leadership|FI$Cal - State of California https://fiscal.ca.gov Tue, 14 Jul 2026 20:29:20 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.4 /wp-content/uploads/cropped-ca-state-logotransparent-square-32x32.png leadership|FI$Cal - State of California https://fiscal.ca.gov 32 32 Faster, Smarter, Simpler: Transforming Supplier Payments in FI$Cal https://fiscal.ca.gov/all/faster-smarter-simpler-transforming-supplier-payments-in-fiscal/ Thu, 14 May 2026 15:46:53 +0000 https://fiscal.ca.gov/?p=21139 By Amy Cooper, Deputy Director, Business Operation and Solutions Division

As we ramp up to support departments with the upcoming Fiscal Year 2025-26 closing activities and prepare for accounting book of record functionality to go live on July 1, we have been working intently on the delivery of three highly integrated solutions: electronic invoicing, supplier information management (SIM), and electronic funds transfer (EFT).

Utilizing Coupa, a software as a service solution, electronic invoicing was officially launched and offered to end user departments in February 2026. The first in a series of solutions, this solution allows suppliers to submit invoices electronically, leveraging features such as expanded approval options, automated creation of FI$Cal vouchers, electronic dispute capabilities, and tracking of invoice aging. Efficiencies such as reducing the need to manage paper or email invoices and manually processing the keying of vouchers with attached invoices, are also realized. For this effort, the Department of FISCal (FI$Cal) was awarded the IT Team Leadership Award at the California Public Sector CIO Academy in April.

SIM, the second solution in the series, is a self-service supplier portal that digitizes the supplier onboarding process and automates supplier data validations. We are actively engaged in the pilot phase with designated departments, and base configurations and supplier conversions have been completed. Interfacing between the FI$Cal system and the SIM solution has been established and successfully tested. Pilot departments are actively inviting select suppliers through a unique email invitation to establish and verify their account information such as supplier name, address, and banking information. This process has been instrumental in allowing us to identify challenges such as how to accommodate federal suppliers, document the support model, and finalize the onboarding process before preparing to roll out to all FI$Cal departments and suppliers. SIM is a prerequisite for EFT, the third and final solution in this series.

The EFT pilot is well under way and has successfully demonstrated a more efficient and secure way to issue payments to suppliers. Through the pilot, participating suppliers received electronic payments accurately and on time, helping streamline the payment process, while reducing reliance on paper checks. The pilot also provided valuable feedback from stakeholders and suppliers, confirming the effectiveness of the new process and identifying opportunities for continued improvements. Building on this success, we are working closely with the State Controller’s Office for the broader adoption of EFT capabilities beginning in August 2026. FI$Cal continues to support the pilot departments and suppliers with regular touchpoint meetings, training materials, and monitoring.

Through the rollout of electronic invoicing and the successful pilots for both SIM and EFT solutions, we are streamlining how we partner with suppliers, accelerating payments, and strengthening transparency. These initiatives are not just upgrades; they represent a shift toward a faster, more secure, and more efficient future for doing business with FI$Cal.

]]> Year in Review 2025 https://fiscal.ca.gov/all/year-in-review-2025/ Mon, 15 Dec 2025 23:01:44 +0000 https://fiscal.ca.gov/?p=20424 By Subbarao Mupparaju, Chief Deputy Director, Department of FISCal

2025 was a year of progress and expanded system functionality at the Department of FISCal (FI$Cal). We have worked toward several major enhancements and hit important milestones, all while continuing to provide excellent customer service and maintaining 99.9% availability of the system.

Our roadmap of activities continues to guide our progress. Of the 51 projects identified in our roadmap plan, 19 have been completed, and another 19 are currently in progress. These plans cover a wide range of work, including onboarding departments, continued technical optimization of the system, maintaining security of the system, supporting the transition of the accounting book of record, working with partners to implement needed products, and ensuring the system remains up-to-date.

In July, we welcomed the California State Auditor to the FI$Cal system after a one-year onboarding, bringing the number of departments on the system to 151. In addition, the California Department of Transportation will continue its planned onboarding, working with the FI$Cal team to address gaps and train their staff. We were also pleased to begin onboarding the California Department of Justice in July, for what will be a two-year onboarding plan.

