly offers a diverse set of additional services, beyond audit and tax.

Eide Bailly’s strong financial foundation, continued growth and commitment to the education industry ensures our clients that we can maintain a long-term relationship with them. Clients will work with a team of professionals who are highly qualified, experienced and who truly understand their challenges and issues.

In these complex times, it’s become increasingly difficult to operate efficiently and productively. K-12 organizations have been tasked with operating in new and unique ways, in order to teach safely and prevent the spread of the coronavirus. No matter what size or type of school you operate, there are areas that could benefit from guidance and improvement. Maximizing technology, tools and resources is more important than ever.

When you have a team of advisors working on your behalf, you will be able to make better decisions. As a result, you will be more equipped to collaborate more effectively within your organization, as well as provide more support to your students and their families.

Keep Your Focus on Your Students

The challenges in the K-12 education sector are diverse and unique. It can be challenging to maintain compliance with applicable standards. You don’t have to carry this burden alone—we’re here to support you each step of the way. Our team of advisors is comprised of collaborators and innovators. Culture is at the heart of everything we do. You will benefit from our open and honest, ongoing communication to develop trust and rapport.

Professional Advisory Services for K-12 Schools

These difficult economic times have been hard on the education industry as schools are asked to do more with less. The impact of the pandemic and remote learning has taken a toll on the students, the staff, and the administration. We can help you maximize your limited resources to provide the best education for your students. In addition to a comprehensive array of professional advisory services, we can help guide you through other common challenges that K-12 schools face.  

We work with 500 school districts and education institutions, both public and private, throughout the nation. As with most other public accounting firms, the core services of tax and assurance form the foundation of amenities offered to our clients. However, unlike many other firms, Eide Bailly is able to offer a diverse set of additional services, beyond audit and tax.

We assist our clients with state/local government consulting, nonprofit organization and tax consulting, internal audits, audit and assurance, cybersecurity, fraud and forensic advisory, as well as technology consulting to name a few.  

Training for K-12 Public Education Clients

Employees and volunteers of Associated Student Bodies (ASB)/booster clubs are given the opportunity to dive deep into specific accounting skills related to student body organizations and learn the reasoning behind the procedures. We offer self-paced training for your ASB/student organization staff or booster club volunteers, so they are empowered to:

• Implement better processes
• Improve internal controls
• Avoid audit findings
• Minimize opportunity for fraud
• Create a great experience for the K-12 community

State and Local Government Consulting

Our education industry advisors can help you understand government standards, best practices and risks for improved operational efficiency. State and local governments are consistently evolving due to new GASB standards, budgetary constraints, fiscal sustainability pressures, technology and transparency and the aging population.

Your school can better navigate these challenges with the help of an experienced professional. Through training, internal audit partnerships, forensic audit and prevention, internal controls analysis and testing, GASB implementation consulting, audit finding resolution, GFOA review, performance analysis and other specialized engagements, your organization can stay on top of changes.  

Eide Bailly's professionals play an active role in developing and applying governmental accounting standards. We're at GASB board meetings and serve on the GASB’s task forces, taking our clients' concerns directly to decision makers. We serve on the AICPA State and Local Government Expert Panel and chair national boards that comment on proposed standards. In addition, one of our CPAs is currently serving as a GASB Fellow.

Internal Audit

Reduce risk and improve operational performance in your K-12 or charter school with an internal audit. By strategically evaluating and managing risk, it can decrease your stress and improve:

• Effective business and operational controls
• Compliance monitoring
• Strategic planning
• New business opportunities

Internal audit is a vital component of governance and strategic risk management in education. It provides an additional element to risk assessment across your organization, facilitates improved processes and controls, address regulatory or other compliance issues, and ensure processes are efficient through the COSO framework.

Our internal audit professionals bring strong process, procedure, internal control and risk management experience to your organization. We bridge these skills with specialized insight related to risk and compliance and specific industry knowledge, to help your organization reduce risk and improve operational efficiency.

Tax Planning

For the schools that file a 990 or 990T, minimizing your federal and state tax obligations with ideas and planning scenarios can be an important part of fulfilling your fiduciary responsibility. We routinely advise our clients on changes in reporting requirements, items that might be subject to unrelated business income tax, management of nexus and state tax reporting issues, tax implications of entity selection, organization structure, business valuation and assistance in structuring agreements.

When preparing and reviewing the federal Form 990s for our clients, it’s understood that these records are available to the public—including the media. Our approach to providing value regarding the preparation of the tax return includes several areas. We review the information that is being accumulated, as well as the theory behind how the information is included in the tax return.

The tax team works closely with the accounting team to understand your objectives and would use this information in the preparation of the income tax returns. We work closely with the audit team to use the information they have collected in the audit process in our preparation of the tax returns. We will also communicate with the audit team to understand any financial or operational changes that may affect preparation of the Form 990.

Additional Resources

When you work with us, you’ll have access to the knowledge and talents of more than 2,000 professionals across our firm. This includes specialized tax knowledge, a full spectrum of audit/assurance services and our many specialized services, such as:

• Cybersecurity - Our professionals have deep IT backgrounds, specializing in a broad range of security services that allow us to tailor solutions to your needs. We work with every level of your organization—your boards and executives, technical IT admins and general users—to provide insight and guidance so you can feel confident your data is protected.
• Fraud & Forensic Advisory - We have seasoned professional with years of relevant investigative experience. We have served several hundred clients, including numerous governmental entities, with investigative needs.
• Data Analytics - Whether you want a better way to power your decision-making, a simpler way to run your organization, or you just want to see a return on your technology, a solid strategy always comes first.
• Technology Consulting - Our technology consultants are committed to helping K-12 organizations with their technology and enhancing productivity and profitability. They will help you to prioritize technology project initiatives to maximize your available resources, offering a variety of services including IT value assessments, technology planning, technology systems selection, project management and IT resource identification.

We Can Help

Maximize your limited resources to promote the success of your students. Our team of professionals will take the time to understand your organization and its goals to help you achieve your goals.