Canadian Government Executive - Volume 24 - Issue 07

ternal control systems play a significant role in ensuring that high-quality financial information is available.” Routine and ongoing performance mon- itoring and measurement occurs in the background and complements the inter- nal control process. Timely remedial and proactive actions are taken to adjust unde- sirable variances or trends. Attributes of a Modern Reporting System A modern reporting system consists of comprehensive portfolios of core and stan- dard-format reports containing data that is relevant, focused, up-to-date, reliable, error-free and consistent – supplemented with analyses, evaluations and other infor- mation, all generally accepted as valuable by end users. Data reported is congruent with at least two important perspectives: 1. The business perspective which reflects projects>programs>strategic outcomes (SOs per program alignment architec- ture). 2. The traditional cost centre perspec- tive, complying with the Financial Ad- ministration Act (FAA). Report data is sourced from the depart- ment’s ERP system which is full, accurate and complete – a “Single Source of Truth.” Data quality is rigorously maintained using in-period transaction processing rules. At period-end there is a cycle of review, error corrections, back-dating, reconciliations, commitment management and finally stan- dard adjustments in accordance with a set of accounting principles adapted for gov- ernment. This ensures data accuracy and comparability between periods. Report production and delivery occurs automatically shortly after period-end from the ERP/BI systems, on schedule, to authorized and secure targets, and with minimal human intervention. Report layouts have ‘common look and feel’ formats. This includes unique report identification numbers as part of the inven- tory of reports within each portfolio. Re- ports identify the person who has input tex- tual comments. Standardization in format and content across all federal government report portfolios is the long-term goal. The embedded textual notes section is used by the FMA and manager to provide clarification. Forecasting assumptions and estimates are included as well as other in- formation not otherwise recorded in the ERP, such as dates of anticipated flows of funds, contract finalizations etc. Also em- bedded are FMA analyses, evaluations and recommendations for remedial and proactive actions. To facilitate the latter, calculations are included such as budget usage ratios, burn rates, averages, period comparisons, common sizing, etc. Reports have a roll-up, drill-down ca- pability to display different levels of ag- gregation depending on the needs of the manager. The highest degree of granu- larity is the general ledger accounts with links to individual transactions. Chart of Account names are customized to align with the specific business activities. Expenditures are assigned to enough gen- eral ledger accounts such that aggregation of non-homogenous expenditure types is avoided. Naming conventions for individual general ledgers facilitate easy and intuitive understanding of the expenditure. Security protocols are effective. This in- cludes an application, review and autho- rization mechanism for access. Delivery, storage and archiving are issues to be re- solved. Centralized document sharing sys- tems such as GCDoc, SharePoint, RDIMS, etc. are made secure. Each report is classi- fied per security protocols. Each month, operational managers allo- cate timewith their FMA to reviewfinancial reports and recommendations, and then to initiate remedial and proactive actions. In Summary Acquiring the data and other informa- tion is only the beginning of the decision- making process. The real value-add is the analysis, evaluation, recommendations and ensuing optimal choice among many possible actions. Good financial and statistical informa- tion, easily accessible and well used will have positive tactical and strategic impacts on the key concepts of efficiency, effective- ness, economy, transparency, accountabil- ity and compliance. Federal government managers, central agencies, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, parliamentary committees and parliamentarians will all benefit from an up-to-date, common, reliable, consistent, accurate, timely, full and complete picture of the financial state of their organization within the Government of Canada. Managers especially will leverage the enormous potential of government’s multi-million-dollar information systems and the immense value of good informa- tion enabling informed and effective deci- sions and better outcomes. References: 1. Department of Finance Canada. 2. Organizations of all sizes and types will often succeed or fail on the quality of their decision- making’, Dr. Jon Warner, CEO RX4 Group. 3. TBS document ‘Financial Man- agement Transformation’ dated November 22, 2016, GCDOCS #22991927 4. The Policy on Financial Manage- ment (April 01, 2017) 3.2.3 5. Standard on Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (May 01, 2012) 6. A Dozen Things I’ve Learned from Jim Barksdale and “Barksda- leisms” 7. Implementing Centralized Re- porting using SAP Analytics 2016 ASUG Annual Conference. Kerry Dunn is a Chartered Profes- sional Accountant (CPA, CMA) with over 25 years’ experience in public and private sector financial management. He has private sector experience in cor- porate management in the credit union industry, including full-cycle account- ing and audited financial statements. In public sector, he worked in nine federal government departments in resource management, reporting, project costing, cost recovery and financial policy, in an SAP ECC6 environment. He is currently a Senior Financial Management Advisor at Dunnco Management Corporation. February/March 2019// Canadian Government Executive / 11 FINANCIAL Good financial and statistical information, easily accessible and well used will have positive tactical and strategic impacts on the key concepts of efficiency, effectiveness, economy, transparency, accountability and compliance.