Browse Business Software Categories

A
B
C
D
E
F
H
I
M
N
P
R
S
W
Close  

Accounting

Financial Management

Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR): Sections, Timeline and How Finance Teams Produce It

Sherman Hsieh
Share This Post!
Published
Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR): Sections, Timeline and How Finance Teams Produce It

Last updated: October 16, 2026 · Independent guide · We do not sell rankings or coverage.

An annual comprehensive financial report (ACFR) is the audited annual report a state or local government publishes under GASB standards. It contains three sections: an introductory section, a financial section with the auditor’s report and basic financial statements, and a ten-year statistical section. Cities, counties, school districts and public colleges that seek GFOA’s Certificate of Achievement must submit it within six months of year end, so most production calendars run from July to December for a June 30 government.

The report was called the comprehensive annual financial report (CAFR) until GASB Statement No. 98, issued in October 2021, which changed the name and acronym and made no change to the report’s structure or content (Deloitte DART, October 19, 2021). GFOA says the old acronym, when spoken, sounds like a profoundly offensive racial slur in South Africa (GFOA, End the Acronym FAQ, no date shown).

The ACFR production process in nine steps

  1. Plan the year: confirm the audit engagement, new GASB standards and the prior year’s GFOA comments.
  2. Close the books by fund on the modified accrual or full accrual basis.
  3. Collect actuarial reports, component unit statements and debt and capital asset schedules.
  4. Convert fund trial balances to the government-wide statements.
  5. Draft the basic financial statements and notes.
  6. Prepare required supplementary information (RSI) and combining statements.
  7. Write MD&A, the transmittal letter and the statistical section.
  8. Complete the audit and obtain the opinion.
  9. Publish, present to the governing body and submit to GFOA.

What goes in each section of the ACFR

GFOA’s eligibility rules require general purpose governments, special districts and stand-alone business-type entities to include all three sections, and the report must cover all funds and component units (GFOA, COA Program Eligibility, no date shown). Pension and OPEB systems add an investment section and, for defined benefit plans, an actuarial section.

Section Contents Audited?
Introductory Title page, contents, letter of transmittal, organizational chart, list of principal officials No
Financial Independent auditor’s report, MD&A, government-wide statements, fund statements, reconciliations, notes, RSI, combining and individual fund statements and schedules Opinion on the basic statements; “in relation to” coverage for the rest
Statistical Financial trends, revenue capacity, debt capacity, demographic and economic information, operating information, generally for ten years No

The ASBO International guide for school business officials lists similar introductory and financial items for districts (ASBO International, School Business Now, March 2025). The five statistical categories come from GASB Statement No. 44; the New Jersey Department of Education’s guide shows the full set of schedules, from principal property taxpayers to legal debt margin (New Jersey DOE, updated January 23, 2026).

The basic financial statements follow the GASB 34 model, which our GASB 34 reporting guide covers in detail. For fiscal years beginning after June 15, 2025, GASB 103 limits MD&A to five sections, moves budgetary comparisons to RSI only and adds a proprietary fund subtotal (GASB Statement No. 103, April 2024). Our GASB 103 guide explains the mapping changes for this year’s report.

Stage 1: Planning and audit coordination

Owner: the finance director or controller. Inputs: last year’s ACFR, the management letter, GFOA reviewer comments and the list of newly effective GASB statements. Outputs: a close calendar, a prepared-by-client (PBC) list agreed with the auditor, and a report shell with this year’s dates.

GFOA’s timely reporting best practice recommends a closing checklist that assigns each step to a named person, and audit requests for proposals that specify a public release date (GFOA, Timely Financial Reporting, approved September 25, 2020). If you entered the program last year, the new submission must include written responses to every prior-year comment (GFOA eligibility page). Skipping planning means finding out in October that a new standard needs data nobody captured.

Stage 2: Year-end close by fund

Owner: the accounting manager, with department finance staff. Inputs: subledgers for AP, AR, payroll, utility billing, grants and capital projects. Outputs: a closed, reconciled trial balance for every fund.

GFOA says the initial close normally happens within a week to ten days after period end, and that known accruals and standard adjustments should be recorded promptly. Governmental funds then stay open for revenue collected within the availability period your revenue recognition policy sets. Purchase orders outstanding at year end need a decision under your encumbrance accounting policy. Controls: bank and subledger reconciliations signed off before the ledger closes, and a lock on prior-period posting. What goes wrong: late grant accruals and unreconciled due-to and due-from balances between funds.

