Single Audit Report Example: SEFA, Findings, and Split Opinions

A single audit report is the package of documents a state, local government, university, nonprofit, or tribal entity files after an annual examination of how it spent its federal grant money. A single audit report example — like the State of North Carolina’s report for the year ended June 30, 2024, or California State University’s report for fiscal year 2022–2023 — shows the standard structure: audited financial statements, a Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards, separate auditor opinions on financial statements and on compliance for each major federal program, reports on internal controls, a schedule of findings and questioned costs, a corrective action plan, and the standardized SF-SAC data forms. All of it gets submitted to the Federal Audit Clearinghouse and becomes a public record.

What’s in a Complete Single Audit Report Package

Under 2 CFR § 200.510 through § 200.515, a complete single audit submission has these components:¹

The entity’s audited financial statements for the fiscal year.
The Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards (SEFA), listing every federal program administered and the amount expended under each.
The auditor’s opinion on the financial statements — unmodified, qualified, adverse, or a disclaimer.
The Yellow Book report on internal controls and compliance related to the financial statements.
A separate opinion on whether the entity complied with the requirements that could have a direct and material effect on each major federal program.
A report on internal control over compliance, identifying any material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in how the entity manages federal awards.
The Schedule of Findings and Questioned Costs.
A summary schedule of prior audit findings showing the status of last year’s issues.
Management’s corrective action plan for each current-year finding.
The Data Collection Form (SF-SAC), a set of standardized workbooks capturing key data points electronically.

A single audit goes further than a standard financial statement audit. A standard audit opines only on whether the numbers are fairly presented under GAAP. A single audit adds two layers on top: internal controls and compliance with the requirements attached to each major federal program.² The auditor performs the work under Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards, commonly called the Yellow Book, issued by the Government Accountability Office.³

The SEFA

The Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards is the piece of a single audit that doesn’t appear anywhere else. It reports the total federal awards expended — not received — during the fiscal year, broken down by program.⁴ Each line shows the program name, the Assistance Listing Number (formerly the CFDA number), the federal agency, any pass-through entity information, and the amount expended. Amounts provided to subrecipients must be separately identified.⁵

Notes to the SEFA disclose significant accounting policies. Any difference between SEFA totals and the general ledger requires a reconciliation.⁴ The auditor also issues an “in-relation-to” opinion on the SEFA, attesting that it is fairly stated in all material respects relative to the financial statements as a whole. Beyond disclosure, the SEFA has a structural role: auditors use it to determine which programs qualify as “major programs” that will receive detailed compliance testing.

The Schedule of Findings and Questioned Costs

This is the part of the report where problems appear. Under 2 CFR § 200.515(d), it has three sections.⁶

The first is a summary of the auditor’s results — a snapshot of the entire audit. It states the opinion type on the financial statements, whether any material weaknesses or significant deficiencies were identified, the opinion type on compliance for each major program, the list of major programs audited, the dollar threshold used to classify programs as Type A or Type B, and whether the entity qualified as a low-risk auditee.⁷

The second section covers findings related to the financial statements, reported under Yellow Book standards. The third details findings and questioned costs related to federal awards: internal control deficiencies, noncompliance, and any amounts the auditor believes may be unallowable. Findings that touch both the financial statements and a federal program appear in both sections.

Findings fall into recognized categories. A material weakness is a serious internal control flaw — one where material noncompliance could occur and go undetected. A significant deficiency is a lesser but still reportable control problem. Noncompliance means the entity failed to follow specific federal requirements. Questioned costs are expenditures the auditor believes may be unallowable, inadequately documented, or unreasonable.⁸ If unallowable costs exceed $25,000, the auditor must formally report them as questioned costs within a finding.

Common real-world examples: payroll charged to a grant based on budget estimates instead of actual time worked, missing timesheets, duplicate charges, or costs incurred outside a grant’s approved period of performance.⁸ Procurement violations are another frequent source. An entity that awards a construction contract to its preferred vendor without the competitive bidding required under 2 CFR Part 200 Subpart D typically generates both an internal control finding and a compliance finding.

Example: North Carolina’s 2024 Single Audit

The State of North Carolina’s single audit report for the year ended June 30, 2024 shows how the pieces come together at scale. North Carolina spent $36.58 billion in federal awards across 618 programs. The North Carolina Office of the State Auditor tested 22 programs accounting for $25.65 billion of that total.⁹ The Type A threshold — the dollar cutoff that classifies the largest programs — was $54.87 million.

The report identified 11 findings and $8.5 million in questioned costs. One finding involved the North Carolina Department of Commerce charging $8.48 million of Unemployment Insurance administration expenditures to the wrong time period. Another set flagged the Department of Health and Human Services for failing to monitor $106.5 million in federal funds passed through to managed-care organizations for substance abuse and opioid crisis services.⁹

The package followed the standard structure. The auditor’s section included the financial statement opinions, the internal control and compliance reports, and the schedule of findings. The auditee’s section included the SEFA with notes, a summary of prior-year findings, and a corrective action plan for each current finding.