This summer, as a companion to our month-end close (MEC) playbook, our teams developed the year-end close (YEC) playbook. The YEC playbook guides departments through the various steps of the YEC process and includes close activities and dependencies, roles and responsibilities, start and end dates, timeframes, and a sample calendar and checklist. After departments have completed the month’s transactions, and are preparing to close the final month of the fiscal year, departments can utilize the YEC playbook to outline the sequence of required YEC activities.

This year, in addition to the progress on roadmap projects, we released 77 system enhancements, the result of an ongoing commitment to engaging with our partners and system end users to ensure the FI$Cal system provides relevant, useful, and up-to-date functionality.
Among those enhancements, is a new report that allows the State Controller’s Office to review journal vouchers for approval, for post auditing and reconciliation, and to help assist with process improvements.

We also enhanced reports used for MEC and YEC for assets and outstanding module transactions. These reports help departments identify open transactions that are blocking their ability to close periods and provide required information for year-end reporting.

In addition, we automated the State Treasurer’s Office payment request process. This automation enables departments to enter stop payment requests in the system, removing the need for manual processing.

To provide departments with a clear visual summary of their assets and depreciation details in one place, we created a new asset management dashboard in Power BI. We also created a comprehensive PowerBI report with dashboards for statewide procurement data. This new Procurement PowerBI report allows users to find, sort, and see procurement data more efficiently.

This year, we began a series of projects to streamline invoicing and payment processes, aimed at making these processes more efficient and modern for end users and suppliers. Electronic invoicing capabilities, a self-service supplier portal, and electronic funds transfer functionality will be added to the FI$Cal system as a suite of projects aimed to modernize and streamline payment processes. The first of these is electronic invoicing, which allows suppliers to submit invoices electronically, and introduced such features as expanded approval options, automated creation of FI$Cal vouchers, electronic dispute capabilities, and tracking of invoice aging.

We continue to make progress toward FI$Cal becoming the accounting book of record for the state. As of December 2025, FI$Cal and the State Controller’s Office have successfully completed 68 out of 121 enhancements to the system for the accounting and reporting book of record projects. These projects are on track for successful completion by July 2026.

Customer service is one of our core values. This year, we resolved more than 34,000 customer support cases via the FI$Cal Service Center (FSC). Through continuous improvements, including efficient triage and internal notifications, 55 percent of these tickets were resolved the same day. 86 percent of these cases were resolved in less than five days, and 96 percent of these cases were resolved in less than two weeks.

Our commitment to supporting departments once they’re on the system has also resulted in improvements in their ability to transact in the system. Since 2019, departments have improved in closing their books by nearly 25% at the same point in time in previous years.

In addition to the assistance we provide through the FSC, our FI$Cal Learning Center team continues to update and develop trainings and resources to help people navigate the system. In 2025, our team delivered training to more than 1,060 attendees, including virtual instructor-led training sessions and flipped classroom style trainings.

This year, we continued progress on our roadmap of activities, and made significant strides to provide several major enhancements to the system, expanding services, modernizing processes, and providing efficiencies for system end users. As we reflect on our accomplishments of 2025, we look forward to all of the exciting new changes we are working toward in 2026. Thank you to our staff and partners for providing the feedback and work necessary to continue our efforts to make the system modern, reliable and secure.

]]> Cybersecurity Awareness Month: A Message from FI$Cal’s Chief Information Security Officer https://fiscal.ca.gov/newsletter/cybersecurity-awareness-month-a-message-from-ficals-chief-information-security-officer/ Mon, 20 Oct 2025 18:58:01 +0000 https://fiscal.ca.gov/?p=20309 By Amitava Biswas, Chief Information Security Officer

Cybersecurity is a top priority for the Department of FISCal (FI$Cal), and with National Cybersecurity Awareness Month in its 18th year this October, now is a great time to be aware of cybersecurity best practices to avoid becoming a victim.

Internally, FI$Cal plans a special cybersecurity awareness campaign every year during this time. Through this campaign, FI$Cal enhances the cybersecurity awareness of our employees by disseminating information about emerging threats and providing practical tips that every employee can take to keep FI$Cal’s infrastructure and data safe. At FI$Cal, cybersecurity is a shared responsibility that goes beyond information technology department staff.

Many cyberattacks are spearheaded through social engineering. Social engineering uses deception to manipulate individuals into sharing confidential or personal information. Phishing attacks are a common type of social engineering, where bad actors send information, usually via email, that purport to be from a company or someone the individual knows; they request the person to click on a link to download information, or to send sensitive information. The good news is that many of these social engineering attacks could be prevented by individuals being more aware.

