Central Budget Management System (CBMS) Redevelopment

Project Drivers

The Government's program of reforms for financial accountability and transparency (Operation Sunlight following on from the Murray Review), together with its need to be more responsive with fiscal policy to meet challenges in a changing economic environment culminated in the need for a flexible and efficient system that captures data by program and ensures financial and budget information is relevant and reliable.

Benefits

The redeveloped CBMS will yield considerable benefits including:

• More timely financial and budgetary information - access to up to date data
• More reliable information to assist decision making - trusted financial data
• Improved system useability, availability, security
• Reduced risk to Finance - system has an upgrade path for the future
• More efficient / effective use of resources involved in the budget process - reduced manual manipulation, automated and more efficient data entry process.

Project Principles

The following key principles have guided decisions to ensure the Project remains within the scope approved in the Business Case:

• Core Functionality is the Priority
  The system has been designed to deliver functionality required to support collection, processing and provision of information related to Commonwealth financial management.
• Single Authoritative Source of Data
  One data store and additional reporting capability will enable all relevant financial data published in the Budget Papers to be sourced from the system.
• COTS Solution
  The CBMS solution is an integrated suite of SAP software products that require minimal customisation allowing for an upgrade path into the future.
• A Minimum Data Set
  The CBMS solution uses a common, simplified and program-centric data set across all modules to allow for comparability.

Key Changes

The following key changes will be introduced:

• Program Centricity
• Minimum Data Set
• Simplified Chart of Accounts
• Derived Cash Flow Model

For more information see FAQS

Who is impacted by the Redevelopment Project?

The Project has identified 205 Government Agencies who will use the redeveloped CBMS. These agencies are from across the General Government Sector (GGS), Public Financial Corporations (PFCs) and the Public Non-Financial Corporation's (PNFCs).

Status

The Project is now in the Realisation Phase which will see the Solution being built, configured and tested.

Training and Support

End users will receive the appropriate training, education and user support to ensure they have the proficiency and understanding to use the System without any disruptions to business as usual (BAU) work.

The training solution will comprise a mixture of instructor led training, e-learning and user support material and will they type of training will depend upon the complexities of the module.

Implementation

Implementation of the redeveloped CBMS will not commence until the entire system is integrated, production ready and all testing has been completed. A detailed Cutover Plan outlining options for the implementation approach is currently being developed. This plan will take into consideration a number of factors including: Key dates and milestones in the Budget Cycle; the 2013 Federal Election; and potential Machinery of Government changes.