The Office of Financial Management Systems (OFMS) provides maintenance and support for the USPTOs core financial system. This system is fully compliant with the U.S. Standard General Ledger. It also maintains subsidiary ledgers to facilitate the timely and accurate reporting of capital assets, accounts payable, and revenues and other fees.
Our goal is to provide our customers with the highest level of quality and service in all aspects of operations. To help achieve this goal, OFMS supports, maintains, and manages the USPTO's financial management information systems, including the Revenue Accounting and Management system.
Gita Zoks is the director of the Office of Financial Management Systems.
The Office of Financial Management Systems is composed of the following divisions:
- Program Management Division
- Financial Systems Operations Division
- Core Financial Systems Operations Division
Program Management Division
The Program Management Division (PMD) provides IT strategic planning and project management services related to USPTO financial management systems. Our goal is to optimize the efficiency and effectiveness of financial management processes and make relevant information available for analysis and decision making by recommending and implementing enabling technologies.
PMD performs several of the enabling functions of a traditional Program Management Office (PMO):
- PMD partners with OCIO and follows USPTO policies and procedures surrounding IT strategic planning and project management. Standard project management practices and artifacts, a database of project lessons learned, a database of risks, and project manager training plans are some of the benefits of this partnership.
- PMD is an information center, reporting project progress and linking projects to organizational strategy.
- PMD is a portfolio management center, managing resources and dependencies across multiple projects. Strategic planning, including budget formulation, takes into account the overall portfolio to ensure organization goals are met.
PMD also performs the actual management of projects:
- PMD executes projects by managing scope, time, cost, quality, human resources, communications, risks, and procurements.
- PMD follows the project lifecycle: initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the project.
- PMD follows the system development lifecycle: concept, definition, design, development, testing, and deployment.
PMD is also responsible for maintaining the OCFO sites on the USPTO Internet and Intranet, performing Contracting Officer Representative duties for all OFMS contracts, and preparing and executing the OFMS operation and maintenance budget, as well as project budgets.
Carol Stout is the director of the Program Management Division.
Financial Systems Operations Division
The Financial Systems Operation Division (FSOD) provides maintenance and support including helpdesk and training for the following financial systems: Revenue Accounting and Management System (RAM), Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW), Corporate Planning Tool (CPT), Automated Fee Forecasting (AFF) tool, the Electronic Library for Financial Management Systems (EL4FMS), Office of Finance Imaging System (OFIS), and the Transportation Subsidy System (TSS). FSOD also maintains and operates the Program, Project, and Activity (PPA) database and search page, and the Enterprise Information Portal (EIP).
Revenue Accounting and Management System (RAM):
The RAM System has grown to process nearly 20,000 transactions per-day, tracks approximately $2 billion in annual revenue, and is used by approximately 500 PTO users. RAM has over 70 interfaces as well as an external payment server which is the public interface to the RAM System that operates as a storefront to allow customers to directly order and pay for specific USPTO goods and services using the Internet. The RAM System is being replaced by Fee Processing Next Generation (FPNG) and is scheduled to be retired in early 2018.
Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW):
FSOD supports the EDW and over 700 internal users throughout the USPTO. It provides access to data from a number of USPTO systems, and includes information from financial and non-financial systems currently in production as well as historical information from retired systems. EDW data is organized into four main subject areas: the Financial subject area (FSA), the Human Resources subject area (HRSA), the Patent subject area (PSA), and the IT Project Information subject area. FSOD also supports the Enterprise Information Portal (EIP) and the PPA Search Page and its APEX database.
Corporate Planning Tool (CPT):
CPT is a COTS product developed to integrate and streamline the USPTO’s execution, compensation projection and performance processes. CPT improves the efficiency and effectiveness of the business processes for which the USPTO Office of Planning and Budget (OPB), Financial Resources Management Division (FRMD) of OCIO, and Office of Financial Management Systems (OFMS) are responsible. With COTS software, OPB, FRMD OCIO and OFMS are able to create a consistent process for generating, consolidating, and reporting information. CPT focuses on budget execution and compensation projections while contributing to the strategic planning, fee workload analysis, and performance measurement reporting processes.
Automated Fee Forecasting (AFF):
AFF is an Advanced Analytics software tool that is used by the OCFO’s Office of Planning and Budget (OPB) to perform predictive modeling and analyses for forecasting USPTO fee revenues and other uses. The forecasts are used as inputs to critical USPTO budgets and plans. AFF automates the pulling of source data from the EDW to use in OPB analyses and models, as well as the pushing of finalized reports back to the EDW for enterprise-wide distribution.
Electronic Library for Financial Management Systems (EL4FMS):
EL4FMS is an OFMS wide document storage, search, and retrieval environment that supplements the Enterprise Data Warehouse. EL4FMS does not have a user interface; rather, it provides a web service that can be leveraged by other USPTO financial systems.
Transit Subsidy System (TSS):
TSS is a web-based application for USPTO employees to submit requests for transit subsidy via the Intranet and a database to store transit subsidy history for inventory, reporting, and audit purposes.
Ana Medina is the director of the Financial Systems Operations Division.
Core Financial Systems Operations Division
The Core Financial Systems Operations Division provides outstanding operations and maintenance support for the USPTO's internal and external customers of the Consolidated Financial System (CFS). The CFS is comprised of Momentum Financials (financial system of record), Fee Processing Next Generation (FPNG), eAcquisitions, and ConcurGov (USPTO’s travel system). Additionally, the Core Financial Systems Operations Division supports other components of the CFS to include Momentum integrations with the System for Award Management (SAM), ConcurGov, FedBizOpps, Federal Procurement Data System Next Generation, the Financial Management Service for automated disbursements and the National Finance Center for payroll.
The Core Financial Systems Operations Division has primary responsibility for the following functions:
- Overseeing the OCFOs IT Customer Service Center that provides support to internal and external financial system users
- Provides application training for the CFS and FPNG users
- Provides system administration support for the CFS and FPNG applications
- Provides monthly, quarterly, and annual close support for the Office of Finance
- Provides subject matter expertise, SDLC documentation reviews, and testing during financial system upgrades
- Utilizes DevOps processes for rapid FPNG deployments. Automated test scripts and deployments
- Manages minor financial system upgrades and maintenance implementations
- Provides coordination with the OCIO and technical support for hardware and software issues surrounding the CFS and FPNG applications
- Manages all application security related processes, such as adding and deleting users, updating application security profiles, and revalidation of users
- Participates as the lead for the IT section of the annually occurring Financial Statement audits
- Participates with the OCIO in continuous monitoring activities with regard to the CFS and FPNG
Greg Eslinger is the director of the Core Financial Systems Operations Division.