Given the ever-increasing sophistication of cyberattacks, FI$Cal keenly watches alerts from various organizations such as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the California Department Technology and takes steps to implement additional protections and plans to send out best practice tips periodically throughout the year.

Cybersecurity at FI$Cal is about protecting the vital financial systems and data that keep California running. Here, every staff member is part of FI$Cal’s defenses. By practicing vigilance, acquiring safe habits like pausing before clicking links, and staying alert to suspicious requests, our teams are directly contributing to the resilience of our department and the state as a whole.

Security is everyone’s responsibility, and each person can be an active partner in this effort. To find out more information about cybersecurity awareness month, along with resources on how to be more secure, visit www.staysafeonline.org.

]]> FI$Cal Continues to Make Tech and Security Updates https://fiscal.ca.gov/leadership/fiscal-continues-to-make-tech-and-security-updates/ Thu, 14 Aug 2025 17:14:07 +0000 https://fiscal.ca.gov/?p=20181 By Kanuri Murty, Chief Information Officer/Deputy Director of Information Technology

Over the last year, the Department of FISCal (FI$Cal) has continued to make progress on the roadmap of activities as planned. After successfully onboarding two deferred departments, namely, Department of Technology and Department of Rehabilitation, in July 2024, FI$Cal recently onboarded the California State Auditor, an exempt department, in July 2025.

In addition to our onboarding success, we are working on several information technology projects which will create more efficiencies in system processes, and ensure a secure system for years to come.

We are currently in the process of rolling out an enhanced solution for invoice processing, by enabling suppliers to electronically submit and monitor the status of invoices. This solution provides expanded approval options, automatically creates FI$Cal vouchers, provides electronic dispute capabilities, and tracks invoice aging. It is expected to reduce time-consuming manual work and improve efficiencies for departments.

We have made steady progress on our cloud journey. After completing the planned migration of our back-office infrastructure and tools to cloud-based solutions, we continued our journey to the cloud with building infrastructure on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. We started this effort by building non-production environments that are needed to meet the short-term needs of the roadmap activities. Then, over the coming months, we will focus our efforts in maturing our operational procedures to maintain and manage the cloud infrastructure in order to make our processes efficient, repeatable and optimized.

In parallel to the cloud journey, we continued to maintain and manage our on-premises infrastructure by updating them to latest the supported versions. We completed a major update of servers and middleware and implemented enhanced hardening. We evaluated the update path or upgrade options for all of our infrastructure and middleware to keep them current and secure. Now, we are currently analyzing upgrades to PeopleTools, Oracle Database v23 ai and PeopleSoft Financials. This ongoing evaluation ensures the system remains up-to-date and modern well into the future.

With the fast-evolving technical landscape, we continuously look for opportunities to improve and enhance the security solutions we have implemented. In the coming months, we will be looking at solutions that will help us move towards zero-trust architecture, which will further increase our security. We will continue our efforts to maintain the highest levels of security at FI$Cal through the people, processes, and technology that make up our security defenses.

]]> FI$Cal Prioritizes Invoicing and Payments Projects https://fiscal.ca.gov/newsletter/fiscal-prioritizes-invoicing-and-payments-projects/ Fri, 13 Jun 2025 21:31:17 +0000 https://fiscal.ca.gov/?p=20113 By Michelle Moody, Deputy Director, Business Operation and Solutions Division

Customer service and support is a top priority at the Department of FISCal (FI$Cal). As part of this priority, it is vital that the system remain modern, agile, and ready to support the evolving needs of end user departments.

There are many ways we ensure the system is working for the state of California. We partner with departments for ongoing feedback, whether in the Customer Impact Committee, through our Relations Coordinators, or via our annual department system survey. The growth and evolution of the FI$Cal system is driven by our security, changes in laws and requirements, and through these feedback loops with our end users.

Since 2023, we have administered our annual system survey to identify the ease of use of the system, including user satisfaction with accounting, procurement, and budgeting functionality. Year-over-year, our overall satisfaction score increased by four percent according to survey results. The feedback we receive is important for guiding enhancements that make government processes more efficient and effective. Consistently, through various channels, users have requested more automated processes. One of the most requested enhancements is electronic funds transfer.

