WASHINGTON, D.C. -

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Richard Cordray has five more chores on his to-do list courtesy of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Within the week of its contract spending strategy being revealed through the federally mandated website USASpending.gov, the CFPB received five more recommendations from GAO officials who run the independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress.

During its audit of the CFPB’s fiscal years 2015 and 2014 financial statements, GAO identified deficiencies in CFPB’s internal control over accounting for property, equipment, and software that collectively constituted a significant deficiency in CFPB’s internal control over financial reporting. Specifically, GAO found that CFPB did not effectively design or implement controls to reasonably assure accurate and timely classification and recording of software costs and maintain ongoing accuracy and completeness of property and equipment inventory records.

In addition, GAO officials said they identified deficiencies that they did not consider to be material weaknesses or significant deficiencies, either individually or collectively, but nonetheless warrant CFPB management’s attention. These control deficiencies are related to reviewing and approving financial statements.

The five new recommendations include:

—To provide reasonable assurance that the property, equipment and software transactions are properly tracked and capitalized or expensed as appropriate, the director of CFPB should direct the program offices to require vendors to provide detailed invoices with costs broken out by project.

—To provide reasonable assurance that the property, equipment and software transactions are properly tracked and capitalized or expensed as appropriate, the director of CFPB should direct the chief financial officer to update OCFO’s financial records to include costs by project.

—The director of CFPB should direct the Office of Technology and Innovation’s chief information officer to develop and document training materials that are consistent with CFPB’s policies and procedures and provide training to employees, on a recurring basis, on how to conduct inventory of electronic equipment and how to update and maintain accurate inventory records.

— The director of CFPB should direct the chief financial officer and chief information officer to develop and implement procedures that require coordination between the OCFO and the Office of Technology and Innovation to provide reasonable assurance that the records maintained by both divisions are accurate, consistent, complete, and comparable for inventory and accounting purposes.

— The director of CFPB should direct the chief financial officer to design and implement effective procedures over the preparation of CFPB financial statements and note disclosures, including procedures such as completing the FAM 2010 and 2020 checklists at fiscal year-end, to provide reasonable assurance that the financial statements as of fiscal year-end are prepared in accordance with GAAP and note disclosures are adequate.

The GAO indicated that it found the CFPB had completed corrective actions on two of the four recommendations from GAO’s prior management report that remained open at the beginning of GAO’s fiscal year 2015 audit. As a result, CFPB currently has seven financial audit-related GAO recommendations to address: the previous two open recommendations and the five recommendations GAO is making in its report.

“CFPB stated that it agreed with the recommendations GAO made in the report and has implemented or is in the process of implementing actions to address the issues GAO identified,” GAO officials said.

“GAO will evaluate CFPB’s actions for addressing the deficiencies identified in the report as part of GAO’s fiscal year 2016 audit,” they added.

Earlier, according to data posted on USASpending.gov, the CFPB funded $57,106,226 in government contracts during the 2016 fiscal year. The single most costly line item was advertising services — a sum surpassing $15 million and dwarfing the next two categories that had titles sounding like what might qualify for services rendered.