Army Logistics Systems

As part of its responsibility to audit the consolidated financial statements of the federal government, GAO is reviewing the accuracy of data in the military's financial/logistical systems, which provide property, plant, and equipment information for the financial statements. The Army uses the Continuing Balance System-Expanded (CBSX) as its central logistics system for reporting the types, quantities, and location of equipment; monitoring the equipment readiness of its warfighting units; and filling equipment shortages in those units scheduled for mobilization. In the past, GAO and the Army Audit Agency have cited inaccuracies in CBSX data. Inaccurate CBSX data have hampered Army readiness and decision-making by causing equipment distribution delays and affecting efforts to identify major items that require accelerated procurement. This report determines (1) the primary causes for the many adjustments to correct discrepancies between the Army's CBSX system and its primary property book system, (2) whether the Army's ongoing improvement efforts will correct the causes of these discrepancies, and (3) whether the Army's current method of assessing CBSX's accuracy, referred to as the compatibility rate, is adequate.

GAO noted that: (1) while the Army ensures that CBSX equipment balances accurately reflect the balances in its primary property book system twice a year, the Army does not identify the causes of adjustments made to CBSX balances to correct discrepancies; (2) GAO's analysis of the causes of CBSX adjustments has identified opportunities to correct process weaknesses and computer software problems that would reduce the number of adjustments and, consequently, increase the accuracy of CBSX throughout the year; (3) the Army does not have an effective process to ensure that equipment transactions from Army units are received by CBSX; (4) GAO's statistically projectable sample of adjustments made to CBSX to bring it into agreement with the Army's primary property book system, showed that over 40 percent of the adjustments were due to transactions not received by CBSX; (5) other reasons for adjustments included software errors and incorrectly posted transactions; (6) the lack of reconciliations performed between CBSX and unit property books, an outdated regulation, and incomplete training also were underlying factors that contributed to differences between CBSX and the primary property book system; (7) the Army's ongoing efforts to improve CBSX address some of the causes of adjustments such as those related to certain software errors and incorrectly posted transactions; (8) however, these efforts do not fully address property book transactions that were not received by CBSX, the largest cause of adjustments; (9) the Army also does not have an effective mechanism to measure CBSX performance; and (10) the Army-wide CBSX compatibility rate, the factor used to measure the extent to which CBSX and property book records agree, is overstated because it does not count all adjustments made to CBSX balances to correct discrepancies.

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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