Labor seeks financial management system provider

The Labor Department seeks a public or private shared-service provider to develop and host a New Core Financial Management System to replace its current mainframe accounting system.

Labor is conducting a public/private competition to acquire Oracle Federal Financials software, hosting and administration, application management and system implementation services from another agency or a commercial provider.

The New Core Financial Management System will be deployed by Oct. 1, 2009, Labor said in its request for proposals, posted today on Federal Business Opportunities.

The competition will follow guidance from the Office of Management and Budget to implement the Financial Management Line of Business, OMB’s competitive framework for FM LOB, and migration planning from the General Services Administration’s Financial Systems Integration Office.

The performance-based contract will have a one-year duration with seven one-year options. Proposals are due Feb. 29.

The modernized financial management system and associated business processes are expected to have numerous benefits, such as:

Improve functional integration, which may require fewer feeder systems.

Improved usability of Web-based user interfaces.

Better access to up-to-date data and reports.

More powerful and flexible query and reporting capabilities.

Automated electronic workflow for routing and approvals.

Improved accountability and ability to audit transactions.

Key components of the system should include administration, general ledger, purchasing, payables, receivables and fixed assets.

Currently, Labor’s financial management functions, processes and activities are distributed across multiple information systems and financial applications, all centered on the Department of Labor Accounting and Related Systems, or DOLAR$, mainframe accounting system. DOLAR$ has been enhanced and extended over its lifetime since 1989 to meet departmental and external requirements but continuing to maintain sound financial management using DOLAR$ would be a challenge. The customized applications require specialized support and staff.

Although DOLAR$ complies with FSIO Federal Financial Management System Requirements, the processing could be much more efficient with an updated system, Labor said. The agency also wants to automatically distribute between the core financial management system, feeder systems and agency systems. Not having that ability increases time delays and error rates due to batch processing, manual entry and the absence of timely financial management information.

A contract Labor awarded in 2006 to Mythics for financial management is no longer active, Labor said.