Financial Management

Defining Requirements Is Crucial to System 90's Success Gao ID: AFMD-90-85 September 5, 1990

GAO reviewed the Financial Management Service's (FMS) efforts to initiate and define requirements for a long-term strategy for modernizing and integrating its financial management activities, System 90, focusing on its first application, the Payments, Claims, and Enhanced Reconciliation (PACER) system.

GAO found that: (1) although FMS performed many of the analyses stipulated in federal system development guidance, it did not clearly define the system's capabilities or adequately analyze the related costs and benefits; (2) due to inadequate FMS cost-benefit analyses, there was limited information for determining which System 90 and PACER design aspects were likely to be most cost-beneficial; (3) FMS has not completed refining and clarifying PACER functional and internal control requirements; (4) in an effort to eliminate errors, omissions, or ambiguities in the documentation prior to contract award, a task force was analyzing various aspects of the PACER design; (5) FMS did not include System 90 or PACER in the Financial Management System's Five-Year Plan, as required; and (6) from fiscal year (FY) 1990 through FY 1994, FMS estimated that the System 90/PACER effort could cost about $55 million.

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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