Many leading finance organizations assess their current role in supporting mission objectives by comparing the percentage of staff time spent on strategic support activities, such as business performance analysis or cost analysis, with the percentage of resources spent on transaction processing and other routine accounting activities.
Finance organizations use metrics to assess their current roles.
GAO was created in 1921 as a result of the Budget and Accounting Act, a law designed to improve government financial controls and management in the aftermath of World War I. Wartime spending had increased the national debt, escalated costs for many government purchases, and created substantial disarray in the financial operations of the War Department and other agencies.