Information Technology: Architecture Needed to Guide		 
Modernization of DOD's Financial Operations (17-MAY-01, 	 
GAO-01-525).							 
								 
The Department of Defense (DOD) does not have a financial	 
management enterprise architecture, and it does not currently	 
have the management structures in place to effectively develop,  
implement, and maintain one. DOD has not applied recognized best 
practices, in particular, support and sponsorship by the head of 
the enterprise, and assignment of accountability and commensurate
authority for developing, implementing, and maintaining a	 
DOD-wide financial management enterprise architecture.		 
Nevertheless, DOD's various components are either spending or	 
planning to spend billions of dollars to acquire new or modify	 
existing financial management systems. In the absence of a	 
complete, enforceable enterprise architecture for DOD-wide	 
financial management operations and systems, making such	 
investments is unwise. If DOD continues down this road, it runs  
the serious risk that its components will spend billions of	 
dollars modifying and modernizing financial management systems	 
independently from one another, resulting in DOD perpetuating an 
existing systems environment that suffers from duplication of	 
systems, limited interoperability, and unnecessarily costly	 
operations and maintenance. As part of its plans for investing in
financial management systems modernization, DOD has taken some	 
actions that appropriately exploit lessons learned from its Year 
2000 program. DOD can build upon actions such as these and	 
activities already underway to ensure that it employs recognized 
best practices for enterprise architecture management. DOD can	 
thus position itself to cost effectively manage the billions of  
dollars it plans to spend to address its high-risk financial	 
management options. This approach will increase DOD's chances of 
modernizing its financial management operations and supporting	 
systems in a way that will optimize financial management	 
performance and accountability. 				 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-01-525 					        
    ACCNO:   A00857						        
  TITLE:     Information Technology: Architecture Needed to Guide     
             Modernization of DOD's Financial Operations                      
     DATE:   05/17/2001 
  SUBJECT:   Financial management systems			 
	     Information resources management			 
	     Information technology				 
	     Private sector practices				 
	     Systems conversions				 
	     Systems design					 
	     DOD Financial Management Improvement		 
	     Plan