Challenges of Modernizing FMIS

Posted by Nicolas Botton[1]

Under pressure for fiscal consolidation, supranational directives, or merely the need to better allocate resources and manage cash, many governments around the world are trying to extract more information out of their Financial Management Information Systems (FMIS). Governments often use different systems for different purposes – budget execution, payroll management, cash and debt management, revenue collection, public procurement, and so on – using different technologies and processes, in different administrative and geographic locations. But modern financial management puts a premium on the efficient exchange of information, and for systems to communicate with each other – to use an unlovely technical term “interoperability”. Very often, the evolutions are impeded by the fragmentation of the data[2] Getting an across-the-board view and producing up-to-date analytical information on public finances is therefore a considerable challenge. What kind of solutions can be found?