U.S. Office of Personnel Management - Ensuring the Federal Government has an effective civilian workforce

E-Gov
E-Payroll

Introduction

Overview
The e-Payroll Initiative is consolidating twenty-six Executive branch Federal payroll providers, standardizing payroll policies and procedures, and simplifying and better integrating payroll, human resources, and finance functions.

The e-Payroll effort is transforming the current Federal payroll service delivery environment into one that achieves President Bush's five management agenda initiatives:

• Strategic management of human capital
• Competitive sourcing
• Improved financial management
• Expanded electronic Government
• Budget and performance integration.

As the managing partner, OPM established and led a working group to analyze Federal civilian payroll service delivery from a Governmentwide perspective in order to identify options for future investments in the modernization and improvement of payroll systems and processes. The working group (OPM, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and payroll providers) determined that consolidation of payroll service delivery and standardization of payroll processes were the first steps in achieving the desired end state of integrated HR and payroll services.

To achieve consolidation, OPM conducted an internal government sourcing process that allowed existing Executive branch payroll providers an opportunity to submit responses to set criteria if they were interested in continuing to provide payroll services. OPM and agency representatives reviewed these responses and selected the four best qualified providers:

• The Department of Agriculture's National Finance Center(NFC);
• The Department of Defense's Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS);
• The Department of the Interior's National Business Center (NBC); and
• The General Services Administration's Heartland Finance Center (HFC).

Those agencies no longer continuing to provide payroll services have been aligned with or migrated to one of the e-Payroll Providers listed above.

The consolidation of twenty-six Federal payroll providers is resulting in a reduction of payroll providers and realizes significant savings of tax dollars by reducing operating costs and avoidance of duplicate systems modernization investments. Consolidating payroll data across the Federal Government is improving the link between performance and budgets, and improving financial management by providing both program managers and finance officers with information needed to make well-informed decisions.

This Initiative represents a strategic investment in human capital, as Government employees realize improved, effective service through implementation of best practices in a simplified, easy to understand delivery approach. E-Payroll is part of a larger integrated approach to human capital management.

E-Payroll is leading efforts to establish payroll policies and procedures that will be uniform and easy to understand and administer. Governmentwide e-Payroll system solutions are "best in class" in terms of overall costs and ease of administration while delivering high quality service. The e-Payroll Initiative advanced the e-Government agenda by creating greater efficiencies in Federal payroll processing.

Payroll has been identified as one of the core business processes within the Human Resources Line of Business (HR LOB), and as such e-Payroll is now part of that larger initiative. The e-Payroll Providers furnish core payroll services to the HR LOB Shared Service Centers identified on the HR LOB Partners page.