Recognition
Rasmussen University (Rasmussen), a private college with 23 campuses in Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin, has established itself as a pioneer in career-focused education.
Rasmussen has an annual Partner of Distinction award which recognizes a company that has met the four following criteria and the selection is done by a committee of leaders at the institution:
- Works with the college in a collaborative manner
- Responsive to the college’s needs
- Delivers measurable value against mutually defined objectives
- Demonstrates organizational values of customer-first philosophy.
McClintock & Associates (McClintock) was presented with Rasmussen University’s 2020 Partner of Distinction award by Rasmussen’s Controller, David Warr, during their virtual All Employee summit. We were honored to receive the award based on our collaborative working relationship with Rasmussen. This award not only confirmed the success of our work with Rasmussen, in which we identified and implemented solutions to unique accounting and auditing challenges related to Rasmussen’s ownership changes, but also proved our standing as a firm of trusted, well-respected and committed advisors to our clients. It is a reflection of the dedication, knowledge, and experience of the McClintock team in providing high-value services.
Situation Analysis
In 2020, a year when many postsecondary education institutions faced transitions and leadership changes, Rasmussen relied on McClintock’s expertise and leveraged the long-term relations between the two organizations to tackle new accounting and auditing challenges. McClintock was asked to conduct additional audits due to a pending sale of Rasmussen. Rasmussen had been a September 30th year end and McClintock was able to issue the September 30, 2020 single year audit by October 27, 2020 in advance of the buyer’s public announcement of the transaction. As a result of the pending sale, Rasmussen changed their yearend to December 31st. McClintock was then engaged to perform the December 31, 2020 single year audit which was issued March 12, 2021.
The buyer of Rasmussen was a publicly traded company which required disclosures and filings along with specific reporting frameworks in the Rasmussen audit reports which are normally not applicable for privately held companies. The complexities arose when it was communicated to Rasmussen and McClintock in late January that the buyer had an upcoming public filing and the Rasmussen reports had to be converted to an SEC S-X compliant format. This required certain disclosures and expanded information added to the Rasmussen audit reports. Rasmussen and McClintock had to pivot in the middle of the December 31, 2020 audit to issue an S-X compliant comparative September 30, 2020 and 2019 audit report which was done by February 10, 2021. The short turn around was even more impressive based upon the fact that Rasmussen had sold to a private equity group in March of 2019 which created a new reporting entity. Thus, for the 2019 time period the financial results had to be reflected in the Blackline format for the period prior to the March 2019 sale and for the period subsequent to the March 2019 sale.
Despite having a limited amount of time to complete the audits and operating remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our team’s proactive collaboration with Rasmussen’s accounting and finance teams, and the foundation of client-first communication we built with Rasmussen, allowed us to deliver award-winning results for Rasmussen.
Our Approach
Handling accounting and auditing needs in a postsecondary education environment involves a lot of moving parts, and there’s no shortcut to developing effective solutions — every member of the team must remain committed to honoring the client’s needs and eliminating roadblocks every step of the way.
Our approach to working with Rasmussen was consistent with our usual process — we focused on delivering measurable value against mutually defined objectives and operated based on our customer-first philosophy.
When asked to conduct an additional audit in a shortened 30-day window of time, and virtually as a result of the pandemic, we proceeded with a strong, all-hands-on-deck approach to our client’s most pressing needs. We assigned work to additional staff members and prioritized the audit over less time-sensitive projects to complete it as efficiently yet comprehensively as possible. Our relationships with other clients enabled us to delay other work, as needed. The Directors and Manager on the audit divided up the higher-level tasks based upon their unique skills sets to ensure the project deadlines were met. This included obtaining additional information from Rasmussen, reviewing the new disclosure requirements, and working with Rasmussen on the revised disclosures. Internal report reviews were done concurrently, and effective short meetings were held to discuss open questions and issues which resulted in overall efficiencies. The Manager on the audit worked proactively with the McClintock administrative team to ensure the reports were reviewed for a formatting and quality control aspect so the reports were fully ready to be issued upon Rasmussen’s approval.