In order to address this request, this year we will implement a series of projects to streamline invoicing and payment processes, aimed at making these processes more efficient and modern for end users and suppliers. Electronic invoicing capabilities, self-service supplier portal, and electronic funds transfer capabilities will be added to the FI$Cal system as a suite of projects aimed to modernize and streamline payment processes.

Electronic invoicing is a project that will allow suppliers to submit invoices electronically, introducing such features as expanded approval options, automated creation of FI$Cal vouchers, electronic dispute capabilities, and tracking of invoice aging. Currently, invoices are submitted by suppliers typically by paper or email, which requires departments to manually process those documents and key vouchers with attached invoices into FI$Cal. If a department needs to dispute an invoice, they populate a form and mail the form and disputed invoice to the supplier. These processes are manual, time consuming, and have little visibility to the supplier.

The electronic invoicing project is well under way, with much of the planning, configuring, and testing complete. The initial pilot department is already transacting in the solution, and has successfully paid invoices through the system. As our teams and pilot departments continue to test this new product, we anticipate continued success as the next group of departments begin using this functionality. FI$Cal is supporting the pilot departments with regular touchpoint meetings, training materials, and monitoring. We are thankful for the pilot departments that allow us to improve the product, materials, and rollout plan with their valuable input.

The second part of this initiative is supplier information management, which is a self-service supplier portal that will digitize the supplier onboarding process, while automating key supplier data validations.  This will contribute to efficiencies, and is a prerequisite for the electronic funds transfer solution, which is also in progress and is planned to be deployed this year. We have now completed configurations and are finishing testing, and are well on our way to piloting this new feature.

The final project in this initiative is the electronic funds transfer​ solution, which will include the creation of electronic bank file​s, and will allow supplier payments to be made electronically, based on a supplier’s electronic record. This will streamline the payment process and provide suppliers with the often-requested payment method. Planning and testing are currently underway, with pilot implementation expected following the launch of the supplier information management project.

The ongoing enhancements and maintenance of the system are a part of our continued goal of ensuring the FI$Cal system remains ever-evolving, modern, and meets the needs of our end users.

]]> Department of FISCal Welcomes New Director https://fiscal.ca.gov/newsletter/department-of-fiscal-welcomes-new-director/ Thu, 13 Feb 2025 23:39:39 +0000 https://fiscal.ca.gov/?p=19863 The Department of FISCal (FI$Cal) recently welcomed a new director!

Bret Ladine started as Director of FI$Cal on Friday, January 31, 2025.

Most recently, he served as General Counsel at the California State Transportation Agency. Previously, Bret held the position of General Counsel at the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) from 2020 to 2022, and prior to that, Assistant General Counsel at DFPI from 2016 to 2020. At DFPI, he played a lead role in the development and initial implementation of the California Consumer Financial Protection Law.

Before entering state service, Bret was a Senior Associate at Hogan Lovells US LLP, an Associate at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC and he also served as Communications Director for the Office of Congressman Dennis Cardoza.

Bret has a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Yale University. He is a member of Anthony M. Kennedy American Inn of Court.

About his new position Director Ladine said, “I look forward to collaborating with our partners and FI$Cal’s exemplary staff as we make the FI$Cal system the accounting book of record for the state of California, onboard remaining departments, and ensure the system continues to be technically optimized and secure.”

 

]]> Year in Review 2024 https://fiscal.ca.gov/newsletter/year-in-review-2024/ Mon, 16 Dec 2024 22:15:23 +0000 https://fiscal.ca.gov/?p=19736 By Subbarao Mupparaju, Chief Deputy Director, Department of FISCal.

In 2024, the Department of FISCal (FI$Cal) marked 10 years since the first wave of departments began transacting in the FI$Cal system. Since those first departments came onto the system, our teams and partners have worked tirelessly to onboard the 149 departments now using the system, ensuring that the system grows and evolves, remaining modern and secure well into the future. The work of the past year has continued this goal, as we work on our roadmap of activities outlined in Government Code Section 11865.

The roadmap highlights projects planned over the next decade, and includes a total of 50 projects; as of November 2024, 11 have been completed. We have also made significant progress onboarding deferred departments. In July 2024, we welcomed the California Department of Technology and the Department of Rehabilitation, which represented the culmination of planning efforts that began two years ago and included cooperative efforts between FI$Cal, who provides resources and tools, and the new departments, who had to complete a schedule of activities to move their financial management activities to the system. Additionally, we continued to make progress in onboarding the California Department of Transportation which is scheduled to go live in July 2026.

