We recently reported on our audit of the U.S. government's consolidated financial statements for fiscal year 1997 (GAO/AIMD-98-127 March 31, 1998). Our report on the U.S. government's internal controls described widespread computer control weaknesses that place enormous amounts of federal assets at risk of fraud and misuse, financial information at risk of unauthorized modification or destruction, sensitive information at risk of inappropriate disclosure, and critical operations at risk of disruption. Our audit, done pursuant to the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990, as expanded by the Government Management Reform Act of 1994, included testing the effectiveness of general computer controls over key financial systems used by the Financial Management Service (FMS). These financial systems, some of which are maintained and operated by contractors and the Federal Reserve Banks (FRB), are critical to its mission of serving as the government's financial manager, central disburser, collections agent, and reporter of financial information. On July 31, 1998, we issued a "Limited Official Use" report detailing weaknesses in FMS' general computer controls. This version of the excerpted report for public release provides a general summary of the weaknesses we identified and the recommendations we made.