The GFOA established the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting Program (COA) in 1945 to encourage and assist state and local governments to go beyond the minimum requirements of generally accepted accounting principles to prepare comprehensive annual financial reports that evidence the spirit of transparency and full disclosure and then to recognize individual governments that succeed in achieving that goal. The goal of the program is not to assess the financial health of participating governments, but rather to ensure that users of their financial statements have the information they need to do so themselves.

Using GFOA’s Awards Management System

Certificate applications are processed through GFOA’s Awards Management System (AMS). Each government submits its comprehensive annual financial report and application in the AMS and retrieves its results in the system once the review is completed.

Please note:

• Registering a government in the AMS is a one-time event. Once a government has registered, it will not need to do so again.
• For logging in to the AMS, the government’s username is its GFOA member number. See FAQs for more information.
• Emails from the AMS will come from notifications@lf.gfoa.org. Ask your IT department to add this email address to your allow list to ensure you receive password reset and other important emails about your COA submission.

Please note:

• For logging in to the AMS, a volunteer reviewer’s username is his or her GFOA member number. See FAQs for more information.