NCAA Agreed-Upon Procedures: What’s New in 2023?

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has issued its 2023 Agreed-Upon Procedures guide. This year’s guide contains some major formatting changes to the procedures to better align them with the revenue and expense categories. They’ve also implemented some minor modifications to bylaws and categories.

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

Agreed-Upon Procedures: Major Formatting Changes

All procedure numbers now follow the same category numbering system as the Statement of Revenues and Expenses. For example:

• Ticket Sales is category #1 on the SRE, and Ticket Sales-related procedures are procedure 1(a).
• Team Travel is category #28 on the SRE, and Team Travel-related procedures are now procedures #28(a)-(c) in the report.

Note that the following procedures were reordered to help match SRE organization:

• #2 – Direct State or Other Governmental Support
• #40 – Other Operating Expenses

All procedure subtitles have been updated to match the exact wording of the related category on the SRE. There used to be minor wording differences for the following updated categories:

• 5 – Less – Transfers to Institution
• 18 – Other Operating Revenue
• 23 – Coaching Salaries, Benefits, and Bonuses Paid by a Third-Party
• 24 – Support Staff/Administrative Compensation, Benefits, and Bonuses Paid by the University and Related Entities
• 25 – Support Staff/Administrative Compensation, Benefits, and Bonuses Paid by a Third-Party
• 29 – Sports Equipment, Uniforms, and Supplies
• 34 – Athletic Facilities Debt Service, Leases and Rental Fees
• 37 – Medical Expenses and Insurance
• 40 – Other Operating Expenses

The following procedure subtitles have been updated to clarify that the related procedures cover multiple SRE categories:

• Indirect Institutional Support procedures cover both category 6 and category 6A
• Conference Distributions and Conference Distributions of Football Bowl Generated Revenue procedures cover both category 13 and category 13A
• Football Bowl Expenses procedures cover both categories 41 and 41A

Finally, procedures related to Category 50 – Excess Transfers to Institution and Category 51 – Conference Realignment Expenses have been split into two separate procedures. These used to be combined under the same procedure.

Minor Changes to Bylaws and Categories

• NCAA bylaws requiring annual Agreed Upon Procedures for Division I schools are now Bylaw 20.2.4.17 & 20.2.4.17.1 (was previously Bylaw 3.2.4.17). All references in the report have been updated.
• Bylaw for Division II also has been updated to Bylaw 7.3.1.5.23.1 (was previously 6.2.3)
• There is a new paragraph documenting the NCAA’s use of the FRS data for internal research purposes. However, NCAA will not release school data; only the aggregate results by NCAA division will be available to membership (page 3).
• Category 20 – Athletic Student Aid definition – The new Bylaw number for countable aid for revenue distribution purposes is Bylaw 20.02.10 (previous bylaw was 20.02.7)
• Category 24 – Support Staff Salaries definition – The NCAA added examples of support staff responsible for a gender-specific athletics department rather than a specific sport.
• Category 41A – Football Bowl Expenses – Coaching compensation/Bonuses definition – The NCAA added note clarifying items that should be reported in Category 41 vs 41A.
• Category 56 – Total Athletics Related Capital Expenditures definition – A new note clarifies that only fixed asset Additions in the current year should be included in this category

The James Moore Collegiate Athletics team will continue to perform inquiries of the NCAA regarding accounting treatment of any unusual issues you face. Sign up for our insights to stay informed.

You can download the NCAA’s complete 2023 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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