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The customers we talked to have narrow expectations of what DFAS accounting can do for them. ”2 These customers are skeptical of a GAO argument that DFAS must take a leadership role with respect to measures like the CFO Act. Instead, they _________________ 2 One customer suggested DFAS can never truly serve as a “trusted accountant” in that DFAS reports to the OSD comptroller and that the interests of a given DoD customer and those of the comptroller may be in conflict. 26 view DFAS as a service provider that should do what its customers request.

Financial accounting is defined as “measuring and recording business transactions and providing financial statements that are based on generally accepted accounting principles. ) The object of financial accounting is to assist accountants in their stewardship function: the safeguarding of the organization’s assets. The central outputs of financial 40 accounting are audited financial statements such as balance sheets and income statements. , prospective shareholders. By contrast, managerial accounting “measures and reports financial and nonfinancial information that helps managers make decisions to fulfill the goals of an organization.

S. General Accounting Office, March 1997). DFAS leaders suggested that the impending replacement of the MOCAS system in Columbus and the implementation of DFAS’s Corporate Database should lead to marked reductions in the NULO and UMD balances. 4 Their most destructive effect, instead, appears to be to muddle customers’ true patterns of obligation and disbursement. For that reason, they encumber the efforts of WCF entities to manage themselves. DFAS Systems Problems DFAS accounting illustrates systems development and implementation problems DFAS faces across both accounting and finance.