Financial Management

Actions Needed to Ensure Effective Implementation of NASA's Accounting System Gao ID: AFMD-91-74 August 21, 1991

GAO reviewed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) efforts to design and develop the NASA Accounting and Financial Information System (NAFIS), focusing on whether: (1) NASA efforts to develop NAFIS conformed with federal guidance and requirements; (2) NASA adequately planned NAFIS development; and (3) any lack of conformance with system development guidelines would jeopardize successful NAFIS implementation.

GAO found that: (1) NASA did not initiate the NAFIS project under the framework of an overall financial management plan that would provide a structured, agencywide approach for developing its financial management systems; (2) required 5-year financial system plans for fiscal years 1991 and 1992 did not identify all NAFIS costs and milestones or adequately describe its approach for interfacing with related financial systems as a means for setting priorities and allocating resources; (3) the NAFIS project will not result in a system that meets Office of Management and Budget or legislative requirements to integrate or interface budgeting and accounting systems; (4) NASA did not perform some analyses, or adequately perform other analyses, needed to support NAFIS system design and development decisions; (5) the cost-benefit analysis for NAFIS provided limited information for determining which of four systems alternatives would be the most cost-beneficial; (6) NASA has not finalized and approved a NAFIS project plan to guide the overall management of the system development effort to completion; (7) because NASA has not identified what the reporting system redevelopment will entail or identified individual NASA centers' conversion needs beyond those of the developmental center, it cannot ensure that the reporting system's implementation will be complete at the time of the centers' implementation of the Installation-Level Accounting System; and (8) due to inadequate NASA planning and analysis, NAFIS will cost significantly more and take longer to fully implement than planned.

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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