Financial Management: Achieving Financial Statement Auditability in the Department of Defense

Abstract

Since the first financial statement audit was attempted at a major Department of Defense (DOD) component over 20 years ago, GAO and DOD auditors have continued to report significant weaknesses in the department's ability to provide timely, reliable, consistent, and accurate information for management analysis, decision-making, and reporting. DOD has undertaken a number of initiatives over the years, such as the Financial Improvement Initiative in 2003, to improve the department's business operations, including financial management, and achieve clean financial statement audit opinions. However, these initiatives have met with limited success. In 2005, the DOD Comptroller established the DOD Financial Improvement and Audit Readiness (FIAR) Directorate to manage DOD-wide financial improvement efforts and to integrate those efforts with transformation activities, such as those outlined in the Enterprise Transition Plan, across the department. The components report accomplishments and progress against planned corrective actions to the FIAR Directorate for reporting in the FIAR Plan.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 01, 2009
Accession Number
AD1152923

Entities

People

  • Asif A. Khan

Organizations

  • United States Government Accountability Office

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accountability
  • Acquisition
  • Addressing
  • Air Force
  • Business Administration
  • Comptrollers
  • Congress
  • Department Of Defense
  • Financial Management
  • Government Procurement
  • Governments
  • Guidance
  • Homeland Security
  • Identification
  • Logistics
  • Military Equipment
  • Money
  • Monitoring
  • National Governments
  • National Security
  • Organizational Structure
  • Procurement
  • Security
  • Standards
  • Supply Chain Management
  • Task Forces
  • Test And Evaluation
  • United States
  • United States Government

Fields of Study

  • Business

Readers

  • Defense Acquisition Program Management
  • Defense Financial Management and Audit.