Photo By Mark Orders-Woempner | Col. Kevin D. Pierce, U.S. Army Financial Management Command chief of staff, asks...... read more read more
Transforming to meet the needs of the Army, the U.S. Army Financial Management Command changed the way it prepares Army financial and comptroller units set to deploy.
In that effort, USAFMCOM hosted more than sixty Soldiers and federal civilian employees from around the Army and Department of Defense for its semi-annual Theater Finance Support Update at the Maj. Gen. Emmett J. Bean Federal Center in Indianapolis April 30 to May 1.
“Originally, with the old Theater Orientation Conference, we would focus on one specific unit, but we have 14 units on the patch chart who are tasked to deploy at any given time,” said Sgt. Maj. Julie Harris, USAFMCOM Operations senior enlisted advisor. “So, we decided to reformat the TOC into the TFSU and invite all the units tasked to potentially deploy.”
The newly formatted TFSU focused on synchronization, data sharing, best practices and coordination for finance and comptroller units rotating into the U.S. Central Command and European Command Areas of Responsibility.
“This is their chance to put faces to the names of all the people at USAFMCOM and [the Defense Finance and Accounting Service], so if they have questions downrange, they know who to reach out to with questions,” added Harris. “And, it allows all the smart people at USAFMCOM and DFAS to provide the right answers from the start so our Soldiers down range aren’t guessing, which allows us to better serve the Soldiers who are deployed.”
This TFSU covered the topics of theater entitlements, accounting and disbursing in theater, eCommerce, and a status update on the standing up of USAFMCOM's 45th Finance Center as the Army's Financial Management Center.
Joining in the discussions were USAFMCOM's strategic partners, including the DFAS-Indianapolis, DFAS-Rome, U.S. Army Central, U.S. Army Forces Command and III Corps.
“The TFSU was a great opportunity for our unit leadership to meet, discuss and offer input with important stakeholders in addition to USAFMCOM,” said Col. John Trevino, 469th Finance Support Center. “Representatives from FORSCOM and ARCENT met with my team to answer questions concerning our upcoming mobilization.
“We were also given an informative classified brief on the "high side" about the current dynamics for our expected area of operations in addition to the other combatant commands.”
And, event organizers said that having the event at USAFMCOM twice a year is key for success of all involved.
“We have so many things that are constantly changing, for example, the combat zone tax exclusion for the CENTCOM AOR and EUCOM AOR,” said Mark Burton, USAFMCOM Operations and Intelligence director. “What was good information six months ago has all changed.
“So, we bring everyone together, including our partners at DFAS, to brief how financial policies are changing, how they apply to finance and how they apply to people overseas,” Burton added “This really helps us level-set with everyone.”
He praised the modern technology leveraged by USAFMOCM to allow for maximum participation with nearly three-quarters of the participants attending virtually.
These included a variety of finance and comptroller field units to include the Regular Army’s 1st Theater Support Command, Army National Guard’s 1128th Financial Management Support Detachment, and the Army Reserve’s 469th FISC, along with many others.
“The TFSU is an excellent example of a multi-compo, multi-agency synchronization effort from USAFMCOM to help shape the theaters for efficient Finance and Comptroller operations,” concluded Col. Kevin Pierce, USAFMCOM chief of staff.
----------------
USAFMCOM delivers precision enterprise-wide financial operations to integrate, synchronize and sustain the battlefield through the Joint Strategic Support Area and directly supports the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Financial Management and Comptroller in their role as the principal advisor on all matters related to financial management and comptrollership.
| Date Taken: | 05.08.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 05.08.2024 08:47 |
| Story ID: | 470625 |
| Location: | INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, US |
| Web Views: | 25 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Reformatted TFSU helps shape theaters for finance ops, by Mark Orders-Woempner, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
