National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA): High-Performing Enterprise Solutions—Finance and Performance Management

Established in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the government agency responsible for the United States of America's space program and long-term general aerospace research.

NASA operates centers across the United States and employs more than 17,000 civil servants. These centers used disparate financial management systems that were difficult to reconcile and did not give program and project managers the visibility to the business information it needed across the agency. NASA needed an integrated financial management system to more effectively support the agency's missions of human space flight and science, aeronautics and technology.

NASA's continued future as a high-performance government agency depended on an enterprise-wide SAP implementation to unify the management practices of what traditionally has been a very decentralized and independent organization. NASA needed a financial management system to integrate its 10 sites and 10,000 users. The net benefit would result in more timely and consistent financial information for business-based decision making.

NASA selected Accenture to help it transform its financial management system. The project represents one of the first major implementations of SAP's Public Sector industry solution. The team implemented SAP financial modules for accounts payable, accounts receivable, budget execution, cost management, purchasing and standard general ledger. Accenture was responsible for the design and configuration of SAP, human performance management, conversion and cutover processes and procedures, as well as initial production stabilization support.

The new integrated financial system is helping NASA on its journey to high performance. With the support of the new system, NASA was able to integrate its procurement and financial systems and processes. The system has led to agency-wide visibility of financial information, moving the agency closer toward its goals of a "One NASA" culture and providing more accessible financial information for better decision-making. The system provides NASA with the technical foundation necessary to lead the agency into the world of eCommerce and eGovernment.

This client success story is one of several featured in Accenture's SAP Global Capabilities brochure.