The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) created the Intra-governmental Transactional Exchange (IGTE). It is one of the five business areas addressed within the Integrated Acquisition Environment (IAE).  In February 2002, President Bush outlined a management agenda for making government more focused on citizens and results.  This agenda encompasses 24 E-Government initiatives that seek to integrate agency operations and information technology with the ultimate goal of eliminating redundant systems and improving government’s quality of customer service.  IAE is one of these 24 E-Government initiatives.  The system was scheduled to be be functional beginning in July 2004; however, Public Buildings Service (PBS) received notice that the Exchange will be delayed by 120 days. If IGTE moves forward after the 120 day review period, it will be in a phased approach with customers.

The electronic process is intended to reduce payment and collection problems, and enable swift and accurate revenue and elimination processes for preparing consolidated financial statements.  The goal is to streamline ordering, billing and collection, as well as improve the financial settlement process between government entities.

The IGTE is intended to:

• Create a standardized process across government
• Provide clear appropriations match-up on both sides
• Eliminate unidentified payments
• Identify true trading partner
• Improve the accuracy of fund control data
• Enable automated reconciliation
• Migrate paper based processes to electronic

GSA remains committed to the successful deployment of the IGTE and will use this evaluation period to complete the modifications to our automated systems to ensure that we are ready to go live with the first agencies that are ready to process through the IGTE.