Despite billions invested in DoD ERP systems, few financial managers see reduction in workload

The Defense Department has spent well over a decade and tens of billions of dollars to buy enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems with the hope that they would help the military adopt modern, automated business processes and pave the way to financial auditability. But a strikingly small number of DoD financial managers think the systems have done anything to make their jobs easier.

The finding is part of an annual survey and report by the American Society of Military Comptrollers and Grant Thornton. Only 20 percent of the Defense financial workforce said the ERPs had reduced their workload. Another 20 percent said they had made no difference, and 15 percent said they’d actually made their lives more complicated than working with the decades-old legacy systems the ERPS are replacing.

This year’s report represents the ninth year in a row in which researchers have surveyed hundreds of rank-and-file and senior executive members of the Pentagon’s financial management community. Aside from IT modernization, it found at least three other common themes that repeated themselves year-after-year.

Among the most obvious: comptrollers have become fed up with budget uncertainty after having to navigate through eight consecutive years of continuing resolutions, government shutdowns and limitations imposed by the Budget Control Act. As one anonymous respondent put it: “We’re great at building a budget and manpower models based on forecast costs and requirements,” but budgets have had to be “modified continually in response to lower than expected levels of actual receipt of funds.”

- FederalNewsRadio.com
https://shar.es/1O4IMB via @fednewsradio

ASMC PDI is Back!

PDI 2014 - Achieving New Heights | Managing Change
May 28-30, 2014 - Seattle, WA

PDI 2014, the premier training event hosted by the American Society of Military Comptrollers, will be held at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle on May 28–30.

The National Professional Development Institute (PDI) is the premier training event of the American Society of Military Comptrollers. Resource managers in the Department of Defense and US Coast Guard converge for a three day event whose objective is to enhance the skills and abilities that personnel in the financial and resource management community must possess to meet the challenges of today's defense financial manager.

​In addition to the more than 21 CPE credits available to attendees, the PDI provides a forum for attendees to network with leadership, peers, vendors and clients. This event is also the showcase for those individuals and teams who have been recognized for excellence by ASMC.

​ASMC home

DoD's audit goals achievable, Congressional inquiry finds

A new report by a special panel of the House Armed Services Committee finds the Defense Department has come up with a solid plan for meeting its deadlines to become auditable, though meeting the goals will take sustained commitment by the military services and continued leadership from the secretary of defense.


It's becoming a familiar storyline: the findings are strikingly similar to earlier opinions offered by the Government Accountability Office, and to the Pentagon comptroller's own assessment of DoD's path toward auditability.

Panetta got the ball rolling on DoD's accelerated audit deadline. He administratively imposed the interim 2014 date for an auditable statement of budgetary resources last year, which has since been written into law. He also ordered up a new audit strategy for meeting that deadline, which he signed off on in December.


DoD's Chief Financial Officer and Comptroller Robert Hale, who is in charge of the Pentagon's path toward auditability, said he found the panel's report to be balanced and constructive. He also echoed the importance of leadership commitment to audits.

But Hale said one of his biggest challenges is making sure DoD's managers and workforce embrace the idea that audits are their responsibility too. DoD has just started developing auditability related evaluation criteria for members of its Senior Executive Service. Conaway said Congress needs to make sure those evaluations are taken seriously.


The department also is trying to make sure its SESers and rank-and-file workforce know what they need to know about audit readiness. Congress gave DoD some new authorities in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act to create a course-based certification program for its financial management workforce, something Hale thinks would help a lot.


-Jared Serbu, FederalNewsRadio.com
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DOD Readies Financial Managers to Meet Goals

WASHINGTON, Oct. 6, 2011 – Recognizing the importance of people in its financial management improvements, the Defense Department is exploring new ways to recruit, retain and train its financial management workforce, a senior defense official told Congress today.


Maintaining a capable financial management workforce is a priority in Pentagon Comptroller Robert F. Hale’s financial management strategy, Sandra A. Gregory told the House Armed Services Committee’s Defense Financial Management and Auditability Reform Panel.

About 60,000 civilian and military financial managers within DOD are key players in efforts to improve financial information, analytics and decision support within the department and to achieve audit readiness, Gregory told the panel.


Among initiatives being advanced is a new DOD financial management certification program. This plan, Gregory explained, will provide “enterprisewide roadmaps on what training is most important at various points throughout federal careers.”


By next summer, DOD officials plan to code financial management positions to three different certification levels, she said. From that point, the department will develop competency assessment tools to assess the current workforce’s proficiency, identify gaps and develop plans to close those gaps.

-Donna Miles, American Forces Press Services
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