United States Department of Agriculture
Research, Education and Economics

ARS * CSREES * ERS * NASS

Bulletin

As you are aware, on October 1, 2001, we began Fiscal Year 2002 and our new accounting system, called the Foundation Financial Information System (FFIS). Implementation of FFIS has necessitated some procedural and policy changes to the National Finance Center (NFC) PRCH and PCMS applications. This bulletin provides the highlights and serves to summarize several of those key PRCH and PCMS procedural or policy changes you must consider for FY2002. The following provides a summary of those changes:

PRCH

For users of the PRCH system, the only change in PRCH due to FFIS, is that the Vendor Identification number (VID) from the FFIS VEND table must now be reflected in the address line of the purchase order (please see my July 12, 2001, memorandum; subject: FFIS Vendor Edit for PRCH and ABCO Systems). There is no change to PRCH Inquiry under FFIS.

NOTE: For offices having the responsibility of purchasing or obligating through PRCH for other agencies it is necessary to complete a separate AD-838 purchase order form for each agency, with each agency's specific information. When ordering for another FFIS Agency, please complete the AD-838 as follows:

PCMS

Several changes have occurred in the PCMS interface under the FFIS environment as follows:

1. Cardholders can only purchase on behalf of one agency using one purchase card or associated convenience checks. Any cardholder purchasing on behalf of multiple agencies must have individual purchase cards and associated convenience checks for each agency serviced. This is required because each agency has a separate FFIS application. If an FFIS document is created from the PCMS feeder interface and the accounting has different agency codes, it will cause the document to reject in FFIS.
   
   
2. Monday through Friday, new transactions from the bank are loaded into PCMS between 11:30 am and 12:00 pm CST. Once a transactions is loaded, the cardholder has seven calendar days to reconcile it before it is sent to FFIS. Therefore, it is very important that cardholders reconcile transactions weekly; it is recommended that one day be selected. In addition to the current reconciliation requirements to accept the profile accounting code andbudget object code (2670) as is, or changing the code(s), the cardholder must now enter a Document Control Number for each transaction into the "Agency Reference Number" field of PCMS to enable the Servicing Funds Control Office (SFCO) to validate PCMS transactions that appear on the Agency's FFIS Transaction Detail Listing. Use of the Agency Reference Number (ARN) was previously optional, but is now mandatory. In order to be consistent in assigning the Document Control Number, the cardholder will input their first initial and last name, followed by their sequentially assigned document control number; e.g., D Jones 0001. Only the first 20 characters of the ARN will be passed to FFIS (spaces count as a character). Additional guidance on reconciling transactions in PCMS is available in the “Cardholder PCMS Quick Guide for Reconciling Purchase Card Transactions”, dated September 2001. This guide is posted on the USDA website at:
   
           http://www.usda.gov/procurement/card/card
           
   
3. After a new transaction has been in PCMS seven days, the interface sends it to FFIS to be paid. The interface locks every transaction sent to FFIS to prevent further changes and possible out-of-balance situations. When a cardholder tries to change the accounting on a locked transaction, the following message appears: “Accounting changes cannot be made until this transaction completes the FFIS/PCMS reconciliation.” Therefore, it is recommended that any accounting changes be made before this seven day period.
   
   
4. When transactions have been accepted by FFIS, they are sent back to PCMS and PCMS unlocks the transactions. Thus, the cardholder could change the accounting on the transactions, if required. The account description field will say “Accepted by FFIS.” During a normal cycle where a file is passed to FFIS and FFIS returns a file to PCMS, the transactions would be locked until the next day. If a file is passed from PCMS to FFIS and FFIS does not process the file, the file will not be picked up until the following day. The transactions would remain locked until they are successfully processed and accepted by FFIS. Therefore, it could be between 36 and 48 hours or more, depending on the completion of the FFIS processing, before the transaction is unlocked and available for reconciliation or adjustment by the cardholder. If adjustments are made to the accounting data after the transaction passes to FFIS and is passed back to PCMS, the adjusted record is again passed to FFIS as noted above.
   
   
5. If the transaction rejects in FFIS, the transaction will remain locked until the SFCO clears the rejected status and FFIS subsequently passes the transaction back to PCMS, indicating to the cardholder the transaction status as “Accepted by FFIS.” Cardholders (non-SFCO staff) do not “fix” rejected transactions in PCMS. Cardholders may need to provide information about the transaction to the SFCO if required to make the correction. The name of the cardholder is part of the transaction file that passes to FFIS.
   
   
6. The cardholder report in PCMS has been updated to include the accounting status that indicates whether the transactions are locked. The following alpha characters are used toindicate the accounting status: O = Obligated; P = Paid by FFIS; L = Locked; N = New (not obligated and not paid).

If you have any questions concerning this bulletin, please contact Carol Shelton, Chief, FFIS Operations Branch, Financial Management Division or your servicing procurement office.

  -/s/-

S. M. Helmrich
Director
Financial Management Division