What Split Opinions Look Like: California State University

Not every major program receives the same opinion. When most programs pass but one fails, the auditor issues separate opinions.

A clean compliance report states that the entity “complied, in all material respects, with the types of compliance requirements… that could have a direct and material effect on each of its major federal programs.” California State University’s 2022–2023 single audit shows what happens when one program breaks that pattern. The auditors issued an adverse opinion on the SNAP Cluster, citing specific noncompliance findings, while issuing an unmodified opinion on the university’s other major programs.¹⁰

The internal control over compliance section uses standardized wording. A material weakness is defined as a control deficiency, or combination of deficiencies, “such that there is a reasonable possibility that material noncompliance with a type of compliance requirement of a federal program will not be prevented, or detected and corrected, on a timely basis.”¹⁰ Auditors identify each finding by reference number and classify it as a material weakness, a significant deficiency, or neither. The AICPA Governmental Audit Quality Center publishes illustrative report templates that auditors work from.¹¹

Who Files One and When

A single audit is required of any non-federal entity — state or local government, university, nonprofit, or tribal organization — that spends $1,000,000 or more in federal awards during its fiscal year. The threshold applies to aggregate federal expenditures across all programs, whether received directly from a federal agency or indirectly as a subrecipient of passed-through funds.¹² For-profit organizations and foreign entities generally are not subject to single audits unless specific award terms require one.¹³

The completed package must be submitted electronically to the Federal Audit Clearinghouse by the earlier of 30 calendar days after the entity receives the auditor’s report or nine months after the end of its fiscal year.¹⁴ Submissions go through the GSA’s current FAC system, launched in October 2023, which requires both auditees and auditors to have Login.gov accounts.¹⁵ The submission includes a PDF of the full audit report alongside the SF-SAC workbooks for federal awards data, SEFA notes, findings, findings text, and corrective action plans.¹⁶

What Happens After Findings Appear

When findings appear in a single audit report, the entity must prepare a corrective action plan that identifies each finding by reference number and describes the specific steps it will take to fix the problem.¹⁷ The federal awarding agency or pass-through entity then has six months from the date the Federal Audit Clearinghouse accepts the report to issue a management decision on each finding.¹⁸

The management decision states whether the finding is sustained, explains the reasons, and describes the expected corrective action. For questioned costs, it specifies whether the costs are allowed or disallowed. Disallowed costs must be repaid. If corrective action is still incomplete, the agency sets a timeline and describes any appeal process. Failure to resolve findings can lead to withheld payments, suspension or termination of the award, or debarment proceedings.¹⁹

Recent Changes to Watch For

The expenditure threshold rose from $750,000 to $1,000,000 for fiscal years beginning on or after October 1, 2024. The higher threshold generally applies to audits of fiscal years ending September 30, 2025 and later.²⁰ The same increase applies to the Type A program determination threshold, which affects which programs get selected for detailed compliance testing. The change took effect automatically and does not require awarding agencies to amend existing awards.

OMB released the final 2025 Compliance Supplement on November 25, 2025, applicable to audits covering fiscal years beginning after June 30, 2024.²⁰ Because federal agencies implemented the April 2024 Uniform Guidance revisions on different timelines — some as early as June 2024, others as late as October 2025 — the 2025 Supplement splits its compliance requirements into two parts: Part 3.1 for awards subject to pre-October 2024 rules and Part 3.2 for awards subject to the revised guidance.²¹ Auditors must verify which version applies to each award they test. The 2025 Supplement also removed all COVID-19-related programs from the “higher risk” designation list and added two new programs, including the Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer Program for Children.²²

1
eCFR. 2 CFR Part 200, Subpart F — Audit Requirements
2
HHS Office of Inspector General. Single Audits
3
U.S. Government Accountability Office. Government Auditing Standards, 2024 Revision
4
GFOA. SEFA Preparation
5
eCFR. 2 CFR § 200.510(b) — SEFA Requirements
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eCFR. 2 CFR § 200.515 — Audit Reporting
7
Cornell Law Institute. 2 CFR § 200.515 — Audit Reporting
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Washington State Auditor’s Office. Federal Single Audits Often Report Questioned Costs
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North Carolina Office of the State Auditor. State of North Carolina Single Audit Report, Year Ended June 30, 2024
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California State University. Single Audit Report FY 2022-2023
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AICPA & CIMA. Single Audit Report Illustrations
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Arizona State University Research Administration. SEFA — Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards
13
U.S. Department of the Treasury. Introduction to Single Audits and the Compliance Supplement for Tribal Entities
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Federal Audit Clearinghouse. When Are Form SF-SAC and the Single Audit Reporting Package Normally Due
15
Federal Audit Clearinghouse. Welcome to the FAC
16
Federal Audit Clearinghouse. SF-SAC Workbooks
17
Federal Audit Clearinghouse. SF-SAC Section 5: Corrective Action Plan
18
eCFR. 2 CFR § 200.521 — Management Decision
19
U.S. Department of State. 4 FAM 690 — Single Audit Resolution
20
Federal Register. 2025 Compliance Supplement
21
White House OMB. Compliance Supplement
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OMB. 2025 Compliance Supplement