CAMS Program Management Plan Chapter 3 NIST "AS-is" Financial Management Systems Overview

Commerce Administrative Management System (CAMS) Program Management Plan (PMP)

The CAMS Implementation Team will continue to develop and revise the “To-be” picture, mapping current NIST financial management system functionality to CAMS. The CAMS “To-be” picture may change as more system details and requirements are gathered over the next several months; this document will be updated quarterly to reflect those changes.

3 NIST “As-is” Financial Management Systems Overview

Financial processing within the current NIST Financial Management System is accomplished through a set of mainframe and PC applications, many of which have been custom developed within the organization. These applications are written in multiple programming languages and some are approximately 30 years old. The financial management system components communicate through system and/or manual interfaces, but are not integrated. The core processes of the financial management system include:

Cost System (Cost) – Cost, the core of the current NIST Financial Management System, tracks and distributes detailed financial cost information. Cost accepts batched input from multiple sources, including interface feeder files and manually entered Journal Voucher (JV) entries. Cost feeds data to the Corporate Information System (CIS) and provides financial data for General Ledger impact.
General Ledger (GL) – The GL is the system of record for NIST that manually captures financial data at a summary level.
Accounts Payable (AP) – The AP process receives all NIST payables information, sends payment information to the US Treasury, and provides financial data for GL impact.
Accounts Receivable (AR) – The AR system processes billings and collections and provides financial data for GL impact.
Other Agencies (OA) – The OA process reviews, monitors and accepts reimbursable and advance agreements/contracts, and provides financial data for GL entry.
Corporate Information System (CIS) – CIS stores summary financial and personnel information at NIST, reporting the results of financial and personnel processing to financial administrators within NIST’s Operating Units (OU’s).
Other Systems – The current NIST Financial Management System is comprised of many other stand-alone systems that provide financial and budgetary data. This chapter only addresses the major components of the NIST Financial Management System.For details on all NIST systems, refer to the CAMS Implementation Teams “As-is” documentation.

The following sub-section provides a more detailed overview of the current NIST Financial Management System or “As-is” picture developed by the CAMS Implementation Team. The purpose of this section is to provide enough information on the system, emphasizing key functionality, in order to define a baseline comparison against CAMS. This section is not intended to be a comprehensive view of the “As-is” system covering all functionality. The CAMS Implementation Team is documenting the detailed “As-is” process/system through interviews and system analysis. The processes/systems are identified by module name (process), name of system/application/file (sub-process) including a brief description of the high-level functions performed (activities). All requests for detailed information on the current “As-is” process/system should be directed to the DCFO office.

3.1 Cost System (Cost)
The Cost System serves as the conduit for all cost related financial transactions within the current NIST Financial Management System. Financial information is entered into Cost through system interface feeder files or manually entered by NIST technicians using the Journal Voucher Enter (JV Enter) Program. Due to the limited reporting capabilities of Cost, detailed financial information is exported from Cost and transferred to the Corporate Information System (CIS) for reporting purposes.

Data feeds Cost via batched feeder files from multiple sub-processes or directly via the JV Enter program. The following sub-processes provide data to the Cost System:

Commerce Standard Acquisition and Reporting System (CSTARS)
Oracle Assets
Quick Procurement System (QPS)
Storeroom
Guest Researcher Payments
Legacy Procurement/GMIS
Cost Feeder Files from NIST divisions
Journal Voucher (JV) Enter

3.2 General Ledger (GL)
The GL is a flat file populated by manually entered JVs summarizing activities of individual processes and sub-processes within the current NIST Financial Management System. Accountants/technicians manually enter debit and credit transaction data received from JV’s. Accounts are classified as asset, liability, equity, revenue, expense, or budgetary. The GL is critical to preparing regulatory reports for Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), as well as, generating audited financial statements. The GL is also used as the basis for many internal reports to NIST management and to the Department of Commerce (DOC). The GL tracks financial information from the following processes/sub-processes:

Cost
NFC Payroll information
Personal Property (Oracle Assets)
Travel
Labor
Accounts Receivable (AR)
Fee-related activities from Conferences, Calibrations, NVLAP, SRM, and SRD
Other Agencies (OA)
Accounts Payable (AP)
Obligations
Apportionment and Reapportionment schedule (SF 132)
Appropriations

3.3 Accounts Payable (AP)
The primary function of AP is to produce payable information from goods and services sold to NIST. The AP process uses automatic and manual processing to generate three types of payments:

Automatic payments are made within the AP process for matched documents (Obligation, Receipt and Inspection (R&I), and Invoice) by executing the matched run program, which processes data entered in Cost and the Invoice Entry system. A Summary Schedule is approved and scheduled for payment by loading a file on to the Electronic Certification System (ECS) for transmission to Treasury. The NIST payment program is then executed producing check payments and electronic payments via the Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) program. The payment program also produces a file of check and EFT payment information, which is loaded on to a magnetic tape and sent to Treasury. Inputs into the matched run program include:

Vendor Database – Repository for customer address and payment information.
Invoice Master File – A file accessed during the matched run program containing all invoice data entered in the Invoice Data Entry System.
Obligation File – Obligates award documents from a file received from CSTARS.
New Receiving and Inspection File (NEWRIF) – Filters accruals sent to Match Run.
Electronic Certification System (ECS) – Manual Payments can be processed to Treasury using the ECS vehicle. These payments are processed outside the weekly AP match process system for invoices that require the following:

Capitalize on discounts offered,
Eliminate or reduce interest accruing,
Fedwire (same day) payment type,
Multiple bank accounts,
Reissues, and
One time vendors.

