Area of Local Governance
Financial Management – Budget Preparation, Budget Execution, Accounting, Disbursement of Funds
Revenue Generation – Collection and Acceptance of Taxes and Fees

LGU Type
Province

Name of the LGU
Provincial Government of Bulacan

Service
Financial Management is performed by three (3) offices in the Provincial Government of Bulacan: the Budget Office, the Accounting Office and the Treasury Office.

These offices perform the crucial functions of:

1. Budget Preparation, Authorization and Execution
2. Accounting of All Transactions
3. Receipt and Disposition of Government Funds
4. Collection Function for all Taxes and Fees
5. Disbursement of Funds

BriefBrief Description of the Service
The Financial Management functions involve the delivery of three sets of services: Budget Services, Treasury Services, and Accounting Services. 

Budget Services include:

1.	Preparation of prescribed local budget forms
2.	Consolidation of departmental budget into one annual budget of the Provincial Government
3.	Preparation of the Supplemental Budget from new sources of revenues, generated savings and additional realized income
4.	Re-enactment of the budget, as the need arises
5.	Reversion and realignment of funds
6.	Preparation of Advice of Allotment
7.	Certification as to presence of appropriation in the processing of transactions with Request of Allotment, and
8.	Generation of reports of Income and Expenditures and Year-end Report of Balance of Appropriation

Treasury Services include:

1.	Tracking or inventory of all accountable forms and checks
2.	Storage and retrieval of records of revenues and collections
3.	Generation of the Abstract of Collections and Daily Statement of Collection and Accountable Forms (DECAF), and
4.	Distribution of collections to its fund accounts

Accounting Services include:

1.	Summarization of all obligations by month and by appropriation type
2.	Posting of the summaries of the Journal and Analysis of Obligations to the General Ledger at the end of each month
3.	Posting of obligations to the Request for Obligation of Allotment Subsidiary Ledger, and
4.	Provision of information for allotment balances for each expense item per office function, program or project

All of these services require accuracy in computations. Processing time is also important in these functions (the shorter the processing time, the better). For budget preparation, there is a deadline: the annual budget has to be submitted to the Provincial Board by October 15.

eGovernance or ICT or PITO application
Financial Management Information System

Brief Description of the e-Governance Project
In 1996, ten (10) employees were pooled from different Provincial offices to process the payroll of all the Capitol employees, using DOS and Lotus 123.  The group was known as the Management Information Systems (MIS) Division, under the Office of the Provincial Administrator.

In October 1997, a planning workshop was held to evaluate and assess the human, hardware and software resources of the Provincial Government of Bulacan. Thru a technical assistance from Associates in Rural Development/Governance on Local Democracy (ARD/GOLD), a US-AID funded project, the Bulacan Information Systems (BIS) or the Information Systems Plan (ISP) of the Province was formulated. In that plan, the FMIS was identified as a priority project.

The MIS Division eventually became the Bulacan Provincial Information technology Office (PITO).  The PITO designed, developed, and deployed modules for all of the Budget, Treasury, and Accounting services related to Financial Management.

With the implementation of FMIS in 2001, the following benefits were realized:
Processing Time in Preparing Cash Disbursement per report
Before: Done in 30 minutes
After: Done in 10 minutes
A 20-minute or 66.67% savings and improvement

Processing Time in Preparing Disbursement Voucher (Check & Cash Disbursement)
Before: Done in 1.71 minutes per entry
After: Done in 0.86 minutes per entry
An almost  50% savings and improvement

Processing Time in Preparing Annual Procurement Plan and Annual Investment Plan
Before: Done in 2 months
After: Done in 2 weeks including printing
A 6-week or 75% savings and improvement

Processing Time in Preparing Advice of Allotment
Before: Done in 2 weeks
After: Done in 3 days
A 7-day or 70% savings and improvement

Commercial ICT Service providers
ICT solutions are developed and maintainted in-house.

For software technology, specifically front end and back end supports:

Sybase Solutions Corporation
Suite 2510 Prestige Tower
Emerald Ave., Ortigas Center
Pasig City 1500, Philippines

For network and communications solutions:

Cisco Systems, Inc.
Philippines Branch Office
24/F, Citibank Tower
Citibank Plaza , 8741 Paseo De Roxas
Makati City 1200, Philippines

Computer Network Systems Corp.
Suite 707 The Taipan Place
Emerald Avenue, Ortigas Center
Pasig City 1605, Philippines

Avaya Philippines, Inc.
17/F, Tower 2
The Enterprise Center
6766 Ayala Avenue corner Paseo de Roxas
1226 Makati City , Philippines

Partners
Provincial Government of Bulacan
      Provincial Information Technology Office
      FMIS Committee
Departmnet of Budget and Management
Commission on Audit