U.S. Army: General Fund Enterprise Business System

The U.S. Army is the largest branch of the U.S. armed forces, with nearly 550,000 soldiers on active duty and an additional 560,000 in the U.S. Army National Guard and U.S. Army Reserve.

Operating with a $140 billion annual budget, the U.S. Army needed a leading-edge financial management and Real Property Management system to ensure optimal warfighter support as well as adherence to congressionally mandated governance procedures, such as the CFO Act of 1990 and the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act (FFMIA).

The systems in place to manage the U.S. Army's finances were inefficient, costly and outmoded. In addition, Army commands had established separate methods and tools for different financial business processes—everything from accounts receivable to cost management to Property, Plant and Equipment inventory management. As a result, the U.S. Army did not have a “single version of the truth” and there was no accurate view of each command’s real property inventory. To improve financial accountability, the Army needed to build a new, modernized system designed to standardize and streamline its financial business processes—everything from accounts receivable to cost management to Property, Plant and Equipment inventory management.

The new solution—the General Fund Enterprise Business System (GFEBS)—has transformed the U.S. Army's 85 legacy financial management and real property systems into a single enterprise-wide system that integrates financial, real property, cost management and performance data. GFEBS provides the capability to manage the $140 billion general fund and can accommodate the over 58,000 financial professionals who will use the system at more than 200 worldwide locations. The new Web-based system also helps reduce manual data entry and reconciliations.

The 10-year GFEBS program, launched in July 2005, is helping to transform the way the Army does business. With access to real-time, accurate data and a broad array of information, Army leaders and managers can make more informed business decisions, better leverage current resources and plan for the future. At the same time, GFEBS provides improved accountability to the Department of Defense (DOD), Congress and, ultimately, taxpayers.

The Army chose an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software package from SAP, but it needed a trusted partner to help design, build, test, deploy and maintain the new system. Following a competition among five potential partners, the Army chose Accenture, based on its unmatched experience with successful large-scale SAP implementations, its ability to provide ongoing support and maintenance after the system is deployed, and its long successful history of helping hundreds of clients in the government and private sectors to achieve high performance through ERP systems.

GFEBS is one of the largest implementations in SAP history. The first stage in the 10-year process of deploying GFEBS throughout the Army involved a technology demonstration in July 2006 to prove that the new system was capable of meeting the demanding technical requirements. The Army had to complete the technical demonstration—Release 1.1—within 11 months to stay on its tight schedule.

For the initial stage of this massive program, Accenture teamed with the Army to help complete the important technology demonstration. In just 11 months, the teams developed a financial solution for the Army, which involved designing the system, converting data and ultimately demonstrating in Fort Jackson, S.C., that an ERP system could effectively perform financial management and real property inventory inside a single solution for the entire Army. Release 1.1 not only captured real property inventory information and its associated financial data, but also proved that GFEBS could address the business process reengineering requirements needed to transform financial management in the Army.

After the successful technology demonstration, Accenture worked closely with Army Subject Matter Experts to develop the full scope of the GFEBS solution. After two years of requirements development, system configuration, testing and training, the Army was ready to “Go-Live” with the Release 1.2 solution in October 2008. The GFEBS program team deployed and trained end users at eight Army organizations/installations. The event marked the first time that the Army started realizing GFEBS’ benefits—the streamlining of the Army’s financial and real property infrastructure and enhancing the ability of Army leaders to make real-time decisions worldwide.

Leveraging on its proven program management skills, Accenture helped keep the program on track and ensure that communications and training needs were met. For example, Accenture utilized Microsoft SharePoint, a Web-based document repository, to provide effective visibility over all solution development work and across all teams.

Accenture mobilized the appropriate support resources and ensured that training activities prepared participants to contribute to the collective effort. Accenture to-date has conducted over 3,330 instructor-led trainings for more than 34,000 end users, aimed not only at educating the GFEBS users on the new application, but on transforming the business practices performed. In addition, Accenture has delivered computer based training courses (60+), job aids (90+), online procedures (600+), and application tutorials (225+) which supported the classroom training. Users can also access on-demand help facilities to refresh their training while performing work with GFEBS. When the entire system is fully deployed, Accenture will have delivered the GFEBS training curriculum to approximately 58,000 Army end users.