Stage 3: Outside inputs

Owner: the controller. Inputs: GASB 68 pension and GASB 75 OPEB reports from plan administrators and actuaries, audited statements of component units, bond and lease schedules, and capital asset rollforwards. Outputs: schedules that feed the government-wide statements and notes.

You cannot finalize net position until these numbers arrive. GFOA advises communicating early and often with component units and putting completion dates for actuarial and other nonaudit services into contracts. Control: a tracker with the due date, owner and receipt date for each outside document.

Stage 4: Government-wide conversion

Owner: a senior accountant. Inputs: fund trial balances, capital asset and long-term liability schedules. Outputs: full accrual trial balances for governmental and business-type activities and the two required reconciliations.

Governmental fund ledgers usually stay on modified accrual, so the government-wide view comes from conversion entries. The Ohio Auditor of State’s webGAAP guidance lays out the sequence: classify funds, identify major funds, prepare modified accrual trial balances, then a consolidation that adds capital assets and debt, folds in internal service funds and eliminates interfund activity (Ohio Auditor of State, April 29, 2021). What goes wrong: conversion workbooks that do not roll forward, so beginning net position misses last year’s report.

Stage 5: Statements, notes, RSI and combining schedules

Owner: the report preparer, reviewed by the controller. Inputs: converted trial balances, note support and budget versions. Outputs: a draft financial section.

The notes take the longest. Leases, subscriptions, pensions, OPEB, debt and capital assets each need rollforwards that tie to the statements, and nonmajor fund combining statements must foot and cross-reference. Control: a tie-out binder or tick-marked PDF showing that every number in the notes agrees to a statement or schedule. What goes wrong: the original budget is overwritten by amendments, so the RSI schedule cannot show original-to-final variances.

Stage 6: MD&A, transmittal letter and statistical section

Owner: the finance director, with the budget office for economic data. Inputs: draft statements, prior statistical tables, assessor and census data. Outputs: narrative sections and ten-year tables.

Under GASB 103, MD&A must explain why amounts changed, not only restate them. Statistical tables can start in July, since nine of ten years are already published, but assessed values and principal employers need current-year outside data.

Stage 7: Audit and opinion

Owner: the external auditor issues the opinion; the finance director owns the response. Inputs: PBC items and draft report. Outputs: the auditor’s report and any adjustments. GFOA will not accept a report with a modified opinion or disclaimer caused by inadequate accounting records, or one that leaves a fund or component unit out of the opinion. If you spent $1,000,000 or more in federal awards in a fiscal year beginning on or after October 1, 2024, you also need a Single Audit (Federal Audit Clearinghouse, updated November 7, 2024), and the schedule of expenditures of federal awards is usually built in parallel.

Stage 8: Publication and GFOA submission

Owner: the finance director. The report goes to the governing body or audit committee, is posted online, and is submitted to GFOA with the net investment in capital assets calculation that every applicant must include (GFOA, COA Award Program, no date shown). Applications are due six months after year end, moving to the next business day if that date falls on a weekend (GFOA, COA Program: Submit an Application, no date shown). GFOA’s award program page says reviews have recently averaged up to, and sometimes just over, nine months. School districts can also apply for ASBO International’s Certificate of Excellence in Financial Reporting, where a panel of experienced financial professionals reviews the ACFR (Fowler Elementary School District, April 24, 2026).

Who does what: a RACI view

Stage Responsible Accountable Consulted / informed
Planning Controller Finance director Auditor (C), audit committee (I)
Year-end close Accounting staff, departments Controller Grants office, treasurer (C)
Outside inputs Controller Finance director Actuaries, component units (C)
Conversion, statements, notes Report preparer Controller Auditor (C)
MD&A, letter, statistics Finance director, budget office Finance director Chief executive (C)
Audit and publication Auditor, finance director Finance director Governing body, GFOA (I)

Month-by-month ACFR timeline for a June 30 year end

The calendar below is an illustration for a June 30, 2026 year end. Fixed dates come from the cited rules; the work in between is a typical plan to adapt to your auditor and state law.

