Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, Executive Yuan, R.O.C.

1. Introduction

Because of increasing demand, the Information Management Center (the Center) has gradually converted the Budget and Accounting Information System from mainframe to a LAN based system since 1998. Later on the Center developed a new “DGBAS Budget and Accounting Information Management System”-using Internet to receive budget and accounting information from various Government Agencies, State-owned Enterprises and Nonprofit Funds. The system checks received data for error and writes into central database, prints Budget, Financial Statement and monthly reports and provides necessary information for the Internet.

 

2. The System Function

This system has covered all government agencies, State-owned Enterprises and Nonprofit Funds. The system functions include budget Preliminary examine, budget compilation, monthly reports compilation, Semi-annual balance sheet compilation and annual General Financial Statement compilation.
The overall system planning was conducted in 1998. The first phase was completed and became available in 2000, offering the State-owned Enterprises budget preparation and distribution functions. The second phase was started from 2001.  The overall system has been improved continuously for last couple of years. The functional structure of the system as shown in Figure 1

 

 

2.1. Phase one system function
The system allows computerized data transfer and error check of government agencies and state-owned enterprises monthly budget and accounting information, compile financial statement, budget execution, etc. External agencies could upload files through Internet to a general area.  Various units of DGBAS will transfer data to their own systems for error check then combine with the main Budget and Accounting information management database.  The information and the database will print reports on demand.
2.2 Phase two system function
Focus on Nonprofit Funds and system wide improvement to include Semi-annual Balance Sheet.  The second phase utilized eBas front end for external agencies to upload budget and accounting information.  The uploaded files are located in a general area of the main server.  Various units of DGBAS will transfer those files to their own systems.  After error check, information in the files will be combined with the main database for data analysis and report printing purpose.

 

3. Advantages of the system

Instead of manually key in data, this system allow external agencies to transfer data through Internet.  It’s more accurate and expedites the data management for budget and accounting system.  The following are the benefits of this system:

3.1. Reduce time necessary of collecting budget and accounting data, improve the efficiency of the data management

Information from external agencies for budget and accounting purpose were tremendous. It was very time consuming for various agencies to generate hardcopies data and for the Accounting Management Center to manually key in the data into the database.  It is more efficient for direct data transfer and to monitor the status of the transfer.  To follow up the progress and timely submitting accounting data by various agencies became very easily online.

3.2 Simplify data flow; and to improve accuracy

With build-in error check, the accuracy of external data will be examined before incorporated into main database.  Data input automation not only guarantee error-free data but also reduce the manpower requirements.

3.3. Integrate DGBAS office’s computerized system for easier information share

The system integrated Budget and Accounting information. On the business side, it covers both Government Agencies and Special Foundations. On the function side, it includes budget Preliminary examine, budget compilation, monthly reports compilation, Semi-annual balance sheet compilation and annual General Financial Statement compilation. The system can generate web-format document of budget and accounting reports and publish to the web for internal and public use.

3.4. Consolidate hardware requirement and system environment, better utilize and share resources

The second phase of the project was developed by the Center and integrated with eBas website. This project has saved lots of money by utilizing existing system resources.

 

4. Future Prospects

This system will work in sync with First Department, Second Department and The Accounting Management Center of this office on their future computerizing/automation requirements.  With the latest information technologies, the Center will continuous improve the system function to cover basic and expansion needs of various departments within the organization in the future.