Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
Marine Corps Technology Services Organization
The Department of Veterans Affairs
To us, excellence is found in the success of our clients. Our work helps organizations improve operations, streamline direction and remain adaptable in a digital world. Honest goals, powerful solutions, unfailing service. That’s the promise we make to every client. At GenTech, we’ve built our expertise on empowering agencies across the Public Sector meet their objectives with custom systems specific to their strengths and challenges.
Past Performances
These stories are about our clients as much as they are about us. Every project starts with a partner and a shared goal - building an innovative system for progress, growth and change that lasts.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has held to a singular and enduring mission for more than 60 years: to make pivotal investments in breakthrough technologies for national security.
DARPA comprises approximately 220 government employees in six technical offices, including nearly 100 program managers, who together oversee about 250 research and development programs.
In October 2018 DARPA sought a new professional services provider to offer a more streamlined approach to supplement their existing Comptroller’s office. GenTech supports all areas within the DARPA Comptroller’s office, including audit readiness, accounting operations, systems, and funding transaction teams.
From the launch of Sputnik to the development of Siri, it is clear DARPA’s team of diverse collaborators innovate and they require a partner that does the same.
The Challenge
Prior to GenTech, DARPA engaged a professional services provider who required a large team to provide accounting operations support to DARPA’s Comptroller’s Office. DARPA was seeking to maintain their current support level and reduce costs.
GenTech transitioned on to the account just before the end of the fiscal year.
The GenTech Advantage
GenTech dedicated a top program manager to immerse in the DARPA team and assess the current processes and workflows. She architected a team structure with efficiency in mind. Some members co-located to optimize collaboration; others worked remotely to ensure the necessary system access. This personal attention guaranteed that GenTech brought in the right talent with the right skills.
GenTech’s innovative way of thinking offered more automation. The proposal highlighted ways to make current processes more efficient with a promise to continue searching for efficiencies once on board.
Return on Investment
GenTech created and automated processes that streamlined accounting operations and reporting. More automation resulted in fewer people and led to lower cost to the client.
In developing tools from scratch, GenTech’s custom approach to track and review Unliquidated Obligations.
- In less than one year on the ground, the GenTech team has automated 2 time consuming manual reports and saved 4 man hours of work each month.
The GenTech team assisted in DARPA only leaving $1.7M in FY18 funds on the books, which was a 7.5% reduction from the year before.
Had a pass rate of 100% for all 45 KSD packages (Key Supporting Documents) for OSD in our Dormant Account Review Quarterly reviews.
As an added bonus, the standard operating procedures developed by the GenTech team have been used as the industry standard by the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
Client Feedback
“The support staff has multiple team members with expert level understanding of a multitude of areas in the Dept. of Defense finance and accounting arena. As such, the staff continues to be sought out by other Defense Agency frequently for input and consulting on various work products, documentation, and processes leading to improvement across the Dept. of Defense. As a result, DARPA is consistently recognized as a leader within the Dept. of Defense for its ever improving audit ready and operations environment.”
“GenTech transitioned existing support staff seamlessly to this contract. Consequently, there have been no issues with GenTech producing the vast majority of required and requested products and services on-time.”
“GenTech’s management ensured support staff transitioned smoothly to this contract. This transition was seamless to DARPA and allowed for continued support with no change in quality of work or delay of providing deliverables.”
Technology Services Organization (TSO) is a technical solution provider owned by the U.S. Marine Corps. that supports Department of Defense core business operations systems, including pay and personnel, accounting, budgeting and analysis.
The Marine Corps. TSO team required heavy ongoing system maintenance for their suite of accounting and payroll systems.
As a top recruiter, GenTech found the right candidates to fill the unique staffing needs for the system.
The Challenge
The TSO financial system allows users to interface and input requests directly, resulting in a high importance placed on user experience. This necessitates regular updates and maintenance, and requires developer experience in some less common programming languages.
The GenTech Advantage
GenTech’s reputation as an employer of choice recommends them to top talent seeking valuable placements. With many years of experience in the public sector, GenTech also has the expertise needed for identifying and situating recruits in the right position.
Through partnerships with local technical schools, GenTech found candidates with the necessary skills and noteworthy qualifications to fill the needs of the TSO team.
Return on Investment
The GenTech placements continue to exceed expectations. They became such an important benefit to operations that TSO hired over 40% of the team onto their permanent staff.
The overall TSO Support team was even awarded a Letter of Appreciation by Richard Spencer, the Secretary of the Navy for outstanding software development service.
“[GenTech’s] Standard Accounting and Budget Reporting System software development team has provided many long hours of support in designing, coding, and testing detailed system changes to transition Navy commands out of their long-standing accounting system,” said Richard Spencer.
“From 2016 to 2018, [GenTech’s] work to support the migration of 10 DON Budget Submitting Offices into the Marine Corps accounting system has significantly improved the DON’s posture for Full Financial Statement Audit and better business practices.“
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is responsible for providing vital services to America’s veterans and their dependents.
Originally, the VA sought support for monthly accounting services while navigating a financial systems upgrade.
As they discovered the depth of GenTech’s expertise and innovative approach, the VA leveraged the GenTech team to enhance accounting operations across the agency with new processes and flexible solutions.
The Challenge
For several years, the VA dedicated resources towards upgrading their Financial Management System. When it was time to switch to the new system, they desired additional assistance to cover monthly accounting and reporting operations, as well as help with the transition.
Once GenTech was on the ground, they partnered with the VA to identify other areas where current accounting efforts lacked efficiency, accountability and compliance. The VA struggled to meet audit requirements, and also needed a faster way to provide data reports for decision-making.
The GenTech Advantage
Working with GenTech, the VA realized they could use the team’s expertise beyond regular accounting support. GenTech developed new processes to further strengthen financial operations and reporting, including audit readiness and data analysis.
Compliance/Audit
To boost accountability and compliance, GenTech established a compliance-focused division in the VA. The team developed a groundwork for the new division, including flexible processes and procedures that would get operations started quickly and adjust as audit needs change. GenTech also helped manage audit requests and reporting.
Data Analytics
GenTech increased reporting productivity by embedding accountants into the Data Analytics Division. This enabled the accountants to learn and assess the necessary data without placing extra strain on the analytics team for audit requests. GenTech also drove the direction of a web-based tool that allows the user to access and analyze all the VA’s financial data through a set of dashboards.
Return on Investment
GenTech’s innovative solutions have helped the VA start a successful audit compliance division and get caught up on eight quarterly audits, all within the first year. The processes developed by the accountants in the data analytics team also cut half a day off each ad hoc request for the team.
The data analytics team has significantly increased compliance by creating processes that allow for accurate and timely analysis in responses to audit requests that could not be fulfilled in previous quarters.
Our team has developed an automated process that looks at nine different daily reports and identifies duplicate payments which would have to be done by a team of 4 employees otherwise. This process has eliminated the need to acquire these employees resulting in a significant cost savings to the VA.
The team has doubled in size in a year, and continues to work on groundbreaking tools in all areas of the VA’s financial services center. To further support the Financial Management System upgrade, GenTech’s data cleanse team is currently cleaning up old financial data and obligations, and building more processes for significant time-savings for reporting.