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I tend to agree with Don. Specific accounting codes are needed by certain agencies in order for that agency to know what is occurring within itself. If all the codes are the same, out the window goes the internal agency checks and balances, just for the sake of commonizing all accounting systems. I have heard for years that a loan-is-a-loan-is-a-loan BUT there are DIFFERENCES and in those differences is the devil which must be audited.

Iggy  | Wednesday, August 22, 2007 |  10:33 AM

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Common accounting is a standard and basic fundamental principle of accounting. I left the federal government after managing accounting for two federal agencies with horrible accounting practices. The "checks and balances" of existing government accounting are wasteful and inefficient by design. The GSA must homogenize government accounting to bring accountability to government. This issue shouldn’t include personal political views; it is about better government. If the agencies were private entities, they would be bankrupt!

Patrick  | Wednesday, August 22, 2007 |  10:07 AM

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Maybe we should have GSA account for the 100 million dollars lost on the GSA SAP conversion project, last year. Their house needs to get in order first!

JoJo  | Thursday, August 16, 2007 |  12:17 PM

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I disagree with Don. The need for a common accounting classification system is manifestly obvious. Much of the difficulty in tracking and reporting obligations and expenditures has to do with the crosswalk between agencies. The imposition of standard accounting classifications will allow external reviewers and auditors to see areas where the government could achieve better savings by imposing or increasing economic ordering quantities. It will also serve to meet the President's Management Agenda in regards to transparency in reporting agency financial status. Finally, I disagree with Don becaise he appears to want to substitute software and systems for integrity,ethics, and good financial management. The answer to fraud, waste, and abuse is transparency in reporting, ethics in management and contracting, and integrity in the review process. The new accounting classifications will facilitate that goal.

Concerned citizen  | Saturday, August 11, 2007 |  10:48 AM

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This is a real problem stemming from a basic lack of understanding by the recent generation of MBA's running several agencies and stacked into the current administration's ranks. The problem with standardizing and common-izing all accounting systems is that it destroys checks and balances. If all the systems are the same and have the same controls, they will make the same errors, allow the same waste, fraud, and abuse, and fail to find the same problems. The president made the same mistake with his extension of presidential power into the scope of the legislative and judicial branches. With fewer checks and balances, and all the fish swimming in the same direction at the same speed, in the same formation...how will anyone notice when things go off course. This is a good idea only in the head of some efficiency planner. When effectiveness and integrity come into the picture, this push by GSA is bad on paper, and where the rubber meets the road.

Don  | Friday, August 10, 2007 |  01:13 PM

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