Fiscal Year 2025 Risk Assessment of SBA’s Charge Card Programs

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) evaluated the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) internal controls over purchase and travel card expenditures for fiscal year (FY) 2025 to assess the risk of illegal, improper, and erroneous charges within SBA’s purchase card and travel card programs and to decide if further auditing is appropriate.

We found the overall risk of illegal, improper, or erroneous purchase card charges was low. Controls over the program were generally operating effectively, and we did not identify a need for a further audit of the program. However, we identified opportunities for SBA to strengthen the program.

We were unable to assess the risk of SBA’s FY 2025 travel card program because the underlying data was not sufficiently reliable for our risk assessment. SBA managers should work with the General Services Administration and its bank vendor to develop a reporting capability that accurately and consistently records travel card transaction data.

SBA management agreed with all six recommendations and the agency’s planned actions satisfy the intent of all six recommendations.