Office of the New York State Comptroller - Thomas P. DiNapoli

Future of the Central Accounting System
Bureau of State Financial Systems

FOCAS Project Overview

The FOCAS Project is the State Comptroller's initiative to replace the New York State Central Accounting System (CAS). The CAS is the center for financial activity in New York and the backbone of New York State's financial structure. However, the CAS is well over 20 years old and the technology that it is built on cannot meet the challenges of today or the future. The new CAS will be designed to meet today's business needs and tomorrow's business challenges. The FOCAS Team and its stakeholders are working to design and implement a new Central Accounting System (CAS) for New York State.

The Problem

The CAS is twenty-five years old and, at best, can last another 2 to 3 years - system failure would have a catastrophic impact on OSC and State Agency financial management.

The system meets only 55-60% of OSC’s operational requirements
Although CAS has a limited payee file, it lacks a statewide vendor master file that would help eliminate duplicate vendor payments, provide better vendor payment histories, and facilitate e-commerce initiatives
The CAS does not efficiently process and report revenues and cash receipts
The CAS lacks the ability to link payees to charges on multi-payee vouchers and has an awkward check replacement process
The CAS has limited reporting capabilities, causing agencies to build or purchase their own Financial Management Systems (FMS)
The current CAS has failed to meet the expanding financial management needs of State Agencies, forcing many State Agencies and areas within OSC to implement or develop “shadow systems” to perform specialized functions that cannot be supported by the current CAS
Most of the Home Grown FMS systems, as well as the Department of Corrections systems, that provide FMS subscription services to agencies, are aging mainframe based systems that use character based-user interfaces, rely on outdated System Network Architecture (SNA) network communications, and lack workflow and other collaborative technologies

Project Goals

The FOCAS Project will provide advanced functionality and technology to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of financial processes in the Office of the State Comptroller (OSC), and efficiently integrate with systems from other operating and control agencies resulting in:

Cost savings
Increased efficiency (i.e., reduction in cycle times)
Elimination of costly workarounds
Elimination of redundant systems and data
Stronger financial controls
Implementation of best practices
Reduction or elimination of paper

FOCAS Solution

Prior to initiating the project, Maximus, Inc. was contracted to help OSC identify and assess alternatives, and to assist in determining the scope and overall business strategy for the CAS replacement. FOCAS will implement the following recommendations that were included in that Business Strategy:

Acquire and implement a Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software
Business transformation (Business Process Reengineering) to minimize initial and future costs of excessive software customizations
Separate Agency Financial Management System (FMS) initiative to be led by the Division of the Budget (DOB) in partnership with FOCAS

Benefits to New York State

Improved investment returns through timely and accurate monitoring of cash balances, cash flow forecasting, and timing of disbursements
Automatic accounting for cash and accrual basis transactions
Statewide financial analysis capability based on an improved chart of accounts structure
Improved compliance with and enforcement of IRS regulations
Enhanced financial reporting capabilities and facilitated access by outside auditors to underlying accounting transactions
Timely Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) preparation with reduced workload
Enhanced e-government capabilities
Leveraged investment of OSC’s recently upgraded state-of-the-art infrastructure
Continuous software product improvement
Improved interfaces with the OSC PeopleSoft payroll system

Benefits to State Agencies

Access to a common vendor file resulting in reduced costs through volume buying discounts, improved management of vendor agreements, assessment of a vendor’s legal capacity to do business with New York State, reduction in fraudulent claims, and an improved contract negotiating position.
Ability to track and perform trend analysis of transactions by various parameters (e.g. geographic location, type of industry)
Vendor web access to payment status
Improved cash management and internal controls through automated interfaces with banking systems
Workflow that provides on-line collaborative business processing

CAS Statistics