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Common Questions
General
Q. What are the specific business drivers for building PIR?
The specific drivers for this project are:
- To create a centralize repository for payment information
- To provide a submission vehicle for NTDOs to report of classification information for the Governmentwide Accounting (GWA) initiatives
- To provide transparency and business intelligence capabilities and to improve payment processes and management
Q. How will agencies learn about progress with PIR?
FMS will provide agencies with information through the PIR website on an ongoing basis and through direct contact with agencies. The PIR Team encourages those interested in PIR to subscribe to receive web page updates.
Data within PIR
Q. What payment data will be in PIR?
PIR will reflect the lifecycle of a payment. A payment is described as an amount drawn on the U.S. Treasury or designated depository banks.
For example:
- Payment vouchers (5515) – summarizing financial transactions involved in payments now housed in CA$HLINK II for the following payment types including but not limited to:
- FRB ACH
- FRB FedWire (currently “Misc”)
- FRB ITS
- FRB ASAP
- TCIS DFAS (Reclamations and Reversals from DFAS)
- FRB Food Stamps
- FRB Postal Money Orders
Payment voucher adjustments (215 adjustments)
- Note: Returned ACH payments and adjusted payment vouchers
ACH, FedWire, Check and ITS.gov payment data such as type of payment, payment amount, and other attributes that allow for categorization of payments.
Detailed TAS/BETC classifications for all payments
PIR will reflect what is disbursed. PIR will not reflect offsets. That information will be available through Debt Management Service.
Q. Will I be able to see vouchers related to Stored-Value Cards (SVC) in PIR?
No. Voucher information related to Stored-Value Cards (SVC) will be available in Transaction Reporting System (TRS).
Q. What historical data will be available in PIR?
The PIR will contain historical data on payment (5515 & 215) and miscellaneous vouchers (debit and credit), going as far back as June 1, 2005.Since miscellaneous vouchers contain a mixture of payment and collection activities, these vouchers will reside and be available for viewing in both PIR and TRS.
Q. How long will data be there?
Data will be retained for seven years. However, litigation-related data is stored indefinitely.
Q. Is data in PIR redundant?
Based on the nature of the business module (transaction vs. repository), there will be duplication of data. This is necessary in order to support the strategic focus of gathering business intelligence and analytics.
Q. How will data in PIR be secured?
Access to data in PIR will be secured in accordance with Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA) and other federal laws and regulations for IT systems security that apply.
Q.Some of the fields in PIR are named differently from TRS and CA$HLINK II. How can I translate the fields across the three systems?
PIR has created a crosswalk of PIR fields to their associated TRS and CA$HLINK II fields. You can access the crosswalk at
CA$HLINK II Decommissioning
Q. Will my agency still need to access CA$HLINK II to confirm payment once it begins using PIR?
Your agency will have from June 2012 until September 2012 to begin utilizing PIR to view payment voucher information that is currently available in CA$HLINK II. This parallel period will allow you to ensure the data you need is available in PIR prior to the decommissioning of CA$HLINK II.
Q. Will the information currently housed in CA$HLINK II be migrated to PIR?
PIR will be populated with seven years of historical payment vouchers from CA$HLINK II. PIR will determine which vouchers are to be imported based upon their account type: Food Stamps, FRB Postal Money Orders, FRB ACH, FRB ITS.gov, FRB ASAP, TCIS Adjustments, and STAR Non Cash Adjustments. With the decommissioning of CA$HLINK II, historical vouchers for these account types will reside only within PIR; they will not be imported to TRS.
Additionally, PIR will absorb all Miscellaneous Debit and Credit vouchers. Since these Miscellaneous vouchers contain a mixture of both Payment and Collection activities, these vouchers will most likely also be imported into TRS and will reside in both repositories.
Q. Is PIR a System of Record?
While PIR is not a system of record, it is considered an authoritative source for payment vouchers (5515 and 215) passing through the Federal Reserve Bank CA$H-LINK application. Additionally, the PIR is an authoritative source for NTDO agency TAS/BETC reporting to GWA.
Systems
Q. How will I access PIR?
PIR will utilize the Single Sign-On (SSO) process of authenticating into a system and seamlessly signing on to other authorized applications. SSO was derived from FMS's need for a standard enterprise approach for authentication. SSO allows users to log in once and then access multiple FMS systems as authorized without needing to log in again.
