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Every year during the ASMC PDI, the DOD Comptroller awards teams and individuals for outstanding accomplishments in financial management. This year, Amelia M. Beil, Audit Steadiness, Limestone won the 2019 Comptroller Award for Contributions to DoD Audit & Remediation Below Major Command Level.
Amelia won for her project, titled, Bringing Audit Control Language (ACL) to Limestone's Audit Forefront. When an Independent Public Accountant (IPA) identified that there wasn't a process in place to reconcile the Unadjusted Trial Balance (UTB) to the Adjusted Trial Balance (ATB) in DEAMS, which led to an increased risk of material misstatement to the Statement of Budgetary Activities (SBA), Amelia turned to ACL to develop a reconciliation to address the finding. She developed scripts to identify DEAMS data that did not contain a valid AAI so that the transactions could be identified, reversed, and processed correctly within the same accounting period. Her actions ensured that over $38 million of customer transactions were properly reflected on the correct financial statements.
"I always look at the data I have and make sure I have everything I need to get to the solution I see in the future," Beil said. "This was a little difficult because there were so many different elements in the bumps of data that I had to figure what would be the most efficient way to get the final product I was searching for. I tried a few different scenarios at first and when that worked I utilized the same script for the other scenarios," she added.
Eventually, she programmed a Universe of Transactions (UOT) query from DEAMS financial data, allowing for the break out of customer-specific financial information for audit and further financial analysis. This query allows various DEAMS customers, including Air Force General, USTRANSCOM, USSOCOM, and Air Force Medical Service, to extract and analyze their organization-specific financial data, which was previously unaccomplished due to manually intensive preparation requirements.
Her reconciliation provided a mechanism to validate the trial balance being utilized to generate the financial statements and reduced the risk of material misstatements, resulting in the closure of an Air Force network Notice of Findings and Recommendations (NFR).
Not only did Amelia's work save money, but it also saved a lot of man hours. She did this by also developing automated ACL bumps to assist Accounts Payable with identifying 8,107 Wide Area Workflow (WAWF) receipts, valued at $5.4 billion, that were manually processed in DEAMS and remained open in the DEAMS Interface, Metrics, Error Handling and Statues (DIMES). Her actions ensured that the customers United States Standard General Ledger (USSGL) 2110/4901 accounts were not overstated, and her efforts saved an estimated 2,026 hours of research time required to manually validate that each receipt had previously posted.
"Beil was part of a team that was directed to look into the condition. Her acceptance of the leadership role, as well as the way she came to the solution, through ACL which was still very new to all of us at the time, was entirely on her initiative," according to Joshua Doroen, Beil's direct supervisor, who also recommended her for the award.
Because ACL was so new to the team Amelia worked with, she took the initiative to facilitate site-wide ACL training. Her interactive training for 28 DFAS Limestone personnel in ACL programming facilitated not only the use of the tool but the planning and analysis of the requirements necessary to efficiently create queries to automate manual processes throughout the organization.
"Beil proactively and aggressively acquired the knowledge and skill sets required to progress to subject matter expert, trainer and adviser, not only within her division but for DFAS Limestone as a whole," Doroen said. "These actions demonstrate leadership from the front, a willingness to learn, master and mentor, as well as the ability to step out of established comfort zones and publicly deliver guidance, training, and advice in a public setting."
Amelia's resourcefulness and ability to innovate not only brought amazing results to DFAS but also helped advance the knowledge of fellow employees. Her actions show that she is truly deserving of this prestigious award. Congratulations, Amelia!
| Date Taken: | 05.29.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 12.28.2020 12:04 |
| Story ID: | 385878 |
| Location: | COLUMBUS, OHIO, US |
| Web Views: | 22 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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