Foreign Vendor Payments – Foreign Vendor Payments that are to be processed to foreign addresses or electronically transferred to bank accounts in foreign currency must be processed outside the weekly AP match process system and are scheduled by completing and approving a manually typed SF1166. The SF1166 is then mailed to Treasury for processing. Treasury forwards the payment information via a secured computer system to the State Department. The State Department is required to determine the exchange rate, process payment, and either transfer the payment or mail the check via their pouch system.
Payments Outside the System - Payments Outside the System are manual payments made outside the match run program due to software problems, data problems, or time constraints that hinder normal processing. Payments made outside the system are scheduled by completing and approving electronic SF-1166 forms (Schedule of Payments). SF-1166 forms are transmitted to Treasury via the Electronic Certification System (ECS). The Treasury Department makes the payment outside the system and returns payment confirmation.

3.4 Accounts Receivable (AR)
The AR process uses manual and automated systems to process billings and collections within the current NIST Financial Management System. AR performs billings and collections for the NIST OU’s. The NIST OU’s submit invoice data to AR in the form of files or paper documents, such as the NIST 94 form used for one-time billing. A technician enters this data into theBilling Program, which creates the invoices. After verifying the billing information for data integrity (e.g., verifying the cost center), AR prints and mails the invoices to the NIST customers.

AR collects receipts in the form of cash, checks, credit cards, wire transfers, EFTs and Intra-governmental Payments and Collections (IPAC). These payments are matched to their respective invoices and updated in the GL and Cost after verifying data integrity.

3.5 Other Agencies (OA)
NIST services are available to outside customers under the condition of a full reimbursement of the cost of services provided, including overhead and indirect charges. The OA process consists of separate sub-processes, billings for Advances and billings for Reimbursables. The OA process is supported by a contract tracking database system, the OA system, which maintains information on Advance and Reimbursable contracts and sponsors. Other aspects of the OA process include:

Limitation Ledger – The Limitation Ledger is a “checkbook” for advance agreements reflecting the sponsor’s name, agreement number, cost accrued on agreement, receipts against the agreement, unliquidated obligations, unfinanced costs, and OA finance reports to send to customers.

Billing Run System – The Billing Run is generated from NIST 631s, Cost and AR data and used to print the Unbilled Receivables Report, Billing Run by Appropriation Report and Billing Run by Cost Center Report.

3.6 Corporate Information System (CIS)
CIS is used by Administrative Officers (AOs) within each OU, along with the Budget, Financial Policy, and Financial Operations Divisions, to view summary accounting and financial report data. The CIS database is updated either on a JV edit and/or pay period basis with financial information from Cost and personnel information from the National Finance Center (NFC). CIS captures financial and accounting data at both the detailed and summary levels. Some of the functions of CIS include:

Reporting Subscription Service – Over 200 subscribers receiving 16 different reports via email or hard copy
Access to over 200 online reports
Access to look up tables for ad hoc queries
Accounting calendar
Administrative Bulletin

3.7 Financial Information System (FIS)
FIS is a desktop-based financial “cuff” system written in dBASE to allow individual user customization. FIS was developed to address the need for AOs to access timely information for managing their operations, by tracking labor charges, other objects expenditures, and personnel information. AOs primarily use FIS to generate timely and accurate reports to approximate solvency within a division or group at any given time. FIS is comprised of the following three features:

Labor Subsystem – Generates labor reports for AOs using Time and Attendance data from timekeepers’ data disks.
Other Objects Subsystem – Provides AOs with an up-to-date record of other object expenditures for each cost center, reducing the time spent manually reconciling other objects to the official accounting records.
Solvency – Provides AOs with pay period and year-to-date expenditures for labor and other objects; current balances of cost center funding; other anticipated income; and other objects and labor projections to year end.

3.8 NIST Financial Management System Summary
From the Joint Financial Management Improvement Program (JFMIP) perspective, an Agency’s financial management system must be linked together electronically to be effective and efficient. The current NIST Financial Management System as a whole has worked for years, but does not comply with the requirements in the JFMIP model. Very few components of the system are linked electronically; rather, most data is transferred manually via batch exports and imports. While some automated interfaces have been developed to transfer data, a significant amount of manual entry and re-entry of data is required. In addition, contrary to the JFMIP’s requirement of having an electronically “integrated” financial management system and transaction-based Standard General Ledger (SGL), there is a significant amount of duplicate data stored in the individual components of the NIST system. According to the DOC Inspector General (IG) – Sept 2000, the Financial Management Systems are a top ten management challenge facing the DOC, specifically

“Many of the Department’s financial systems are seriously outdated and fragmented; they are unable to provide timely, complete and reliable financial information; they are inadequately controlled; and they are costly and difficult to maintain. The financial systems, taken as a whole, are not compliant with GAO principles and standards, nor with requirements of the CFO Act, the Joint Financial Management Improvement Program (JFMIP), or the OMB.”

It is JFMIP that drives the need to implement CAMS at NIST. CAMS will directly support meeting the vision of the DCFO by increasing productivity and efficiency and empowering administrative and financial management professionals and program managers to make better decisions.

The following sections of this document define CAMS as it applies to NIST. The modules/systems, which comprise or feed CAMS, are described functionally and in terms of how they will be implemented.

Send Website comments to:
DCFO/CAMS Webmaster

CAMS Comments

Back to CAMS PMP Home Page
Back to CAMS Home Page

Date Created: April 25, 2003
Last Update: June 25, 2003 (format only)