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If a funder or your board has told you that you need an “A-133 audit,” the term is dated but the requirement is real. A-133 was the OMB circular that governed audits of federal award recipients. It was superseded by the Uniform Guidance, 2 CFR Part 200, effective December 26, 2014, and the audit it required is now called the Single Audit.
The rules did not disappear; they moved into the Uniform Guidance and were updated. What still matters is whether your federal spending crosses the threshold, and what the audit looks at once it does.
The A-133 audit is now the Single Audit, governed by Subpart F of the Uniform Guidance. The purpose did not change: it gives the federal government assurance that the money it awarded was spent on what it was meant for, and in line with the rules. The Uniform Guidance consolidated A-133 and several other OMB circulars into one place.
A non-Federal entity that expends $1,000,000 or more in federal awards during its fiscal year must have a single or program-specific audit for that year. The test is total federal spending for the year, counted across every source:
Spend less than $1,000,000 in a year and you are exempt from the federal audit requirement for that year, though your records must still be available for review. Note the threshold rose from $750,000 to $1,000,000 for fiscal years beginning on or after October 1, 2024.
The requirement reaches non-federal entities that spend federal awards, which is a broad group:
A Single Audit is one engagement covering both your finances and your compliance. It examines:
Your financial statements, audited under Government Auditing Standards.
Your major programs, tested against the OMB Compliance Supplement.
Your internal controls over compliance with federal requirements.
You can sometimes choose a narrower program-specific audit instead of a full Single Audit. If you spent your federal awards under only one program or cluster (not research and development), and that program does not otherwise require a financial statement audit, you may elect a program-specific audit instead of a full single audit. For most organizations with funding across several programs, the full single audit is the path.
The finished reporting package goes to the Federal Audit Clearinghouse, and the deadline is whichever comes first:
Missing it can put current and future federal funding at risk, which is why the timeline drives everything.
We run the Single Audit end to end:
We size the audit around the programs that have to be tested.
We coordinate with your finance team and audit both the financial statements and compliance.
We file the reporting package before the deadline.
Two pieces sit alongside the audit and have their own pages: the schedule your team prepares (see our SEFA audit page) and getting ready before fieldwork (see audit readiness assessment).
You should not have to guess whether the A-133 requirement applies to you. A short look at your federal spending for the year answers it, and if you are over the line, we will walk you through what the Single Audit will involve before you commit to anything.
There is no flat price, because the audit scales with your federal footprint. The main drivers are:
How many major programs get tested. More programs and more funding sources mean more compliance requirements to cover.
Your total federal expenditures, and whether any single program crosses the $1,000,000 Type A threshold.
How clean your records are going in. A reconciled SEFA and documented controls shorten fieldwork; gaps lengthen it.
How much funding you pass through to subrecipients, which adds monitoring scope.
Tell us roughly what you spent in federal funds this year and your list of programs, and we will tell you whether a Single Audit is required and what it would take. Documents come later, only if you move ahead.
Tell us your total federal spend and your program list and we will give you a fixed quote before you commit. Year-round, staying inside the rules is federal grant compliance work, and the Single Audit is the annual check on it.