In April 2011, the Army successfully rolled out Wave 5 of the GFEBS deployment bringing the number of users to over 24,000 users at 150+ Army installations. Wave 5 deployment marked another important milestone for GFEBS—the first go-live for overseas Army installations. Accenture supported the international deployment effort by conducting on-site training, facilitating the process of provisioning foreign nationals in the system, and ensuring the solution met requirements for operating in foreign economies. Accenture continues to provide around-the-clock support for users at these locations using a ‘follow-the-sun’ service management desk.

The Army and Accenture program team have maintained a strong focus to delivering on time and on schedule. On June 24, 2011 the GFEBS program achieved a major acquisition milestone as the Department of Defense (DOD) approved the Full Deployment Decision (FDD) and authorized the continued deployment of GFEBS to the remaining installations. This decision reaffirms the department’s and the U.S. Army’s belief in the GFEBS capabilities to meet the stated objectives and deliver value across the U.S. Army. Continuing with the planned deployment schedule, the Army deployed Wave 6 in July 2011, bringing in approximately 10,800 end users representing the Army National Guard (ARNG) and raising the total GFEBS end user base to over 34,000.

In July 2011, the Office of the Army Chief Information Officer/G-6 awarded the GFEBS program with the prestigious Army Knowledge Management Award. This award recognizes the outstanding organizational efforts by Accenture and the Army to improve decision making by establishing a knowledge management culture. Accenture cultivated this culture by developing Communities of Practice for Army change agents, supporting collaborative online communities for knowledge transfer, and applying advanced technological solutions to connect to stakeholders around the world.

With Accenture's help, the Army has cleared a major hurdle as it advances toward a dramatic change in the way it conducts business. GFEBS has successfully implemented six Solution Releases including enhancements that meet the Army and DOD’s objectives for a compliant financial system.

When fully implemented, GFEBS will provide the Army and the Department of Defense with the reliable, relevant and timely financial information needed to meet financial compliance requirements while lowering the Army's financial management costs. Also, GFEBS will increase the visibility of financial resources, enable improved business decision making and boost resource utilization, transforming the way the Army supports its mission areas and personnel, as well as its stakeholders and constituents.

Secretary of the Army John McHugh testified to the success of GFEBS on March 31, 2011 before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, “In addition to providing training and professional development, we must give our people the essential tools that will enable them to carry out their cost management responsibilities. Toward this end, we have fielded the General Fund Enterprise Business System (GFEBS) to more than 11,000 users at 14 major installations. As reported by the Government Accountability Office, GFEBS development is on schedule and on budget. Much more than an accounting system, GFEBS is the Army’s new business system. It gives managers a greatly improved capability to manage the cost, schedule and performance of their programs and, at the same time, is the centerpiece in our progress toward full auditability of our financial statements.”

Working as a single integrated solution, GFEBS has significantly enhanced the Army’s real property management capabilities. GFEBS includes financial reporting of Real Property Inventory (RPI), providing the Army and Department of Defense with visibility into all real property assets regardless of ownership and delivering accurate, up-to-date and consistent information, both for financial reporting and asset management. The improvement eliminates duplicate information and allows users to identify and confirm critical RPI requirements. Inventory information is enhanced and the inventory processes are streamlined.

The enterprise-wide GFEBS also unifies Army budget execution, cost management, funds management and accounting—including appropriations, authorizations and performance information—allowing the Army to assess performance and costs. GFEBS will help the Army comply with the FFMIA, provide auditable financial records and gain the ability to have an unqualified audit opinion. For the first time, the Army will obtain true cost information.

Army decision-making capabilities will improve with GFEBS by reducing data inaccuracies and enhancing financial management, allowing greater visibility into the performance of operations. The centralized and standardized system will generate savings by eliminating unneeded legacy systems and manual processes, while speeding transactions. Financial efficiencies and operational benefits will make more resources available to meet Army mission needs and improve battle readiness for the warfighter.

As they collaborate to build the financial management system of the future, the Army and Accenture are delivering the results achieved by leading private sector organizations. Accenture's continuing research into the traits of high-performance businesses has determined that they rationalize, standardize and simplify IT to lower the total cost of ownership. They also collaborate with third-party organizations to extend their capabilities. By teaming with Accenture to help make its state-of-the-art financial management system a reality, the Army is achieving high performance.