Do agencies have a deaf ear?

A new Government Accountability Office report says the Treasury Department needs to provide agencies with more information on the costs and benefits of submitting payments from citizens and businesses electronically to improve efficiency.

So where have these agencies been as the rest of government has thrown out paper and turned to electronic means to do everything?

While it's a relatively small percentage of funds that agencies submitted by old-fashioned methods in 2009, it still amounted to more than $36 billion.

For example, the GAO noted that only 2 percent of the $23 billion collected under the Minerals Management Service's Minerals Revenue Management program came in as checks, but those checks represented 77 percent of all transactions.

"Electronic collections provide better accuracy, lower mailing and processing costs, and fewer delinquencies and defaults," GAO said.

"When the Federal Reserve moved to electronic conversions of paper checks, work hours spent on check processing decreased by almost half and transportation costs associated with check processing decreased by about 11 percent," it added.

We all know that shifting paper-based payments to electronic ones could improve the accuracy and security of an agency's financial transactions. The question is why hasn't every agency gotten on board?

Sometimes it has to do with small vendors. Sometimes it's remote locations or customers who don't have the ability to submit payments electronically. Whatever the reason, it's clear that these agencies have to figure out a way to get with the program. Wire transfers via Western Union fell off the cliff a long time ago, and now it's time for paper-based transactions to do the same thing.

For more on the Feds and electronic transactions:
- see this Nextgov.com article