The Department of Finance, the State Treasurer's Office, the State Controller's Office, and the Department of General Services have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate in a historic partnership to serve the best interest of the state and its citizens. These four departments are known as the 'Partner Agencies'. This partnership will optimize the business management of the state, successfully design, develop, implement, utilize, and maintain an integrated financial management system, as approved in the Financial Information System for California (FISCal) Special Project Report and further defined in legislation. Additional guiding principles include:

• Development of FISCal resides with the four Partner Agencies, although additional state agencies collaboratively contributed to the proposed system requirements.
• The FISCal project will ensure best business practices are incorporated in re-engineering the state's financial and business processes in the areas of budgeting, accounting, procurement, cash management, financial management, financial reporting, cost accounting, asset management, project accounting, grant management and human resources management.
• The FISCal project is a 'Next Generation' project. FISCal is incorporating nationwide best business practices, lessons learned from other states, and the goals set in the State Chief Information Officer's 2005 Statewide Information Technology Strategic Plan, in implementing an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system statewide.
• Through the partnership, this 'Next Generation' project will prepare the state's systems and the state's financial management workforce to function in a significantly improved, integrated ERP environment with highly developed, transferable skills.
• The FISCal system will be implemented in several waves or phases over the next decade.