Government agencies conduct a large number of financial transactions with other agencies and trading partners.Some of the well documented problems that these agencies face are

1. Not all these transactions are accounted for which in-turn hinders cost transparency
2. A significant amount of time and resources are spent to identify,reconcile and resolve differences

A Memorandum issued by the U.S Government formulated a set of Business Rules /Regulations that all agencies must ensure their transactions confirm to. As per this memorandum, agencies that do not use these business rules will be downgraded on their progress score for financial management on the Executive Branch Management Scorecard. The Business Rules specified involve many kinds of rules

1. Validation Rules. For example,
   • The order must be authorized/approved in accordance with existing agency policies before transmittal to the seller. Necessary funding information/citation must be included on the order
   • An order may, on occasion, contain consolidated or summary information. Additional information, such as a statement of work, occupancy agreements, terms and conditions, specifications, etc., may be attached to the order, if desired or necessary for order fulfillment and payment.
   • Bills, Orders are expected to confirm to standard expected Formats with predefined Data elements
2. Time based Rules
   • Bills must be issued according to the terms reflected in the order but not later than 10 days after delivery of the goods or services provided.

The Potential issues in ensuring compliance could arise from the following:

1. The Rules enforced by the System MUST be interpreted correctly by all sub-departments in an agency.
2. The Rules themselves MUST be visible and be audit-able
3. Any violations that are detected in the system MUST be traceable to the particular rule definition
4. The Rules MUST be easy to change and redeploy to account for regulatory changes and also to correct mistakes.
5. It MUST be possible to replay scenarios with rules applying in the retrospective.
6. It MUST be possible to generate audit reports for compliance to all the current regulations in force.

Business Rules Management Systems, like QuickRules.NET offer a clean, scalable solution to this problem scenario. QuickRules.NET, for example provides for

1. A clean, effective way to externalize all the Business Rules
2. Integrate into Workflow/BPM Environments in a variety of ways
3. Runtime Rule Management, and Rule Repository Services
4. A Variety of Rule formats including Decision Tables( with Excel Imports), Flow Rules (using Visio), traditional If Then Rules