Understanding Federal Payment Processing

U.S. federal agencies use payment schedules (also called Treasury schedules) to group vouchers in batches that the system pays all at once. You establish rules to make those batches of payments on time, based on invoice, receipt of goods and services, and acceptance dates.

Payment scheduling by due date helps U.S. federal agencies fulfill their Prompt Payment Act obligation to bundle payments with shared characteristics when sending them for processing by the Department of the Treasury.

In PeopleSoft Payables, the Pay Cycle Application Engine process (AP_APY2015) selects payments during a pay cycle run and assigns them to the appropriate payment schedule. The Pay Cycle process then produces a transaction file of the payment schedule for you to deliver to the Department of the Treasury. A voucher is known as a warehoused payment until it is selected for a schedule, generated as a transaction file, and transmitted to a Treasury Disbursing Office (TDO).

The Pay Cycle process groups payments for submission to the TDO when they share the following characteristics:

You can also set up payment schedule processing so that it generates a new schedule after the current schedule reaches a defined number of payments and appropriations. You perform this setup for each payment method and EFT layout combination used for payment schedules, using the Payment Schedule Restrictions page.

To process federal payment schedules:

1. Enter payment schedule vouchers just as you would any other voucher, using either the Voucher component (VCHR_EXPRESS), the Quick Invoice Entry component (VCHR_QUICK_PNL), or a source that is processed through the Voucher Build Application Engine process (AP_VCHRBLD).

2. Run the Voucher Posting Application Engine process (AP_PSTVCHR) and any other processes that are part of the voucher business practice, such as budget checking and matching.

3. Run the Pay Cycle process to generate payment schedules.

   The Pay Cycle process:

   • Selects vouchers that meet the criteria for federal payment schedules and groups them by schedule, creating new schedules according to the schedule restriction criteria that you specified on the Payment Schedule Restriction page.

   • Updates the payment schedule ID in the Schedule ID field on the Voucher - Payments page.

   • Kicks off workflow to notify certifiers of payment schedules needing certification (optional).

   • Creates a file for transmission to the U.S. Treasury for disbursement.

4. Certify the payment schedule.

   This step occurs during Pay Cycle processing, after payment selection and before payment creation.

   See Certifying Federal Payment Schedules.

5. Run the Payment Posting Application Engine process (AP_PSTPYMNT).

6. (Optional) Review the payment schedule using the Payment Inquiry page.

   See Inquiring and Reporting on Federal Payment Schedules.

7. Transmit the payment schedule file to the Department of Treasury.

8. For bulk payment schedule files (Type B SF1166 forms) only: after sending the bulk payment schedule file to the Department of Treasury and receiving summary certification data back from them, enter the summary certification data into the PeopleSoft database and generate an SF1166 Summary Certification file for uploading to the SPS system for certification.

   Use the SPS Summary Totals pages.

   See Creating SPS Payment Summary Files.

9. After receiving notice that the payment schedule was disbursed, reconcile the payment schedule using the Schedule ID Reconciliation page.

   See Managing Federal Schedule ID Reconciliations.

10. Run the Cash Clearing Application Engine process (AP_APCSHCLR).

There are many federal features in PeopleSoft Payables beyond those listed in the setup and processing steps discussed in this overview section. These options are also covered in this topic:

• Enforcing prompt payment protocols.

• Enforcing valid reimbursable periods.

• Processing IPAC transactions.

• Handling pay advances for federal agencies.

The U.S. Federal Government maintains the Central Contractor Registry (CCR), a database of federal suppliers. To do business with the U.S. Federal Government, suppliers must be registered and hold a valid status in this database. Suppliers can be assigned one of four status values, which determine if they can submit CCR vouchers. Status can be assigned manually by a user, or automatically by the system during batch updates.

As status is an important prerequisite for voucher processing, you must keep your PeopleSoft system and the CCR database synchronized. Synchronize the systems by downloading CCR files using the Payables CCR Load Application Engine process (AP_CCR_LOAD). (You can configure this to run automatically as a final process.) To process inbound CCR files:

1. Run the Payables CCR Load process using the Load Registry File page.

   Each line in the CCR file contains the information for a contractor. For CCR lines that have no errors, the Payables CCR Load process updates the supplier information if the contractors have already been created as suppliers in the system. For contractors that have not been created as suppliers, the Payables CCR Load process loads the contractors into the staging tables. Create suppliers from these contractors by using the Contractor Inquiry and Supplier Build pages. The system updates existing suppliers with new information using effective dated logic found in the supplier records.

   The system optionally disables suppliers' Open for Ordering functionality when their CCR status changes from Active to Expired. This action prevents the creation of purchase orders and vouchers for expired suppliers. The system also optionally takes vouchers off hold when a supplier's status changes from Expired to Active if you choose to process held vouchers.

2. Verify the loading status on the Inquire CCR File Information page.

   The system displays all errors in the CCR file on this page.

3. Correct the errors manually using an editor program (for example, WordPad) for CCR lines that have errors.

   The system creates a file containing all lines in the inbound CCR file that have errors in the same directory as the original inbound CCR file. The filename is <file name>Err.txt. As an example, the CCR inbound filename is BCD40822_08331.txt, the error filename is BCD40822_08331Err.txt.

   When correcting errors, refer to the error messages displayed in the Inquire CCR File Information page. The key fields of each error line (DUNS Number and DUNS+4) are displayed at the beginning of each error message on the page.

4. Rename the file to a unique filename (for example, BCD40822_08331A.txt) after you correct all errors.

5. Load the corrected CCR file using the Load Registry File page.

   If there are any errors found in this file, the system creates another error file and loads the valid lines to the CCR staging tables.

6. Repeat steps 1 - 5 until all supplier data is created or updated.

As the CCR database contains the official information for the contractor, you cannot edit certain relevant CCR data fields for a CCR supplier. These uneditable fields are:

• Supplier Name

• DUNS Number

• Organization Type

• Business Type

• Address

• Banking Information

• Contact Information

• CCR Registration Indicator

• CCR Registration Status

The following table shows the BPN file types that PeopleSoft supports:

When you, as a U.S. federal agency, set up suppliers for payment processing, you may want to specify the default payment schedule type and date basis calculation type for the supplier, along with the standard supplier setup. You can also set up these options at other levels in the PeopleSoft Payables control hierarchy: business unit, origin, and control group.

For suppliers, you enter this information on the Federal page in the Supplier Information component, which is available only when you have Enable Federal Payments selected on the Installation Options - Payables page.

When you set up other U.S. federal agencies as suppliers, you may also identify the suppliers as federal agencies and enter the supplier's ALC and trading partner code. The ALC is required if the supplier is used for inbound or outbound IPAC processing. You enter this information on the Supplier Information - Federal page, as well.

Specific federal payment processes may require particular supplier setup.