Defense Agencies Initiative - Financial System

Abstract

The DAI mission is to deliver auditable Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Act compliant business environments for Defense Agencies providing accurate, timely, authoritative financial data supporting the DoD goal of standardizing financial management practices improving financial decision support, and supporting audit readiness. DAI has replaced several different non-compliant financial management systems supporting diverse operational functions and the warfighter in decision-making and financial reporting. DAI currently provides the capability to produce timely, auditable reports as noted in three consecutive annual unmodified Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements No. 18 (SSAE 18) engagements. The DAI program modernizes the Defense Agencies’ financial management processes by streamlining financial management capabilities, addressing financial reporting material weaknesses, and supporting financial statement auditability for the majority of agencies, field activities and non-Service organizations across the DoD. DAI supports a transformation of budget, finance, and accounting processes across participating defense agencies to help improve the quality of financial information, supporting financial auditability and decision-making. The DAI business solution, once fully implemented, will provide a near real-time, web-based system from a “.mil” environment of integrated business processes that will enable in excess of 84,000 Defense Agency financial managers, program managers, auditors, and Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) representatives to make sound financial business decisions. The DAI implementation approach deploys a standardized system solution that is consistent with requirements in the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act (FFMIA) and the DoD Business Enterprise Architecture (BEA), while leveraging the out-of-the-box capabilities of the selected Commercial-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) product, Oracle e-Business Suite (EBS), Release 12.2.6 (R12). DAI implemented an Oracle Office of Management and Budget Financial Systems Integration Office (FSIO) qualified COTS financial management business solution with common business processes and data standards. The Program Management Office (PMO) will not develop any objects that are included in core COTS software or services (i.e. vendor data from Federal authoritative sources). DAI supports the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) Strategic Goal 3, “Reform the Department’s Business Practices for Greater Performance and Affordability as well as Strategic Objectives (SO) 3.1 “Improve and Strengthen business operations through a move to DoD-Enterprise or shared services; reduce administrative and regulatory burden” as well as SO 3.3 Undergo an audit, and improve the quality of budgetary and financial information that is most valuable in managing the DoD. The primary goal is to deploy a standardized system solution to improve overall financial management and comply with BEA, Standard Financial Information Structure (SFIS)/Standard Line of Accounting (SLOA), and Office of Federal Financial Management (OFFM) requirements. Common business functions within budget execution include the Department’s BEA End to End (E2E) business processes: Cost Management; Budget to Report (B2R); Procure to Pay (P2P) with enhancements facilitating SFIS/SLOA and DoD procurement data standards and direct Treasury disbursing; Acquire to Retire (A2R) (real property lifecycle accounting only); Hire to Retire (H2R) (Time and Labor reporting and absence management only); Order to Cash (O2C); Proposal to Reward (P2R) (Grants financial management and accounting only; and a phased implementation of Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GCR) capabilities supporting audit readiness. Future Defense Working Capital Fund accounting, and Re-Sale Accounting (for Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA). DAI is currently implemented at 23 Defense Agencies and the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Comptroller (OUSD(C)). DAI supports over 62,000 personnel including, 45,600 users. The program office is also responsible for operational sustainment of the system. Funds are required for additional government and contractor support, licenses, maintenance, and hardware to accomplish the remaining capability developments and organizational deployments, and initiate the annual SSAE 18 assertion packages. In 2017, 2018, and 2019, the system received an unmodified SAE 18 report with no comments. The benefits of DAI are: • Labor efficiencies (entering data once) and shared across all business processes (modules), workflows and lifecycle in a modern system; • Reduction in contractor support; • Financial visibility (Access to real-time financial data transactions); • Enabling agility and resilience in execution (No silos – anyone/anywhere can backfill and work continues); • Retiring legacy systems; • Shared common business processes and employment of Federal/DoD Enterprise data standards (i.e., SFIS, SLOA, Procurement Data Standard (PDS) and Procurement Request Data Standard (PRDS)); and United States Standard General Ledger (USSGL) Chart of Accounts to resolve DoD material weaknesses and deficiencies. • Reducing reliance on custom Reports, Interfaces, Conversions, Extensions, Forms and Workflows by leveraging application upgrades • Enhanced Internal controls to ensure accurate data, regulatory compliance and ensuring segregation of duties • Significantly reduced data reconciliation requirements; and • Enhanced analysis and decision support capabilities. The DAI PMO also provides system integration services that include: acquisition/financial management, project management; blueprinting; design, build, and unit test; developing required Reports, Interfaces, Conversions, Extensions, Forms and Workflows (RICE-FW) objects; testing (cyber security/information assurance, integration, functional, performance, conversion, user acceptance, operational); end-user training (train the trainer/change management preparing the users for the cross functional skills and awareness needed to perform well with an integrated enterprise resource planning system); system deployment; conversion; information assurance; sustainment; data service; help desk support; as well as studies and analysis support. DLA provides the Milestone Decision Authority (DLA Acquisition), and DLA Information Operations provides the Program Executive Officer, program manager, and PMO staff. The DAI PMO relies on DLA Acquisition for most contracting. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) data centers provide application, development and test as well as Continuity of Operations (COOP) hosting, Technical Contracting Office for development task orders, and the Joint Interoperability Test Command for Interoperability testing. The DAI PMO serves as systems integrator. Contracted subject matter experts configure COTS to provide compliant business processes.

Document Details

• Document Type: Project
• Publication Date: Oct 01, 2021
• Source ID: 01_0605080S_5_0400_PB_2021

Tags

Fields of Study

• Business

Readers

• Defense Financial Management and Audit.
• Enterprise Information Systems Architecture and Joint Command Capability Interoperability Support.

Technology Areas

• Cyber