Financial Management Line Of Business

1. Financial Management Line Of Business Mary J. Mitchell, GSA Kim Farington, OMB AGA Northern Virginia Chapter December 5, 2007

2. The Framework

3. Objective and Approach • Strategic Objective • Implement Government-Wide solutions that yield lower cost and risk results in financial management activities • Approach • Standardize financial business processes • Create government-wide accounting code • Emphasize use of Shared Service Providers • Establish common performance measures to drive behavior • Strive for Transparency and Uniformity to enable better communication and shift emphasis from reporting to analysis

4. FMLoB Vision/Framework

5. Why is FMLoB Different? • Consensus exists among agencies for developing Common accounting standards and data • Variation drives unnecessary customization • Using lessons from DoD’s SFIS project • Standard business processes reach agreement on process flows, business rules and data attributes • OMB Policy on Migration • May 22, 2006, Competition Framework memo • Agencies must either migrate to a Federal or Commercial SSP or be designated as a Federal SSP • Agencies want ways to reduce the costs and risks of buying and implementing financial systems

6. The Future State • Agencies use common accounting standards and business processes • Agencies able to report compliance with FFMIA • Extensive use of Shared Service Providers • Core and feeder systems are integrated • Accurate financial information for decision-making

7. Standardization – CGAC and Core Business Processes • Common Government-wide Accounting Classification (CGAC) Structure • Final structure issued • Business Processes (BP) • Funds Control – Finalization • Payables Management – Finalization • Receivables Management – Draft • Financial Reporting – Next • Reimbursable - Planning • Next Steps: • Refine concept of operations (big picture) • Agreement on standards sequence and implementation timeline

8. Collaboration with Industry • Subject matter experts are participating on business process standards Working Groups from Certified software vendors and RFI respondents • Exposure drafts distributed to various industry groups for comment

9. CGAC Structure - Goals • Short term outcomes: • Promote a universal understanding of data elements • Help agencies standardize accounting codes internally • Longer range outcomes: • Help standardize financial management Government-wide • Ease an agency’s transition to a new system or an SSP • Aid in the aggregation and comparison of data across the government • Facilitate data exchange among an agency’s financial systems

10. Sequencing Plan and Implementation Strategy Interim Activities:While efforts are under way to incorporate the FMLoB standards into certified FSIO software, agencies can: • Gain an understanding of the standards, begin to adopt standard terminology and definitions, and consider improving system-independent processes to adopt best practices. • Begin analyzing the gap between existing data and the standard data. • Share the standards with any of the agency’s other system modernization efforts. Assumptions: • Implementation will occur when agencies modernize their systems • Long term effort

11. FMLOB Performance Measures • Objective: Enable agencies to assess their relative level of performance and provide ways to increase performance. • Background • To compare performance across the Federal government, normalize the measures (e.g. consistent method of collection) • Phase I Service Assessment Guide (SAG) released on March 30, 2007 • CFO Act agencies report on performance measures on core financial system since April 2007 • Focus of Phase I service measures: • IT Hosting and Administration • Application Management. • Next Steps: • Work with agencies to assess 6-months’ performance data from Agencies and SSPs • Refine to enhance value over collection burden

12. Financial Shared Service Providers • Goal • Limited Number of high performing Shared Service Providers (SSP) • Agencies should focus is on mission areas – not back-office functions • Gain economies of scale and skill from use of SSPs • Four Federal SSPs are used by almost 80 small to micro-agencies and a number of CFO Act agencies and bureaus use them • Some agencies have outsourced operations to commercial firms • FMLoB tools to help streamline and reduce risk of migration to SSPs • Services Provided by SSPs • Technology Hosting and Administration • Application Management Services or Software Management • System Implementation Services • Business Process Services (not mandatory for commercial providers)

13. References/Point of Contact • FMLOB documents are available at FSIO.gov • Published and Exposure Drafts • Performance Measures Service Assessment Guide • Common Government-wide Accounting Classification Structure • Funds Control Business Process • Payments Business Process • Questions: fsio@gsa.gov • Mary Mitchell • FSIO Executive and FMLOB Program Manager • Office of Technology Strategy General Services AdministrationOffice: 202-501-0202    Fax: 202 219-1533 • E-Mail: mary.mitchell@gsa.gov

14. Questions & Answers