CAM Toolkit

The Cost Allocation Methodologies (CAM) Toolkit was made available to federal, state, and local agencies through collaboration among the US Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families and Office of Child Support Enforcement, FNS, and representatives from the States of Kansas and Texas. Its purpose is to model a simple, consistent, and objective cost allocation methodology for assisting states in determining equitable distributions of software development costs, to help expedite the federal approval process, to offer a training tool for new staff, and to provide a valuable resource during the planning phase of the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC).

For proper results, the CAM Tool should be downloaded to the user's PC and macros must be enabled in MS-Excel. This version is written in MS-Excel 2010.

The toolkit includes the following:

• CAM Handbook - presents a comprehensive introduction to cost allocation and contains practical guidance on preparing cost allocation plans through the SDLC in conjunction with the federal APD process.
• CAM Tool (MS-Excel) - provides a consistent, objective cost allocation process for identifying all federal and state benefiting programs and calculating an equitable distribution of software development costs among those benefiting programs. A series of worksheets walks the use through the cost allocation process.
• CAM Tool User Guide - supplements the on-screen help available in the CAM-Tool itself. It contains step-by-step procedures and screen displays to illustrate how to capture and analyze the data needed to produce equitable distributions of software development costs to federal and state benefiting programs.
• Examples: There are four examples that are available to assist the user in MS-Excel format.

The Cost Allocation Demonstration webinar provides an overview of the Cost Allocation Methodology (CAM) Tool to assist states in allocating system project costs when more than one program benefits. Additional guidance is available through the 2010 Joint Transmittal Information Memo - Cost Allocation Revision for IS Projects and Questions and Answers for Revision to the Methodology for Allocating Costs to Programs Participating in an Information System (IS) Project.