Last year, the Governor signed AB 127 into law, which establishes July 1, 2026 as the date the State Controller’s Office (SCO) will transition the state’s accounting book of record to the FI$Cal system for statewide reconciliation, transaction processing and year-end close processes. This year, as part of our roadmap activities, we continued executing multiple projects to implement system enhancements and perform data validations to facilitate this transition. As of November 2024, seven enhancements have already been completed and 38 others are in progress.

Security remains one of our top priorities. Using the CalSecure framework as our guide, we have implemented several security enhancements to ensure the system is secure. In November 2024, we released a modern data loss prevention solution. Additionally, we continue our journey to the cloud by migrating our key back-office systems and services to the cloud, and now we are migrating FI$Cal’s non-production environments to the cloud.

This year, we partnered with the Department of General Services (DGS) to implement Aconex, a cloud-based software-as-a-service solution, to extend FI$Cal’s functionality to support project costing and portfolio management. Aconex aims to streamline cost management for DGS projects, aligning with FI$Cal’s strategic goals of continuous improvement and outstanding customer service.

We continue to improve and enhance the system, with our teams actively engaging FI$Cal end users to determine their ever-evolving needs. Based on feedback throughout the year, as of November, FI$Cal has released 106 enhancements, continually adding innovation to the system and improving user experience.

In addition, we developed Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) Statement 87 and 96 reports for lease/right-to-use subscription assets and lease/right-to-use subscription liabilities for contracts meeting the GASB criteria.

We updated the FI$Cal system to align with the federal government by replacing the catalog of federal Domestic Assistance Number with the Assistance Listings Number on existing reports, queries, online pages and interfaces.

We automated the monthly closing periods for statewide assessments, a process that was previously conducted manually. This automation ensures the process runs consistently each month.

To help reduce manual entry into the system, we enhanced the automated employee payroll accounts receivable interface from SCO, completely automating the payroll accounts receivables.

In addition, we implemented a solution for departments to reclass claims interfaced into FI$Cal from SCO. The new functionality includes reclassing the claim, liquidating purchase orders, and updating 1099 reporting for the associated suppliers.

Customer service is one of our core values. In 2024, we resolved more than 34,000 customer support cases via the FI$Cal Service Center (FSC). Through continuous improvements, including efficient triage and internal notifications, more than half of these tickets were resolved the same day. 84 percent of these cases were resolved in less than five days, and 95 percent of these cases were resolved in less than two weeks.

In addition to the assistance we provide through the FSC, our FI$Cal Learning Center (FLC) team continues to update and develop trainings and resources to help people navigate the system. In 2024, our team delivered training to more than 2,050 attendees, including virtual instructor-led training sessions and flipped classroom style trainings.

Feedback from our end users continues to guide us. In addition to the FSC, FLC, and the Customer Impact Committee, earlier this year, we engaged a contractor to conduct an annual survey of FI$Cal end users. The purpose of the survey was to determine the ease of use of the system by end users and their satisfaction with accounting, cash management, procurement, and budgeting functionality. Among the survey results, we saw a strong positive association with our direct support services. 94 percent of users reported satisfaction with FSC services, and 96 percent of users reported satisfaction with FLC services.

Overall, our progress in executing roadmap activities while providing world-class customer service has been exceptional. I am proud of our accomplishments in 2024 and am thankful to be a part of this extraordinary team!

 

]]> FI$Cal Welcomes New CISO; Shares Cybersecurity Tips and Tricks https://fiscal.ca.gov/newsletter/fiscal-welcomes-new-ciso-shares-cybersecurity-tips-and-tricks/ Mon, 14 Oct 2024 22:28:11 +0000 https://fiscal.ca.gov/?p=19631 Just in time for October’s Cybersecurity Awareness month, the Department of FISCal (FI$Cal) is pleased to announce its new chief information security officer (CISO), following the retirement of our previous CISO.

Amit Biswas brings 25 years of information technology experience to the department, and is an experienced technology manager, architect and engineer. Prior to joining FI$Cal, Amit worked in the private sector in the San Francisco Bay Area, Texas, Canada and India. During that time, he managed profit and cost centers, technology businesses and large teams.

