Financial Audit

Air Force's Base-Level Financial Systems Do Not Provide Reliable Information Gao ID: AFMD-91-26 January 31, 1991

GAO reviewed the Air Force's base-level financial management operations for fiscal years (FY) 1988 and 1989, focusing on weaknesses in internal controls and financial reporting within the bases and related commands.

GAO found that the: (1) Air Force's base-level General Accounting and Finance System routinely generated inaccurate financial information that totalled over $2.7 billion in FY 1988 and 1989; (2) base and command personnel failed to perform analytical reviews of account balances, resulting in widespread instances of inaccurate and incomplete financial data; (3) European base staff attributed significant undetected or uncorrected accounting errors in account balances to poorly trained personnel and careless accounting practices; (4) the new Combat Ammunition System failed to report inventory balances in the base-level general ledger system, causing a $115.7-million understatement of ammunition inventories; (5) bases failed to report accurate real property account balances because they incorrectly recorded construction in progress and did not timely process real property transactions; (6) base-level personnel did not always properly receive, issue, and account for equipment and inventory items; and (7) bases failed to compare master payroll files with master personnel records to ensure that payments were appropriate and accurate.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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