Robins Air Force Base, Ga. -- The Air Force Financial Management transformation is currently underway and many within the organization think it is the greatest single change in financial management history.

"We, and all of Air Force Financial Management, are transforming the way we conduct business to better provide expert decision support and analysis to commanders while continuing to provide high quality financial services to all Airmen," said Lt Col Kalwant Smagh, 78th Comptroller Squadron commander.

According to John Vonglis, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for financial management and comptroller, the result of this effort will save the Air Force more than $200 million over the next 10 years -- money that will be available for other programs supporting the warfighter.

One of the cornerstones of the financial transformation effort is the opening of the Air Force Financial Services Center at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D. The AFFSC will centralize and streamline most financial processes now being handled by individual bases.

The AFFSC, which is set to open its doors for business October 2007, will centralize and transform the majority of financial services currently provided by 93 separate financial service offices at base level.

"The AFFSC will be established through two phases, ultimately resulting in Airmen having the total force expertise of FM matters available at one location," said Roger Bick, director of the Air Force Financial Management Strategic Planning and Transformation Program Management Office.

Phase I will begin with the opening of the Central Processing Center in October 2007. The CPC will focus on consolidating base-level, backshop operations.

"Such operations include, but are not limited to, processing travel and military pay documents," Mr. Bick said. "These transactions are termed 'backshop' as they are not generally seen by the customer."

Phase II operations will begin in October 2008 when a "24/7" full-service contact center is established. Knowledgeable staff in the contact center will provide top-quality pay and travel service to customers via telephone, Internet and fax.

From this point forward, Airmen will only need one telephone number to find solutions to their financial issues. Having a single contact center will eliminate the inconveniences that customers experience in having to fix financial issues during the regular duty day.

To prepare each base to transition to the new Financial Service Center, the financial service transformation team has launched a "cut-over" initiative. Cut-over includes both the preparation for migration of the workload and the actual migration of the workload to the Financial Service Center.

A team of experts on cut-over will be at Robins Oct. 10-11 to brief base leaders on the process and provide preparation guidance to the comptroller squadron personnel on the processes.

The town hall meeting will take place Thursday, Oct. 11 at 1 p.m. at the VistaScope Theater in the Museum of Aviation.

"I encourage anyone with questions or concerns to attend the meeting," Colonel Smagh said.