GSA, OMB issue guidance on financial management

Agency officials uncertain about how to proceed with the Financial Management Line of Business now have a guide. The Office of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration have released the first version of the Financial Management Line of Business Migration Planning Guidance.

The financial management initiative is intended to cut down on duplicative financial programs by consolidating them in Centers of Excellence or shared service providers. Each provider would handle financial management for several agencies, giving those agencies more time to attend to their core missions.

The planning guide will reduce the cost and improve the quality and performance of financial management systems, according to a GSA press release. The guidance is available at the Financial Systems Integration Office’s (FSIO) Web site.

Policy-makers have said agencies needed a clear understanding of the new business line, which has many gray areas. The guide gives agencies performance measures and other tools to close performance gaps in core financial systems.

“The migration planning guidance is an important step toward establishing increased transparency that will foster efficiencies in federal financial systems and operations,” said Daniel Werfel, OMB’s deputy comptroller.

Mary Mitchell, deputy associate administrator of GSA’s Office of Technology Strategy and FSIO executive, said she encourages the financial management community to make suggestions and recommendations for improving the guidance.