DBM launches gov’t financial management system platform

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) on Wednesday the launched the financial management information system platform to promote transparency, accountability, and efficiency among national government agencies.

The DBM in partnership with Globe Telecom and financial management software provider FreeBalance Inc. launched the Budget and Treasury Management System (BTMS) in Manila.

BTMS is an integrated and fully-automated platform for a sustainable Government Resource Planning (GRP) solution that is extensible, flexible and adaptable to reforms as well as suits a wide range of public financial requirements, according to the DBM.

The new system was piloted by DBM and the Bureau of Treasury (BTr) as both oversight and spending agencies, while the Commission on Audit will have special access to support its  auditing functions.

The system will be rolled out to all national government agencies within the next year, the DBM said.

“With the implementation of BTMS, we will revolutionize the way we do things and will further improve our ability to deliver public service,” Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said.

“The effective use of modern technology will strengthen our fiscal responsibility as it would allow us to keep an eye on the government financial status real time. We also believe that an improved and harmonized government financial process will provide more reliable and timely financial information leading to sound policy decision-making for executives,” Diokno said.

The BTMS project was awarded to the joint venture between Globe—through subsidiary Innove Communications—and FreeBalance Inc., a Canadian developer of software solutions for public financial management.

Globe provided the infrastructure while FreeBalance developed the software, based on globally-accepted solutions but configured and customized for the Philippine government.

The DBM said BTMS supports the department in terms of maintenance and complete trail of budget appropriations and balances for each national agency. It supports high-level aggregation of processes relating to collection, handling, and use of cash resources by the Bureau of Treasury.

For years, the government has been dealing with processing financial transactions manually while fiscal agencies utilize numerous stand-alone systems to generate financial information,” Diokno said.

“This situation resulted in lack of budget credibility, lack of funding predictability, weak cash management system, and absence of a common budgetary and accounting classification, according to the 2016 Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) Assessment,” he said.

The World Bank has noted the country’s public financial management would be more efficient with the existence of an integrated financial management system that will provide a more accurate view of the government’s financial performance and management of public funds. —VDS, GMA News