Highlights of the online survey.

In 2006, 127 members of the Department of Defense (DoD) financial management community responded to the online survey on Defense financial management. Such a small sample does not allow for a statistically valid projection of results to the universe of the tens of thousands of Defense financial personnel. The answers to some questions, however, were uniform and provide insight and ideas for consideration as the Department continues down the path to improving Defense financial management. Here are highlights from the online survey.

Opinions on Financial Management and Services

Respondents gave their opinions on the need for improvement in eight areas of financial management services: general accounting, payment, billings and collections, payroll, travel, financial systems support, financial reporting, and month-and year-end closings. The online responses for financial systems support are provided in the preceding article under "Information Systems." The other seven areas are covered here.

General Accounting Services

About one in four respondents said that the general accounting services he or she worked with needed major improvements. Desired changes included the following:

* Foster better communication with the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS)

* Employ user interfaces such as those in Microsoft[R] Windows[R]

* Improve quality control, accountability, and timeliness

* Develop a single, DoD enterprise accounting system that is integrated with asset management and budget execution

* Set up processes to review invoices and receipts for overpayments

* Establish a single point of contact for payment problems

* Maintain standard processes and systems throughout the Department

Payment Services

About one in five respondents saw a need for major improvements to payment services:

* Give more training for personnel involved in payment functions

* Allow more base-level control of vendor payments

* Require exact matching of payments to specific lines of accounting

* Institute standardized invoice requirements

* Enable base-level personnel to locate payment information on the Web, which DFAS and vendors can do now

* Automate obligations and voucher payments to ensure that all accounting data are posted

Billings and Collections

About one in six respondents said that billing and collection services needed major improvements, such as the following specific recommendations:

* Issue more specific guidelines

* Strengthen internal control

* Standardize conflicting operating instructions from DFAS and the other DoD components

* Make available more timely and detailed information on status of collection efforts

Payroll Support Activities

One in five respondents thought these activities needed major improvements. Specific recommendations included the following:

* Improve the interface between the payroll, personnel, and accounting systems

* Install standard, enterprise-wide military and civilian payroll systems in the United States and overseas

* Update the Defense Civilian Personnel Data System with a new system offering graphical user interface and an ability to display more information on a single screen versus multiple screens

Travel Services

Several respondents indicated that they have started using the new Defense Travel Service (DTS) system and have found it to be a major improvement compared to past processes. Many respondents, however, had not yet transitioned to DTS. For that reason, it is not appropriate to indicate the number of respondents who think travel services need improvement. Instead, this section lists only the respondents' suggested improvements to the new DTS system. These include the following:

* Improve user-friendliness of DTS

* Provide a DTS capability for temporary, co-op, and other-than-fulltime employees and include functionality for personnel who do not hold credit cards

* Reduce the number of DTS layers

* improve DTS' speed, which needs to react more like commercial online travel services (for example, Expedia[c] and Orbitz[c]); timing-out also a problem

* Develop better integration with financial and budget systems

Respondents urged wider use of DTS; otherwise, the system will never become effective.

Financial Reports

About one in four respondents thought that this area needs major improvements, such as the following:

* Enforce more consistency in report ng systems across the DoD components, including computer infrastructure, formats, and the information being requested and reported

* Make the Office of the Secretary of Defense the single source of financial reports; link financial reports with performance measures

* Use more automated input and reduce the number of accounting adjustments made before reports are final

* Acquire more analytic capability

* Give user personnel outside of the comptroller community more ability to extract their own information for preparing reports

Month- and Year-end Closings

About one in four respondents saw the need for major improvements in this area. Suggestions included the following:

* Provide better software to supersede the many homemade spreadsheets that are difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile

* Give more examples of best practices

* Establish auditable closeout statements to ensure accountability

* Create a longer, better-defined process for closing that is step-by-step

* Foster better communication among everyone involved

* Interface financial systems to make closing much easier

Other Suggestions for Improvement

When asked for other ideas for improvement, online participants offered the following:

* Establish a better and more standard career path for financial managers

* Promote less congressional micromanagement

* Use longer-term operation and maintenance budgets

* Appoint more uniformed military comptrollers

* Going beyond the Defense community, one respondent suggested, "A uniform accounting system for the government would be meaningful."

(Copies of the furl survey report may be downloaded from www.grantthornton.com/public.sector under Global Public Sector Publications.)