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President George Bush's Management Agenda calls for a more efficient and effective government, one that is results-oriented and citizen-centered. Subsequently, the Secretary cast his vision to help HHS evolve from a collection of distinct and separate agencies into "One Department." In line with restructuring toward "One Department," the Secretary of HHS launched the Unified Financial Management System (UFMS) initiative and issued an executive memorandum on June 14, 2001, in which he stated that "the purpose of this endeavor is to achieve greater economies of scale, eliminate duplication and provide better service delivery." The following mission statement guides the work of the UFMS Program team:
The Secretary directed that the Department's Unified financial system consist of two major components: CMS' Healthcare Integrated General Ledger Accounting System (HIGLAS) and a system for the rest of the Department. The UFMS Program team is focused on achieving the following objectives:
Prior to the Secretary's directive, certain HHS agencies had already begun to replace their antiquated accounting systems: NIH in 1999, CDC in 1999, HCFA (now CMS) in 1999 and FDA in 2000. These efforts are now being brought into the UFMS fold. Why use a Unified Financial Management System? Consolidated financial reporting will become much less complex as a result of UFMS. Instead of collecting data from five core systems, the Office of the Secretary (OS) will interact with one. Data will be combined through a centralized, HHS-wide consolidated financial reporting capability. This capability will provide integrated financial management information for HHS-level financial management statements, reports and queries, as well as consolidated financial statements. Data uploads and "data calls" currently required for consolidated core financial management information will be improved and streamlined. UFMS will take full advantage of modern accounting system features. Specific advantages include the following:
In summary, UFMS will significantly reduce the logistical complexity of coordinating and consolidating financial information throughout the Department. Moreover, UFMS will provide HHS and the component agencies with a flexible and responsive reporting capability. Specifically, the system will do the following:
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Last revised: April 11, 2005