Advancing the FM Vision with Action: Providing a Clearer Picture of Federal Finances Using G-Invoicing

Let’s talk about the G-Invoicing platform that is part of the FM Vision goal to strengthen federal financial reporting.

Why do we need G-invoicing? To provide a clearer picture of federal finances. G-invoicing helps improve the quality and reliability of intragovernmental buy/sell transaction data.

If two government agencies engage in a transaction and they do not record the transaction in the same year for the same amount, then the intragovernmental transactions will not match, resulting in errors in the consolidated financial statements. This happens often.

For 21 consecutive years, several long-standing material weaknesses, significant uncertainties, and other limitations have prevented the Government Accountability Office (GAO) from being able to express an opinion on the federal government’s consolidated financial statements. One major reason: the federal government’s inability to adequately account for and reconcile intragovernmental activity and balances between federal entities.

G-Invoicing addresses that problem. G-invoicing is a paperless, web-based application created to manage intragovernmental buy/sell transactions. It allows users to exchange data and set up trading agreements that will provide better accounting and reporting for all government agency partners. G-invoicing provides a federal standard and transparent access to a common data repository of brokered transactions.

The bottom line? It can result in more accurate financial reporting. Knowing what an agency borrowed, what’s owed, and when it will be paid provides a clear picture in an agency’s financial statement. That’s good for everyone, from federal financial managers to American taxpayers.

The Future of Federal Financial Management Vision sets a goal to cut buy/sell intragovernmental differences by 90% by 2022. G-invoicing is critical to reaching that goal as stated in the Treasury Financial Manual bulletin.

Who is participating now? Some agencies have already started working with G-invoicing, such as the Department of Defense, State, and Veterans Affairs, the U.S. Courts, and the Office of Personnel Management, to name a few.

According to one of our G-Invoicing partners, “G-Invoicing will enable the Administrative Resource Center (ARC) to provide its customer agencies an improved business process for the lifecycle of an intragovernmental buy-sell transaction. We expect the quality of ARC’s financial reporting to customers to improve with the enhanced communication and transparency capabilities provided by G-Invoicing.” The G-invoicing team is dedicated to making this work for all agencies.

Learn more about G-Invoicing at https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/g-invoice.

Last modified 12/07/18