WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF CAMS?

The initiative to create a Commerce Administrative Management System (CAMS) began in 1990 for the purpose of instituting a standard financial and administrative management system for the Department of Commerce.  This CAMS effort was intended to address the audit compliance and information assurance standards detailed in the U.S. Chief Financial Officer’s Act of 1990.  Though there were previous efforts to standardize Commerce administrative systems, the process was accelerated when the Department’s numerous accounting systems began presenting major barriers to compliance with various federal mandates (e.g. JFMIP, FFMIA, FMFIA) and other directives.  The mission to oversee the development and implementation of such a system was given to the CAMS Steering Committee in 1992 by the Chief Financial Office/ Assistant Secretary for Administration of the DOC.  This is also the year that the CAMS Support Center (CSC) was established. 

Award

In May 1994, the Department published its ‘CAMS Request for Proposals” which included detailed requirements for the CAMS software.  Once proposals from vendors were received in the late summer of 1994, representatives from the major Commerce bureaus participated in extensive functional and technical demonstrations of the proposed software packages.  At the conclusion of this process, the Department selected the Accenture implementation team with REL-TEK System & Design Inc.’s Federal Financial Management System as the software vendor.  As part of the award, REL-TEK agreed to make over 60 modifications to their FFMS package to meet needs identified by Commerce’s Technical Evaluation Panel.

Early Years

The Department initially intended the scope of the CAMS effort to include a Core Financial System (Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, General Ledger, Budget Execution, and Cost Management) along with a host of subsidiary systems including: Procurement, Property, Travel, Grants, Labor, and Bankcard.  In addition, the Department began concurrent implementation efforts at NIST, Census, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – with each bureau identifying their “As Is” and “To Be” business processes with the new CAMS software. 

NIST was originally targeted to be the first bureau to implement the CAMS system in the fall of 1995.  In preparation for the NIST implementation, the team encountered several problems with the REL-TEK software.   Though the CSC was working with REL-TEK to correct the issues with the system, the problems that were encountered were adversely impacting the implementation effort.  The Department took action on two fronts.  First, they assumed responsibility for maintenance of the software through the CAMS Support Center.  Next, they defined the scope of the software that the Department would require each bureau to implement as “Core CAMS” – which consisted of the Core Financial System (CFS) along with Labor, Procurement, and Bankcard.

Census Pilot

Census, in order to be ready for the 2000 Decennial Census, had the most urgent need for the new system and during the summer of 1996, agreed to replace NIST as the pilot bureau.  The initial problems with the REL-TEK software were corrected, and the CFS was subsequently implemented at Census. 

The implementation efforts at Census included:

• No-Match Invoices in December 1997
• Matched Documents in February 1998
• Integration/Interfaces with Various Feeder Systems:
• Commerce Purchase Card System - May 1998
• Commerce Small Purchases System - May 1998
• Express Small Package System - December 1998
• Travel Management Information System - January 1999

At the conclusion of the Census Pilot, the Department asked an Independent Validation and Verification (IV&V) vendor to assess both the Pilot results and the viability of the software to support implementation at the remaining bureaus.  The IV&V evaluation indicated that the software was as good a fit for Commerce as any other commercially available package and that it should proceed with planned future implementations, first at NOAA and then at NIST.

In the summer of 1997, NOAA implemented the Budget Execution and General Ledger modules of CFS along with No-Match Accounts Payable document types. NOAA has since implemented numerous interfaces that link to external systems.  In some cases, CFS acts as a feeder system to the external system, while in other cases the external system provides source data to CFS.

Further implementation efforts at NOAA include:  

• Express Small Package System Interface in January 1997
• Integrated Travel Manager in January 1998
• Government Travel Account (SATO) Interface in October 1998
• Commerce Small Purchases System in May 1999
• Matched Invoices in June 1999
• NFC Labor Interface in August 2001
• Budget, Cost Allocation, and Data Warehouse Pilot in October 2001
• Grants Implementation and Conversion in May 2002
• Accounts Receivable Implementation and Conversion in June 2002
• Final Conversion in October 2002

In September of 1998, the Economic Development Administration (EDA) implemented the Accounts Payable, General Ledger, and Accounts Receivable modules of CAMS to support their Grants obligation and payment processes.

Current NIST Implementation

The current implementation effort at NIST, which began in June 2000, consists of three phases. The first two phases of the implementation are complete.  During Phases I and II, CAMS was fully implemented at the NIST customer bureaus, agencies where the DCFO provides accounting services.       

The Phase I implementation was successfully completed in October 2000 for the Office of the Secretary (OS), including the Office of Computer Services (Franchise Fund), and the Office of Inspector General (OIG). 

The Phase II implementation effort was successfully completed in June 2001 for the Economic Development Administration (EDA), the Economics and Statistics Administration (ESA), the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), and the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA). 

NIST was the first to implement all modules of CFS simultaneously.  All legacy systems were removed once CFS was implemented, and CFS is now the accounting system of record for all of the above named bureaus.  The CAMS Implementation Team continues to provide production support to these customer bureaus.  The current phase of implementation is the Phase III effort.