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GFEBS: Army’s Enterprise Financial Management System

Since 1995, Department of Defense financial management has been designated as high risk. Its financial accounting systems and processes are unreliable, sometimes irrelevant, and slow. Over the years, “GAO and DoD auditors … have made hundreds of recommendations to help resolve these weaknesses.” A report by the DoD Inspector General found that it couldn’t account for over $1 trillion in spending. Comptroller General David M. Walker recently said, “DoD has bad systems [and] bad processes, but good people.”

To solve its part of the problem, the Army is eliminating redundant or noncompatible systems, standardizing business processes, and evaluating ways to better manage resources to overhaul its business and financial management functions. At the leading edge of this effort is the General Fund Enterprise Business System (GFEBS), a web-based enterprise resource planning solution.

GFEBS will enable the Army to compile and share accurate, up-to-date financial and accounting data service-wide. Leveraging commercial off-the-shelf business enterprise software, GFEBS will streamline the Army’s financial management portfolio, facilitating the replacement of at least 28 expensive, overlapping, and redundant finance and accounting systems. GFEBS implementation will benefit all Army components, commands, and installations and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service.

LMI has played an integral role in GFEBS from its inception, assessing organizations, reengineering business processes, managing change, planning communications, and examining training requirements:

• Helping the GFEBS project officer manage technical issues, such as application monitoring, data management and conversion, and integration with other systems (through the Army Financial Systems Realignment and Categorization and Single Army Financial Enterprise analysis)
• Easing the DoD acquisition process by developing, staffing, and garnering approval of all GFEBS documentation for the program’s successful Milestone A decision
• Continuing to deliver the highest quality services as the project moves into its second release phase and a Milestone B decision in early 2007.

GFEBS—eventually one of the largest enterprise financial systems in the world—will manage $100 billion in spending, giving senior leadership comprehensive, accurate, and current information for managing the Army’s vast resources and making informed decisions on funding allocation.