Q. Are there any special computer or internet requirements for PIR?
Yes, you must have one of the two most recent versions of Internet Explorer to use PIR.
Q. What system changes will I have to make to get voucher information from PIR?
FMS’ intent is to minimize the changes required by your agency to receive files from PIR. If your agency uses the reporting capabilities available in PIR, you will be able to create downloadable reports that may fit your agency’s system requirements and avoid major system changes. The downloadable data is in Comma Separated Value (CSV) format, however, if your agency currently loads the CSV file from CA$HLINK II to an internal system you will need to review the file layouts to ensure they will load properly.
Output Reports
Q. When will my agency be able to get reports from PIR?
NTDO agencies will have from June 2012 until September 2012 to begin utilizing PIR to view payment voucher information that is currently available in CL II.
Q. What payment data will be in PIR?
PIR will reflect the lifecycle of a payment. We anticipate that all disbursements as well as EFT returns and check adjustments/cancellations will be housed in PIR. A payment is described as an amount drawn on the U.S. Treasury or designated depository banks.
Q. Will the PIR's CSV file be like the one I get in TRS today?
Although the PIR and TRS CSV files are similar they are not exact. There are data elements related to collections which do not appear in the PIR CSV. Also, there are data elements in PIR that are not in the TRS CSV. If your agency currently loads the CSV file from TRS or CA$HLINK II to an internal system, you will need to review the file layouts to ensure they will load properly.
Enrollment
Q: For users who already have a Single Sign On account (which matches their OTCnet and TRS login id's) will they need to change their SSO passwords? Wouldn't the passwords already be the same for the SSO?
If a user already has an enterprise id and password for applications such as OTCnet, FedDebt, DebtCheck, GWA, etc, also referred to as SSO account, they can use the same user id and password to access the PIR. Please note that TRS does not utilize the SSO tool.
Q: Does a PIR user have to have a PKI token in addition to the Single Sign On (SSO) /enterprise ID?
Yes. The SSO account allows an agency user to take the next step and to establish an account in PIR. The final step is that a user have a PKI token. However, if you agency utilizes a PIV or CAC card, a token is not needed.
Q. Is an agency approver in PIR the same thing as a security user in TRS?
Yes, PIR agency approvers do perform a similar function as a security user in TRS. Agency approvers play a vital role in ensuring that the appropriate access to PIR is assigned to users in your agency.
GWA Reporting
Q. How will NTDOs provide TAS/BETC classification data to PIR?
NTDOs will be required to report payment details the day following settlement date (ACH/Wire) and date of pay (check) via the PIR Standard Reporting Format (SRF). Included with the payment details is the TAS/BETC classification for each payment.
Q. What is the Standard Reporting Format (SRF)?
The SRF is a standard flat file layout that all NTDOs will be expected to populate with all issued payments. NTDOs will be required to report payment details the day following settlement date (ACH/Wire) and date of pay (check) via the SRF. Payment details include but are not limited to the following.
- Payee name, TIN, city, state, zip
- Check serial number
- Receiver RTN
- Payment TAS/BETC
- Contract detail for vendor payments
Click here for additional information
Q. Can I reclassify TAS/BETC information through PIR? If not, why?
PIR is intended to be a reporting system only, and, thus, agencies will not be able to enter reclassification of TAS/BETC information into the PIR. A consistent approach for reclassifying TAS/BETC information is being assessed within Financial Management Service and more information on reclassification will be made available once an approach is finalized.
Q. Will agencies be able to change non-dollar amount information on their vouchers, such as ALC, date and voucher number in PIR?
PIR is a reporting system only, and, therefore, corrections will be handled as they are today through the originating channel (e.g., FedACH). For example, agencies are allowed to correct two fields on the voucher -- date and voucher number. These corrections do not affect the Treasury General Account (TGA); however, the mechanism for correcting the voucher is the same mechanism for making a dollar amount adjustment. A new voucher needs to be generated to back out the original voucher, and another new voucher is created with the correct voucher number and/or date. In other words, if a SF5515 needs to be corrected a SF215 is created with the same amount as the original SF5515. A new SF5515 is then created with the correct information. All of these vouchers are created in FRB CA$HLINK by the payment channel (ACH, wire, ITS.gov).
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