Amit has a Bachelor of Technology degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology – Kharagpur, a Master’s in Business Administration from Indian Institute of Management – Ahmedabad, a Master’s in Computer Engineering from Concordia University – Montreal, and a PhD in Computer Science and Engineering from Texas A&M University. He holds several security-related industry certifications, including Certified Information Systems Security Professional, Certified Cloud Security Professional, and Computing Technology Industry Association Security; he has also published several technical articles.

At FI$Cal, Amit intends to improve the maturity of our security operations, and continue to develop our security staff’s technical and collaborative skills.

In recognition of Cybersecurity Awareness month, we asked Amit to share some tips and tricks to keep in mind for our ever-changing cybersecurity landscape. He shared the following tips:

Be on Guard Against Social Engineering

Social engineering, a common form of cyberattack, uses deception to manipulate individuals into sharing confidential or personal information. Phishing attacks are a common type of social engineering, where bad actors send information, usually via email, that purport to be from a company or someone the individual knows; they request the person to click on a link to download information, or to send sensitive information. Individuals should be careful when clicking on links or divulging sensitive information. But email phishing isn’t the only way social engineering attacks may come. Now, with artificial intelligence (AI), attacks are becoming more sophisticated.

Familiarize Yourself with Artificial Intelligence

Today, AI is being used to create sophisticated deceptions and is one of the newest ways people and organizations can fall victim to cyberattacks. AI technologies are capable of mimicking a human’s voice, intonations, styles, facial features, gaits etc., to carry out human-like live conversations over phone, video or via chat. These “deepfakes” are the latest methods being used to trick people into taking action they otherwise would not. Current news and law enforcement agency warnings prove that these capabilities are actually being used at large scale, to impersonate our colleagues, customers, and supervisors, to manipulate us into doing things that can lead to a cyberattack or fraud. Take time to identify ways to spot an AI deepfake, including identifying unnatural facial movements, out-of-sync voices, or other AI “tells”. 

 Stay Vigilant

Cybersecurity is all of our responsibility. It’s always a good idea to start questioning, start reflecting, start looking for security weaknesses while on the job and at home. People are our most valuable and important resource when it comes to thwarting a cyberattack.

Thank you, Amit and welcome to FI$Cal!

]]> Departments Improve in Closing their Books Year-Over-Year https://fiscal.ca.gov/leadership/departments-improve-in-closing-their-books-year-over-year/ Mon, 19 Aug 2024 19:00:04 +0000 https://fiscal.ca.gov/?p=19528 Jennifer Maguire, Director, Department of FISCal

Over the past year, we have continued to make progress on our roadmap of activities, and are well under way in achieving our 2024 goals. We have made great strides, including successfully completing the onboarding of the California Department of Technology and the Department of Rehabilitation to the FI$Cal system. The task of onboarding requires coordination among our teams, our partner agencies and the onboarding departments. It also requires a tremendous commitment of time and resources to ensure departments are ready to begin transacting in the system.

Once onboarding is complete, we continue to support and track departments’ activities. We know that new departments experience a three-year learning curve. The data gathered from tracking departments’ activities enables us to understand their pain points and successes, and provides valuable insight so we can achieve our goal to maintain a modern system and outstanding customer service.

As part of this data, we are pleased to see that departments transacting in the FI$Cal system continue to improve in closing their books timely year-over-year. Since 2019, departments have improved by nearly 25% at the same point in time in previous years. By early August 2019, 74.9% of departments had closed their books for the FY 18/19. The same time five years later, that number was 98.4% for FY 23/24!

There are many reasons we see these improvements in departments’ closing their books more quickly and efficiently over the years. This includes the support we provide to departments to ensure their readiness before they onboard to the system, the continued support once they are transacting in the system, and departments’ maturity in the system over time.

Before onboarding, our teams work with departments to complete a fit-gap analysis, develop a Master Departmental Workplan, and provide dedicated support. Departments are given access to the system early on in the process, participating in configuration and validations sessions, and working through their processes in test environments to learn the ins-and-outs of the system.

After a department officially goes live in the FI$Cal system, support doesn’t stop there. Each department receives one-on-one help in transacting in the system through the completion of their financial statements, in order to connect their previous processes with the new. Departments are also assigned a functional sponsor, to ensure that most service tickets are resolved the same day. In addition, FI$Cal has implemented enhancements and guardrails in the system to decrease the chance of errors. We do rely on departments to be open to and take full advantage of our support and our extensive training options.

