<


 

Public
Accounts

 

Accounts
Plan

 

Competence

 

Digital Filing
Office

 

 

DIGITAL FILING OFFICE OF FINANCIAL DOCUMENTS 
OF THE NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

 

 

Historical Background

 

The State Reform undertaken in 1991 involved the liquidation, transformation or merger of several governmental agencies, which led to the spreading of administrative files, many of which were left in precarious conditions, lacking of any safety conditions.

 

Law # 24.145, enforced in January 1993, foresees the interrelation of methodologies, rules and procedures with the purpose of making the administrative machine work effectively.

 

This is an effort supported by the Secretariat of Financing, which has developed a computer system named Integrated System of Financial Information  (SIDIF), which registers all the economic and financial operations of the Government.

 

With the purpose of completing this circuit, another step was needed: to implement the appropriate treatment of the supporting information of said transactions, previously backed only in paper and filed at the General Filing Office of Financial Documents of the National Government, agency of the National Accounting Office.

 

This Filing Office has more than 100 million folios from all the administrative - financial agencies of the Government, which make a volume of 47.000 meters.  The documents filed there are dated from the last century to nowadays.

 

Taking into account the great volumes aforementioned, it is easy to guess the slow pace any document tracing involved, even the simplest one.  It was necessary to have a modern alternative, according to the structural changes already achieved at the National Accounting Office.

 

In response to the objective need of accurate information to help in the decision making and managing of the agencies of public control, the Secretariat of Financing helped in the creation of the Filing Office of Financial Documents through Digital Images  (AMIDDF).  The same was opened on May 22, 1996.

 

 

Legal Framework

 

Article 30 of Law # 24,624, passed on December 29, 1995, determines that documents written in first generation, in indelible electronic or optical backups, and the ones copied in indelible electronic or optical devices from first generation originals in any backup, shall be considered originals and shall thus have full proving value under the terms of Article 995 and related of the Civil Code.

 

On the other hand, provisions of Article 30 of Budget Law # 24,624, approved by Administrative Decision # 43/96 of the Chief of Ministers, sets the rules aimed at giving legal and proving value to the existing documents and the ones incorporated to the files, by means of a technology which guarantees the stability, immutability, and unalterability of the physical backup of the documents; determines the applicable areas, the documents involved, the procedures to be followed for the reproduction, verification, registration, cancellation and destruction of paper backup, as well as the measures to be taken in relation to third parties documents.

 

Therefore, it is determined that:

 

  • The AMIDDF has the specific tasks of collecting, ordering, controlling, classifying, having the custody of, describing and digitalizing the different documents bearing the characteristics of an original in paper backup, which arise from the transfer of funds of all the Financial Administrative Services (SAF) of the Central Government, as well as taking part in the enforcement of custody periods for said documents.

  • It has the power of assisting the Judiciary Branch and other Ruling Bodies of the Public Sector in their inquires, as well as those of the Administrative Services on their own documents.

 

 

Document Management System Through Image Processing

 

The managing of images is based on the supplementary performance of two processes: the loading of the identifying data and the digitalization of those images, so that a Data Base relating images to files can be made.

 

The main advantages of the implementation of this system are the following:

 

  • Immediate access to information

  • Physical independence from the filing places

  • Multiple consulting

  • Duration of information

  • Reduction of spaces

  • Easy handling

  • Documents unity

  • Perfect keeping

Furthermore, the Filing Office Building and the Ministry of Economy are connected through a point to point link, which allows for distant consulting.

 

 

Achievements

 

Currently, the volume of documents already digitalized with legal value is over a million and a half.  Furthermore, there is an equivalent volume of documents of consulting value, belonging to different corpuses, among  which there are, for example, Files of the Privatizations of the Government, for which it was decided not to destroy the original documents.

 

Taking into account the different benefits obtained from the use of this images technology, several areas of the Public Sector are already using it and others are under the process of incorporating the same.

 

The National Accounting Office, as a Ruling Body, helps the different areas which have undertaken these changes, giving computing assistance to the same and advising them in the managing of the process.