Much data processed by hand, despite billions spent on IT

At the Interior Department, workers manually key financial reports into governmentwide accounting systems. The Department of Homeland Security relies on manual processes to ensure all of its assistance programs are included each year in a catalog of federal domestic assistance programs.

And the Defense Department enters data manually from its financial reporting system into a Treasury Department financial system and another multiagency system. These are a sampling of numerous examples cited by a new congressional investigation that found at least 21 agencies still process vast volumes of data by hand, often causing errors as they do so....