Why do you need to know about this new project? If you have any responsibilities in these areas, your work will be streamlined. You will have one menu to access the tasks you need to accomplish in your job - one place for entry of information, monitoring of work-in-progress, obtaining history and reporting information, and getting definitive financial and management information.

The majority of the current administrative systems that support the budgeting, procurement, property management, and financial accounting of these assets are over 15 years old and outdated.

In 1995, the Office of Finance (OF) decided that a technological solution was required to implement a more cost effective, scalable, streamlined business process. After years of analyses, user meetings with all the major Customs offices, and budget and requirements planning, SAP’s R/3 Enterprise Resource Planning software was selected in September 1999.

Founded in 1972, SAP (translated from German as Systems Applications & Products in Data Processing) is the world's largest inter-enterprise software company, and the world’s third-largest independent software supplier. Customs plans to implement integrated modules of R/3 to replace dozens of software systems, databases, and spreadsheets.

"SAP will allow Customs to operate like a business," says Jo Cohen, Acting Assistant Commissioner, Office of Finance. "It will integrate all our financial and business performance information and management processes so we can make effective, strategic decisions. It will also streamline the financial supply chain so everyone is not inputting the same data into different systems."

The first release, scheduled to go live in April 2002, will automate the real property management of more than 1500 Customs facilities. In the future, Release 2 will fully automate the procurement and personal property functions and will replace CLAS (Customs Logistics Automated System), ARRS (Automated Receiving Report System), and PIMS (Property Information Management System). Release 3 will replace the current accounting and general ledger modules in AIMS (Asset Information Management System).

The system will facilitate electronic procurement, paperless processing, one-time entry of data, real-time access to data, ease in reporting, and streamlined compliance with government requirements (public laws including the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act and the Government Performance and Results Act, OMB Circulars, regulations, Treasury manuals, government accounting standards, etc.).

Workflow (automated routing and approvals), security, and reporting are built into the SAP R/3 software. Time spent doing manual reconciliation and reporting will be drastically reduced. These benefits will enable Customs to better meet our strategic plan and President Bush’s management initiatives, which include improved financial management.

Project directors who worked on the SAP project are: Jo Cohen, Acting Assistant Commissioner, Office of Finance Tom Garrison, Director, Financial Systems Division, Office of Finance Rod MacDonald, Chief, Management Systems Branch, Software Development Division, Office of Information and Technology Team Leaders are: Office of Finance Judy Coleman, Property Jim Mich, Procurement and Change Management Cindy Tutrow, Financial Systems Office of Information and Technology Talbort Tabor, Security Mario Travi, Application Development