CFOB Newsletters

CFOBrief. Not just a number.

July 2020 Edition

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Budget managers – the 2020-21 suite of financial management guidance is now available online!

To assist with departmental managers' financial responsibilities and accountabilities, the financial management documentation suite for 2020-2021 is now available in our iService Catalogue! These documents provide important information for forecasting and budget management. We invite you to consult:

Should you have any questions, your Financial Management Advisor would be happy to assist.

Continuing to build on the 2018/19 CFOB Service Standard results, we are happy to share the results for the fourth quarter of 2019-2020.

Below are a few interesting highlights from this quarter:

  • The number of Individual Designated Travel Cards that were either issued, replaced or cancelled has increased 13% from last fiscal year to the 2019-20 fiscal year. Approximately 99% of the requests this fiscal year were processed within 10 business days of receipt of required documentation and approvals.
  • There has been a 10% year-over-year increase in the number of tenant service requests. Throughout the 2019-20 fiscal year, an average of 91% of the requests were assigned and the client notified of responsible contact within 2 business days of receipt, which is a slight decrease from the 2018-19 average of 93%.
  • A 97% service standard was achieved for Project Management Information Solution general requests that were sent to the Enterprise Project Management Office (EPMO) Mailbox and handled at Tier 1 level within 2 business days; however, the volume of requests in Q4 was 71% lower than the previous quarter.
  • There has been a 39% year-over-year increase in the number of system access requests for DARS, SPS and IRIS. The service standard rate remained consistent between fiscal years with 96% of these requests continuing to be completed within 5 business days of receipt of all required documentation and approvals.
  • There has been a 34% decrease in DARS - Write-off and ISP Remissions when comparing this fiscal year to 2018-19; all while maintaining an average 99% service standard rate throughout the 2019-20 fiscal year.

As we review and post results for each quarter, our goal is to continuously improve the information shared.

DARS Replacement Project – New Launch Date

Due to the COVID-19 crisis, the replacement of DARS and implementation of SAP-PSCD that was scheduled for April 6th, 2020 is postponed to allow for stakeholders to prioritize the programs that support Canadians.

Over the past few months, the DARS Replacement Project has been working hard on re-planning towards the new Go Live date of April 2021. While a year delay does seem like a long time, for a project as large and complex as DRP we require months to fix current defects, enhance the solution to meet new requirements due to the current pandemic situation and then retest the solution with all of our business partners, in addition to respecting the influx of new departmental workloads.

All the solution scope that was to be included in this past April release is still in scope along with the following:

  • The priority is to enhance PSCD to handle the new programs and overpayments that will come out of the COVID 19 crisis;
  • Fix high priority existing defects in PSCD that were discovered during testing; and thirdly
  • Make limited number of enhancements highlighted by our partners to improve the operation use of the system.

The implementation of the SAP Public Sector Collection and Disbursement (PSCD) module is still our primary goal, as it has been developed to meet the current and future needs of ESDC and CRA in managing program overpayments, defaulted loans, fraud and collections. While we will need to wait a bit longer to see this system implemented, you can expect to see many benefits with the new solution:

  • Reduce risks caused by aging technology
  • Increase in overpayments and importance of having a robust solution to manage them
  • Improved user experience, more efficient use of departmental resources and better integration with partner systems
  • More accurate financial reporting

We will continue to need support with testing, stakeholder engagement, training and governance, however we understand the Department's new reality with capacity and service prioritization, and we will aim to limit our impact on your resources and engage virtually wherever possible to ensure our employees safety.

The DARS Replacement Project is excited to bring the new SAP PSCD solution online in April 2021.