Proactive frontline readiness breaks the audit cycle

Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support is taking its audit-preparation efforts to vendor sites as part of a broader push to secure a clean opinion on the DLA Working Capital Fund’s financial statements.

“Audit readiness is a top priority for DLA Troop Support and ensuring our vendor partners are fully prepared for these rigorous evaluations is essential to our overall success,” said Christopher Mosher, DLA Troop Support’s deputy commander. “By visiting this location ahead of the audit, we can identify any potential areas of friction and ensure a smooth, transparent process when the official auditors arrive.”

In a recent visit to the Travis Association for the Blind, a nonprofit supply-chain partner in Texas, DLA Troop Support walked warehouse floors to observe day-to-day operations, reviewed standard operating procedures and conducted physical inventory counts to verify alignment with the agency’s digital ledger. The fieldwork is intended to complement DLA’s enterprise-wide rollout of its Warehouse Management System, described by the agency as a technological cornerstone of its financial audit.

“We want our partners to feel completely confident when the auditors walk through their doors,” said Rachel Ganaway, director of DLA Troop Support’s Strategic Initiative Group. “This site visit was about taming the audit process, setting clear expectations and working side-by-side with the team to validate that their operational procedures are consistently documented and executed.”

To mirror the pace and rigor of a formal inspection by Ernst & Young, the independent public accounting firm auditing the agency, the team ran a documentation “stress test” across a wide sample of historical transactions—from initial receiving reports to final shipping manifests—measuring both accuracy and turnaround time. The effort comes as military services across the Defense Department rely on DLA’s internal controls and systems, including the Defense Agencies Initiative and the Procurement Integrated Enterprise Environment, which the agency says received consecutive unmodified, clean opinions in fiscal 2025.

“This is about shifting the entire culture of the agency toward permanent financial transparency,” Mosher said. “When we can prove exactly where every dollar and every item is at any given moment, we are strengthening the trust that our warfighters and the American taxpayers place in DLA Troop Support every single day.”

Following the walk-throughs and document reviews, the joint team analyzed findings and set a roadmap for the months leading up to the official audit, aiming to close minor administrative gaps identified during the rehearsal. Officials said the approach builds on recent milestones, such as maintaining a clean audit opinion for the National Defense Stockpile Transaction Fund, and is intended to standardize audit readiness across the enterprise as DLA pursues its fiscal 2026 audit goals.

“The level of engagement from the leadership at the site was outstanding, reflecting a true partnership,” Ganaway said. “Because of this joint effort, both DLA and the vendor are operating with a unified understanding of the audit requirements, leaving us well-positioned for a highly successful visit in the months ahead.”