NASA Procedural Requirements

NPR 9130.1A Effective Date: July 08, 2021 Expiration Date: July 08, 2026

Subject: NASA Financial Information Systems

Responsible Office: Office of the Chief Financial Officer

Appendix A. Definitions

Business Process. A business process is a collection of activities that takes one or more types of input and creates an output that is of value to the customer.

Business Process Owner. The business process owner is responsible for conducting the business that a financial management system supports. A key business process owner understands, in detail, activities, stakeholder requirements, performance needs, work requirements, and other business processes related to a business function for which they are responsible. A business process owner is a decision maker for the use and management of a system, which supports a business function for which they are responsible.

Business Warehouse. The Business Warehouse is a Web-based reporting tool that enables Agency-wide data analysis from the Agency core financial system and other business applications.

Core Financial System. This system forms the backbone for NASA’s integrated financial management system. It provides common processing routines, supports common data for critical financial management functions affecting NASA and maintains the required financial data integrity control over financial transactions, resource balances, and other financial systems. The core financial system supports general ledger management, funds management, payment management, receipt management, and cost management. The system receives data from other financial systems and from direct user input, and it provides data for financial performance measurement and analysis and for financial statement preparation. The core financial system provides NASA’s OCFO with a comprehensive enterprise resource planning (ERP) and financial management system. The core financial system is used to provide a centralized accounting and budgeting structure for transaction entries, reporting, and decision making. The core financial system functions include:

• General Ledger Management is the central function of the core financial system. The general ledger is the highest level of summarization and will maintain account balances by the accounting classification elements established in the core financial system management function. It systematizes the accounting business function for the CFO.
• Funds Management is the function to ensure that NASA does not obligate or disburse funds in excess of those appropriated, apportioned, or allotted. It systematizes the budget execution business function for the CFO.
• Payment Management is the function that provides appropriate control over all payments made by or on behalf of NASA.
• Receivable Management is the function that supports activities for recognizing and recording debts due to NASA or other components of the Government, performing follow-up actions to collect on these debts, and recording cash receipts.
• Cost Management is the function that measures the total cost and revenue of NASA programs and their various elements, activities, and outputs.
• Reporting provides financial information for many uses. NASA uses financial reports to help manage programs, prepare and monitor budgets, provide a basis for decision making, and meet requirements for internal and external reporting requirements.
• Systems Management ensures that the capabilities exist to capture, classify, process, and report the financial activity of Federal agencies. NASA financial systems architecture will comply with the Federal Financial Management Systems Requirements.

Feeder System. A feeder system is an independent information system that transmits data to another system via an interface.

Financial Management System. A financial management system includes the overall financial operation, reflecting the people, processes, and technology to capture, classify, summarize, and report data in a meaningful manner to support business decisions. It includes hardware and system software applications, personnel, procedures, data, and reporting functions. The financial management system can be fully integrated with other management information systems (i.e., mixed systems) where transactions automatically interface with the accounting general ledger.

Financial System. The financial system is an information system or set of applications that comprise the accounting portion of the financial management system that maintains all summary or detailed transactions resulting from budgetary and proprietary financial activity. The financial system encompasses processes and records that:

• Identify and record all valid transactions.
• Provide timely transactions in sufficient detail to permit proper classification of transactions for financial reporting.
• Measure the value of transactions in a manner that permits recording their proper monetary value in the financial statements.
• Determine the time period in which transactions occurred to permit recording of transactions in the proper accounting period.

Information System. The organized collection, processing, transmission, and dissemination of information in accordance with defined procedures, whether automated or manual. Information systems include non-financial, financial, and mixed systems.

Integrated System. A system in which separate programs perform separate functions with communication and data-passing between functional programs performing standardized I/O routines and a common database. Such systems allow flexibility in addition/revision/deletion of various processing functions without disrupting the entire system.

Mixed System. A mixed system is a hybrid of financial and non-financial portions of the overall financial management system. Examples of mixed systems are payment and invoice systems, procurement systems, receivable systems, loan systems, grants systems, payroll systems, budget formulation systems, billing systems, property management systems, travel systems, or other mission operational systems that impact a financial system.

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