The Department Needs to Improve Oversight to Ensure the Success of Its Financial System Modernization

We audited the Department’s progress in managing and implementing the Business Applications Solution (BAS) program. BAS is an enterprise financial system that will modernize the Department’s aging and disparate systems. We found that although the program prepared for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) operational transition to BAS, (1) the Department has not established the program’s baselines and does not adequately oversee the program’s cost and schedule performance; (2) the program does not have adequate cost and schedule management controls; and (3) the Department should capture the lessons it learned from implementing BAS at NOAA and apply them to upcoming implementations at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Census Bureau.