Common Questions

Q. What is TRS?

A. TRS will be an FMS-wide transaction broker, data warehouse, and reporting solution that will provide Trading Partners and FMS with a single touch point for the exchange of all financial transaction information across all collection systems. This will enable FMS to normalize financial transaction reporting and standardize the availability of financial information across all settlement mechanisms and collection systems. TRS is a self-contained system with various related external system interfaces.

Q. What are the specific business drivers for building TRS?

A. The specific drivers for this project are:

• To provide business intelligence capabilities and to improve collections processes and management



• To facilitate the Collections & Cash Management Modernization



• To enable TRS to support reporting of classification information for the Governmentwide Accounting (GWA) Modernization initiative

Q. What are the benefits and impacts to agencies?

A. TRS will provide the ability to view detailed collection and deposit information in their lowest detail in one place and be the single touch point for all agency collection activity. Utilizing data warehouse technology, TRS’s business intelligence capabilities will permit agencies to extract and analyze their data in various scenarios according to their needs. TRS will provide flexible reporting formats accommodating various business needs, transaction volumes, and technical capabilities. By providing statistical and analytical reporting, TRS will significantly improve an agency’s ability to more precisely manage its financial position, on a real-time basis, throughout the day.

Once completed, TRS will provide integrated transaction and deposit reporting of revenue activity across all collection systems. Additionally, TRS will greatly improve the way government agencies collect, analyze, and redistribute financial transaction information, which, in turn, will eliminate redundancies and disconnects across and between the numerous point-to-point connections currently in place between collection agents and Federal agencies.

Q. Who will use TRS?

A. TRS will be used by:

• Federal Program Agencies that need to access their collection transaction and deposit information in TRS



• FMS to obtain business intelligence about the collections process



• Collections agents that provide collections services to report their collections data into TRS

Q. If my agency uses TRS, will my agency still need to access CA$HLINK II to confirm deposits?

A. You will not need to access CA$HLINK II once all of your agency detailed collection and deposit information is reported to TRS. Until that time, agencies will be able to continue to use CA$HLINK II for all deposit information. CA$HLINK II will not be retired until information on all collections activities is available in TRS.

Q. How will TRS’s flow of collection and deposit information differ from that of CA$HLINK II?

A. Currently, collections agencies report information directly to each Federal Agency as well as FMS. With TRS, collection agents will report information only to TRS; Federal Agencies, in turn, will obtain all of their information directly from TRS. As a result, TRS will be the single touch point repository/data warehouse of all collections information and transactions for both the “Sending Trading Partner” and the “Receiving Trading Partner.”

Q. What is a Sending Trading Partner?

A. TRS uses the term “Sending Trading Partner” to refer to a collection agent that reports collection data into TRS. Sending Trading Partners (STPs) include Pay.Gov, ECP, TGAnet, etc. used by FMS to receive and process Federal Program Agencies' collections. The STP will send detailed collection transactions and deposit information to TRS where they will be available for Federal Program Agencies to view, access, and download.

Q. What is a Receiving Trading Partner?

A. TRS uses the term “Receiving Trading Partner” to refer to Federal Program Agencies and FMS systems that receive detailed information from TRS. The Receiving Trading Partner will use the detailed information to meet their financial management and reporting responsibilities.

Q. Will TRS have all information needed by my agency?

A. As the single touch point for all agency collection activity, TRS is expected to have the information agencies currently receive from all collections systems. This includes financial data needed to settle a transaction, move funds, perform accounting, etc. and program data which is other business data associated with a collection transaction. The program data will only be available in TRS for a limited time period, such as six months. Agencies will need to retrieve this data and manage it in their own systems. TRS will also have the central accounting information (TAS/BETC or C-Key) that arrives with the original collection deposit.

Q. Will TRS have TAS/BETC details?

A. TRS will have the initial central accounting information (TAS/BETC or C-Key) of the transaction records sent to TRS.

Q. Can I reclassify this information through TRS? If not, why?

A. Subsequent reclassifications will not be reflected in TRS as TRS is not intended to be an accounting system. Agencies will send reclassifications directly to GWA.

Q. When will my agency be able to get reports from TRS?

A. Agencies wanting to participate in the TRS Pilot program will have several standard and customizable reports available to them by the end of 2008. General transitioning of agencies from CA$HLINK II to TRS will begin in 2009.