Defense Dept. reworks accounting systems

The accounting arm for the United States Department of Defense said Monday that it plans to tie together more than 100 different financial management systems it uses with application integration software from WebMethods. The Defense Finance and Accounting Service, which does bookkeeping for the largest U.S. government agency, said the deal is part of an overall effort to modernize its accounting systems.

The Department of Defense has been accused of financial mismanagement by the White House Office of Management and Budget. The department has more than 1,100 different financial systems with more than 3,500 interfaces among them, according to the OMB. Those systems track various pieces of $331 billion in the Department's coffers this year.