About the Financial Management Lines of Business

In 2001 President Bush created the President’s Management Agenda (PMA) to address the need for citizen-centered, results-oriented, and market-based Federal government initiatives. The success of the PMA depended on Federal agencies working as a team across traditional boundaries to better serve the American people and focusing on citizens rather than individual agency needs. Pursuant to the PMA, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) created the Lines of Business (LOB) initiatives which address redundant IT investments and business processes across the Federal Government. The Lines of Business initiatives afforded agencies an unprecedented opportunity to influence the direction of specific core business functions Government-wide.

The Financial Management Line of Business (FMLoB) was created as part of these initiatives. The Financial Systems Integration Office (FSIO) within the General Services Administration (GSA) Office of Technology Strategy is the program manager for FMLoB.

The vision of FMLOB is to improve the cost, quality, and performance of financial management systems by leveraging common standards and shared service solutions and implementing other Government-wide reforms that foster efficiencies in Federal financial operations.

Specific Goals of FMLoB

The goals of FMLoB are that Federal agencies are implementing financial systems that:

Provide timely and accurate data available for decision making;
Facilitate stronger internal controls that ensure integrity in accounting and other stewardship activities;
Reduce costs by providing a competitive alternative for agencies to acquire, develop, implement, and operate financial management systems through shared service solutions;
Standardize systems, business processes and data elements; and
Provide for seamless data exchange between and among Federal agencies by implementing a common language and structure for financial information and system interfaces.

The critical milestones that must be accomplished in order to achieve the vision and goals of FMLoB can be broken down into three stages – (1) Transparency and Standardization, (2) Competitive Environment and Seamless Data Integration, and (3) Results.

Stage 1: Transparency and Standardization. In order to enable a competitive environment where agencies have more options and leverage in choosing a financial system, and in order to facilitate seamless integration of financial data among agency business systems, additional transparency and standardization is required.

Transparency:

In determining the best options available when modernizing financial systems, the Federal financial community must have sufficient information and clear direction on how to evaluate the performance and cost of shared service alternatives; i.e., Shared Service Providers (SSP’s) as well as clarity on what steps Federal agencies are expected to undertake in order to migrate to an SSP. An SSP is a single entity that provides financial management services for multiple organizations. In order to achieve additional transparency, two specific projects (with associated milestones) will be undertaken:

Establishment of Common Performance Measures – This project will result in standard quality and cost measures for agencies to benchmark and compare the performance of financial system alternatives.

Development of Migration Planning Guidance – This project will result in comprehensive guidance that helps Federal agencies describe, prepare for, and manage an agency’s migration to an SSP. This guidance will also include a definition of the full range of services to be provided by all SSPs and a description of the “rules of engagement,” including templates for service level agreements outlining provider and client responsibilities.

Standardization:
In order to mitigate the cost and risk of migrations to an SSP and to improve the quality and usability of financial data government-wide, the Federal government must ensure greater standardization of business processes, interfaces, and data.

To this end, two specific projects (with associated milestones) will be undertaken:

Development of Standard Business Processes – This project will result in government-wide common business rules, data components, and policies for funds management, payables management, receivables management, and reporting.
Creation of a Common Government-wide Accounting Classification Structure (CGAC) – This project will result in a uniform accounting classification structure, layout, and definitions.

Once established, the standards (including the standard business processes and CGAC), will be incorporated into the existing FSIO core financial systems requirements and be tested during the FSIO software qualification and certification process. Once the software products are certified as meeting FSIO core financial systems requirements, Federal agencies will only be permitted to purchase, and shared service providers required to implement, the certified products as configured with the standards.

Stage 2: Competitive Environment and Seamless Data Integration.

In order to enable improved performance of financial systems, the FMLoB envisions more competitive alternatives for financial systems and an environment where financial data can be more easily compared and aggregated across agencies.

Stage 3: Results.

When the FMLoB goals are fully realized, agencies’ data will be more timely and accurate for decision-making and there will be improved government-wide stewardship and accounting. More timely and accurate data will result from the standardization and seamless data integration efforts, including the implementation of centralized interfaces between core financial systems and other systems. These efforts will focus on promoting strong internal controls and ensuring the integrity of accounting data. The easy exchange of data between federal agencies will increase federal managers’ stewardship abilities.

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