Month Main work Fixed date or rule
April to June Planning, PBC list, interim audit fieldwork, report shell, GASB 103 mapping GASB 103 applies to this year
July Initial close, accruals, reconciliations, statistical tables started Initial close within 7 to 10 days (GFOA)
August Availability-period revenue, capital asset and debt rollforwards, fund trial balances final A 60-day availability policy would end August 29
September Actuarial and component unit inputs, government-wide conversion, draft statements Depends on outside providers
October Notes, RSI, combining statements, final audit fieldwork, MD&A None
November Audit adjustments, opinion, transmittal letter Texas school districts file the audit report by day 150, November 27; Ohio GAAP-basis offices file their annual report by the same day
December Governing body presentation, publication, GFOA submission GFOA due December 31, 2026
By March 31 Single Audit reporting package Earlier of 30 days after the auditor’s report or nine months after year end

The Texas deadline is in Texas Education Code section 44.008(d), and the Ohio rule is in Ohio Revised Code section 117.38 (effective September 30, 2025). The Single Audit deadline is in 2 CFR 200.512 (eCFR current as of October 14, 2026). Check your own state’s statute.

Metrics to track

  • Days to initial close: compare with GFOA’s 7 to 10 day guide.
  • Days to audit opinion and to publication: track against your state deadline and GFOA’s six-month limit.
  • PBC items delivered on time: the share of the auditor’s list delivered by the agreed date.
  • Audit adjustments: the number and dollar value of recorded and passed adjustments.
  • GFOA comments: the count of reviewer comments, and how many repeat from last year.

How software supports each stage

Close and ledger: public sector ERPs hold the fund ledger, budgets and encumbrances. Tyler Technologies says its financial management software supports multi-fund accounting and “GAAFR and GAAP standards,” but its page does not mention ACFR production (Tyler, no date shown). Caselle lets you customize financial statements and build reports directly in Excel (Caselle, no date shown), so expect to maintain report layouts yourself. See also our guide to accounting close automation.

Conversion and report assembly: dedicated ACFR tools link trial balance data to statements, notes and narrative so a late adjustment flows through. ClearGov describes a single data model, GFOA-aligned templates and ERP connections to Tyler, Oracle and SAP, and does not publish pricing (ClearGov, modified August 13, 2026). Workiva offers linked data, revision history and style guides for ACFRs (Workiva on GFOA’s site, no date shown). Strada announced an ACFR app for the Workday Marketplace that connects to Workday Adaptive Planning (Business Wire, June 17, 2025). All three are vendors, and their time-saving figures are their own claims.

Machine-readable data: joint data standards under the Financial Data Transparency Act took effect October 1, 2026 (Deloitte DART, June 8, 2026). Each agency must still adopt its own standards in agency-specific rulemaking, and those standards must take effect within two years of the joint rule (XBRL US, June 9, 2026).

How we researched this

We read GFOA’s certificate eligibility, criteria and submission pages, its timely reporting best practice, GASB Statements 98 and 103, state statutes from Texas and Ohio, the eCFR and the Federal Audit Clearinghouse, and vendor pages, all checked on October 16, 2026. The pages ranking for “annual comprehensive financial report” are mostly agency downloads, Wikipedia and vendor blogs, and none gave a production calendar, owners or controls.

Related guides

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a CAFR and an ACFR?

Only the name. GASB Statement No. 98, issued in October 2021, replaced “comprehensive annual financial report” with “annual comprehensive financial report” and made no change to the report’s structure or content.

Is an ACFR required by law?

GAAP requires basic financial statements, not the full ACFR. GFOA recommends publishing an ACFR rather than only the basic statements (GFOA, approved October 1, 2021).

Is the statistical section audited?

No. The auditor gives an opinion on the basic financial statements and “in relation to” coverage for the rest of the financial section. The introductory and statistical sections are management’s responsibility.

How long does it take to prepare an ACFR?

Governments seeking the GFOA certificate work to its six-month deadline, so a June 30 government aims to publish by December 31. Planning and interim audit fieldwork start before year end.

Sources

Sherman Hsieh

CEO & Editor-in-Chief, Business-Software.com
Independent analysis of enterprise software — ERP, CRM and more
Sherman Hsieh is the founder, CEO, and editor-in-chief of Business-Software.com. He leads the site's independent, buyer-focused coverage of ERP, CRM, and other business systems, including vendor-neutral comparisons, pricing analysis, and implementation guidance. Before founding Business-Software.com, Sherman was an executive at Siebel ...

Users Who Read This Article Also Read