Army to seek financial integration

pre-solicitation document

Army officials soon will be in the market for a lead systems integrator for the service's financial management systems.

The draft request for proposal (RFP) for the Army General Fund Enterprise Business System has been around for some time. But later this month, Army information technology acquisition officials plan to issue the final version of the RFP for the multimillion-dollar integration of the service's implementation of commercial enterprise resource planning software for its financial management systems.

Army officials released the draft RFP Nov. 4. Officials expect to issue the RFP Nov. 22, with proposals due by Dec. 23, according to an announcement on the Government Business Opportunities Web site.

Army officials had hoped to get the RFP issued this summer but were unable to meet that deadline.

Army IT officials want to hire a company to serve as the lead systems integrator to choose software, manage the system's installation and administer the system. The winning vendor must make operational an initial system capability within nine months of contract award, the announcement states.

They will follow this approach because they want the winning company to demonstrate that commercial software works and that Army finance officials can adapt their processes to off-the-shelf products, said John Argodale, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for financial operations. He spoke this past spring at a one-day conference sponsored by the Program Executive Office for Enterprise Information Systems, the service's IT acquisition and management organization.

Army finance officials currently operate the Standard Financial System and the Standard Operations and Maintenance Research and Development System to dispense general funds account. The two systems use government-written software to monitor the Army's main appropriations ledger, which tracks the balance of money coming and out.