A key focus of the President's Management Agenda is improving agency financial operations by standardizing the process for the acquisition of goods and services between Federal Government agencies. This will facilitate the reconciliation and elimination processes associated with financial reporting and help to obtain unqualified audit opinions throughout the Federal Government. One common Government-wide initiative to meet this goal is to streamline and improve the process and management of intra-governmental agreements and transactions, such as reimbursable agreements and payments for items of service such as space, printing, aircraft safety, etc., that are provided by other governmental entities. As a major step toward streamlining and improving the process, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) formed a team to begin a Federal E-Government project called the Intra-Governmental Transaction Portal.

In July 2004, all federal agencies will be required to electronically send all Information Technology and Rent interagency agreements and bill documents through IGTP for obligation, billing approval and IPAC (Intra-Governmental Payment and Collection) billing. In preparation for a successful July 2004 implementation of IGTP, several agencies were requested to participate in an October 1, 2003 full pilot implementation.

The National Business Center and the U.S. Geological Survey have agreed to be agency participants in the pilot for Information Technology (IT) intra-governmental transactions. The USGS is participating as the "buyer" agency sending IT obligating/interagency agreement documents to the IGT Portal and the NBC is participating as the "seller" agency sending IT billing documents to the Portal. There are approximately ten FY 2004 interagency agreements between the NBC and USGS that will serve as the full pilot implementation.

The other participants in the full pilot implementation are the Public Building Service of GSA partnering with the Patent and Trademark Office of Commerce and the National Science Foundation who are sending rent intra-governmental agreements and transactions through the IGT Portal.

The NBC IGT team that has been preparing for the full pilot implementation consists of members of the customer agreement team, FFS experts, the E-Applications group and staff from the finance and billing areas. Team members are,Julie Bond, Vickie Borden, Joan Butterfield, Bob Edwards, Kelley Gee, Joan Kimmel-Frantz, Maurice McDonald, Wanda Oeser, Sue Stephens, and Sharon Williams. The team has been working with their USGS peers to develop or modify interfaces between our existing back office systems and the new Portal.

The NBC Customer Agreements System that was implemented during the third quarter of FY 2003 serves as the springboard for our input to the IGT Portal. With only a few additions, all of the information required by the Portal is contained in the Customer Agreement System and Federal Financial System. It is anticipated that changes to the billing system will actually streamline the process, facilitating full implementation of IGT by FY05.

The expertise gained by the NBC's involvement in the IGT Full Implementation Pilot can help our clients as they transition to the new Federal requirements. It also shows perspective clients that NBC is a leading innovator in E-government solutions, which serves as another selling point for convincing other Federal agencies why they should select the NBC as their cross service provider. Thanks to the NBC IGT team.

For more information

Vickie Borden

Vickie_L_Borden@nbc.gov