FINANCIAL COMPLIANCE

capabilities

The public relies on government agencies as the stewards of public resources. This reliance results in complex financial and regulatory reporting requirements that must be melded with internal government financial management needs. Attempts to improve public disclosure by producing consolidated statements of government operations and financial conditions further accent the focus on uniform accounting practices for government.

Compliance begins with identifying relevant requirements and extends to assessing the degree of conformance attained. LMI helps agencies comply with financial management mandates and standards by providing these services:

• Defining guiding principles to distill the long list of legislation, federal regulations, and agency-specific requirements into workable guidance
• Conducting compliance reviews of operations to determine risks
• Assessing financial system compliance through highly structured testing, particularly to determine Federal Financial Management Improvement Act (FFMIA) compliance
• Evaluating internal controls.

CLIENTS AND SOLUTIONS

FSIO—Qualification Testing

LMI created a comprehensive set of business cases, test steps, and expected results to qualify off-the-shelf financial management software packages for government-wide use. Qualification testing provides the federal financial management community with better information about commercially available software, which in turn reduces bottlenecks in adopting new systems that ultimately provide better, more timely information. Qualification testing is conducted under the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB's) Financial Systems Integration Office (FSIO) in the Office of Federal Financial Management.

Marine Corps—SABRS Compliance

The Marine Corps is stepping up to the challenge of auditable financial statements by assessing its system's compliance with federal requirements. LMI adapted the standard certification test for commercially available software to the Marine Corps and Department of Defense (DoD) financial management environment—reflecting only the functionality in the Standard Accounting, Budget and Reporting System (SABRS)—to independently assess compliance. As a result, the Marine Corps is able to pinpoint areas where improvements are needed for full compliance and to make fully informed enhance-or-replace decisions.

Africa Center—Financial Compliance

When a new executive took over leadership of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, he asked a reasonable question: "Are we in compliance with all the rules we should be following?" Managers thought so, but wanted an independent review. LMI assessed the financial controls in place to provide reasonable assurance against financial improprieties in several areas, including staff, operational procedures, and support contractors.