HISTORY
What is now the United States Army Financial Management Command grew out of a spirit of modernization and reform, along with a drive for efficiency, that is still part of this unit’s mission and spirit today.
Effective with the January 1991 implementation of the Department of Defense’s plan to consolidate financial management activities, most of the Army’s Finance and Accounting Center, or USAFAC, was absorbed into the re-designated Defense Finance and Accounting Services- Indianapolis Center.
At the same time a small Army element of USAFAC was retained and renamed the U.S. Army Finance Command which was an organizational element of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Financial Management. The unit’s primary mission was to provide liaison and service between the field, Major Army Commands and DFAS activities and the ASA (FM)’s office.
It was responsible for overseeing all finance, accounting, and tactical unit management issues which impacted the Army community, to include DFAS policy guidance and systems design/redesign and implementation. It performed on-site assistance and assessment visits and strove to develop workable solutions to the wide variety of financial and accounting problems that the Army faced at that time.
Later the Global War on Terrorism brought new challenges which required new solutions. In 2007 DFAS divested itself of all its remaining military positions so these positions could be transferred to USAFINCOM.
It continued to perform the inherently military functions required by military personnel who could be sent into tactical arenas where contractors or civilians either were not authorized or for which they had to volunteer. The elimination of Army finance groups and finance commands also exacerbated the need for technical oversight and training of Army financial management companies as well as the need for garrison oversight of deployment preparation and systems and training previously exercised under the predecessor groups and commands.
The placement of Soldiers within USAFINCOM, collocated with DFAS, provided a continuous pool of experts working day-to-day with the DFAS operations and systems management offices.
In 2010, U.S. Army Finance Command was renamed to the U.S. Army Financial Management Command, or USAFMCOM. USAFMCOM has continued to evolve since then as the Army has postured itself to meet the nation’s current challenges.
In 2015, USAFMCOM was elevated to a two-star command, and in 2017 we became a Direct Reporting Unit to the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Financial Management and Comptroller).
In 2019, USAFMCOM was realigned under the U.S. Army Materiel Command, and in 2020, the DFAS Defense Military Pay Offices realign under USAFMCOM and become Army Military Pay Offices, or AMPOs. .
Today the Army and Army Reserve is made up of 700,000 uniformed personnel with an additional 340,000 or so personnel in the National Guard. USAFMCOM is the Financial Management lead for the U.S. Army worldwide, including the National Guard and Reserve components.
The members of USAFMCOM are working not only to support our current Service Members deployed all over the world, but also to sustain our Army’s financial readiness in the future.
They are also involved with and support comptrollers throughout the Army who plan, program, budget, and execute Congressional dollars for all Army assets and mission areas to include logistics, training, deployments, sustainment and multiple other core mission capabilities.