Maturity in the system – the time the system end user spends learning how to resolve issues and complete month-end close tasks directly in the system independently – also contributes to departments’ success in closing their books timely. Ultimately, departments must remain committed within their own teams to set up processes, train and hire capable staff, and fully engage in improving their outcomes.

In order to ensure these trends continue, the Department of FISCal (FI$Cal) continues to reach out for feedback. Earlier this year, we engaged a contractor to survey FI$Cal end users. The purpose of the survey was to determine the ease of use of the system by end users and their satisfaction with accounting, cash management, procurement and budgeting functionality. This assessment also sought recommendations from the departments to FI$Cal on process, policy and system improvements that would assist the departments in submitting timely annual financial statements.

Among the survey results, we saw a strong positive association with our direct support services. 94% of users reported satisfaction with FI$Cal Service Center services, and 96% of users reported satisfaction with FI$Cal Learning Center services. In the coming months, our team will use the data gathered in these surveys to make improvements in the system and how we serve the needs of our customer departments.

In addition to our user support options, we continue to partner with the State Controller’s Office (SCO) to support the transition of the accounting book of record to the FI$Cal system. Once this transition is complete, it will create efficiencies that will have positive downstream impacts on departments’ abilities to submit timely financial statements. We remain committed to our collaboration efforts with SCO in this transition and look forward to becoming the official accounting book of record for the state of California.

Our customer departments will remain at the forefront as we continue to work on our roadmap activities. We rely on our end users to inform the improvements to both the system, and the ways we help departments improve their own functions, but we can’t do it alone. Our partner agencies and system end users must remain committed and diligent in closing their books on time. The good news is that we are seeing major progress and expect to see these positive trends continue into the future.

]]> FI$Cal Onboards CDT/DOR; Recognizes 10 Year Milestone https://fiscal.ca.gov/newsletter/fiscal-onboards-cdt-dor-recognizes-10-year-milestone/ Wed, 12 Jun 2024 23:50:53 +0000 https://fiscal.ca.gov/?p=19436 By Michelle Moody, Deputy Director, Business Operation and Solutions Division

I am pleased to announce that on July 1, the California Department of Technology (CDT) and the Department of Rehabilitation (DOR) will join the family of departments using the FI$Cal system for their budget, accounting and procurement needs. The total number of departments in the system fluctuates, however as of this month, CDT and DOR bring that total to 149 FI$Cal departments.

We are excited to transition these new FI$Cal departments from planning and onboarding, to official users of the system. FI$Cal will be providing them with continued support through a dedicated functional sponsor, user support labs, training, and ticket resolution.

The road to success for new departments onboarding to the FI$Cal system has been paved by hard work and collaboration that started over a decade ago. The latest departments benefit from lessons learned through the experiences of our staff, users and business partners. The challenges they faced, along with the solutions they developed, significantly improved the FI$Cal system, the onboarding journey, and user support.

Looking back on prior waves and releases, much has changed. I am amazed at how much we have all grown alongside the system. Together, our accomplishments are many! It is fitting that CDT and DOR go live in FI$Cal on the tenth anniversary of onboarding the first wave of departments to the system. Ten years ago this July, FI$Cal, with the assistance of our partners and contractors, onboarded nine departments to the system.

We celebrate those departments that took the first steps in transforming the state’s budget, accounting and procurement processes. The onboarding experience of these first departments was much different than that of CDT and DOR. Much of today’s functionality was still in development and we were all learning together. They were instrumental in helping us shaping today’s FI$Cal system.

After Wave 1 in 2014, the system and the state’s business processes went through several changes, including the onboarding of control functionality for the State Controller’s Office (SCO), State Treasurer’s Office (STO), Department of General Services and Department of Finance. We also implemented several enhancements to improve efficiency and functionality of the system. All of these changes occurred while continuing to onboard departments.

In June 2021, we deployed the final functionality of the FI$Cal project. Since then, we have continued our mission to serve FI$Cal departments and their users by improving the system and processes and providing superior customer support. These significant accomplishments would not be possible without the invaluable support from our users, partners and contractors who paved the way.

We look forward to assisting CDT and DOR as they begin transacting in the FI$Cal system and look forward to working with the remaining deferred departments in planning their onboarding journeys.

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