FISVIS Goals and Strategy

To address USDA’s pervasive financial management system weaknesses and carry out its financial management system responsibilities under the CFO Act, in March 1993, the Department initiated the Financial Information Systems Vision and Strategy (FISVIS) project. Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

The objectives of our review were to assess whether the FISVIS project will (1) resolve USDA’s major financial management system weaknesses and (2) consolidate USDA’s separate financial and mixed systems that perform similar functions, as well as reengineer USDA’s financial processes. However, because the Office of the CFO has not set up a mechanism to enforce its financial system standards, FISVIS’ ultimate success is highly dependent on the voluntary compliance of USDA’s component agencies and NFC. For example, according to the CFO, one of the tasks of the financial and accounting standards administration function will be to assist component agencies and staff offices with incorporating USDA’s financial standards into their new or reengineered financial and mixed system development projects. The Office of the CFO Has Not Established a Configuration Management Policy and Version Control Process

The Office of the CFO has not established a configuration management policy or version control process to help manage and control the Foundation system software modifications and version updates. USDA has over 100 financial management systems that perform many similar functions. This environment will continue to exist even after FISVIS because USDA is planning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to replace or redesign these systems without a financial management systems plan to consolidate these systems on a departmentwide basis. In its written comments, USDA stated that most of its current financial and mixed systems do not comply with the Department’s financial standards and agreed that USDA needed to bring them into compliance.
Why GAO Did This Study

GAO reviewed whether the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Financial Information Systems Vision and Strategy (FISVIS) project will: (1) resolve major USDA financial system weaknesses; and (2) consolidate the separate USDA financial and mixed systems that perform similar functions, as well as reengineer USDA financial processes.

What GAO Found

GAO found that: (1) the USDA Chief Financial Officer (CFO) has demonstrated strong leadership and progress in implementing the initial phase of the FISVIS project; (2) CFO has issued departmentwide financial management standards and has signed a contract for the central Foundation Financial Information System; (3) it is unclear when USDA financial and mixed systems will be brought into compliance with the new financial standards, since CFO does not have the authority or a mechanism to enforce compliance and will have to rely on the voluntary cooperation of the USDA component agencies; (4) although USDA is planning to give CFO greater responsibility and authority over its financial systems, the major component agencies will manage their own financial systems with limited CFO oversight; (5) CFO lacks a configuration management policy and version control process for the Foundation system software to lower costs and prevent duplication; (6) FISVIS does not address eliminating or consolidating the many USDA systems that perform similar functions and has not been revised to consider reengineering financial management processes on a departmentwide basis in light of the ongoing USDA reorganization; and (7) although USDA has not addressed all aspects of its financial management systems, it plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to redesign or replace many of its existing financial and mixed systems.