Contending with insurgents in foreign countries may prove to be a more manageable task for the Department of Defense than balancing its books.

 

Since 2003, the Pentagon has spent more than $2.6 billion on a new accounting system for the armed services. The software was intended to replace the more than 2,000 separate, often archaic, systems currently in use that have left defense and other auditors unable to account for billions of dollars in appropriations over the years.

 

But the new system has serious problems, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), including “an inability to generate auditable financial reports, and the need for manual workarounds.”

 

In the case of the U.S. Army, two-thirds of its financial data still needs to be entered manually into the software, and accountants are having to “cut and paste data into spreadsheets and other software so they can create needed reports,” according to iWatch News.

 

Similar problems exist for the Navy and Air Force. All three branches face a mandatory deadline of 2017 to produce auditable financial statements. Both the Navy and the Air Force have already warned that they may not be able to meet the deadline even though it is five years away.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Billions of Dollars and Where Has It Gotten Them? (by R. Jeffrey Smith. iWatch News)

The Black Hole of Improper Payments (by Aaron Mehta, iWatch News)

Navy Accounting Remains in Shambles (By Alexandra Duszak, iWatch News)

Air Force at Risk of Missing Financial Audit Deadline (Federal News Radio)