Common Questions

What is SAM?

The Shared Accounting Module (SAM) is a web-based software application developed by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in conjunction with Financial Management Service (FMS). SAM's primary function is to assist Federal Program Agencies (FPA) in classifying transactions as they occur by validating or deriving Treasury Account Symbol (TAS) and Business Event Type Code (BETC) information.

Why should I use SAM?

SAM should be used to ensure transactions are being reported to the Governmentwide Accounting (GWA) application with valid TAS and BETC data.

How do I access the SAM application?

The SAM Web site is: https://www.sam.fms.treas.gov.

Who can access SAM?

Agencies that are identified as a GWA reporter will be granted access to SAM. Each user is assigned access to SAM by a security administrator from his/her organization, and provisioned by the SAM Treasury Support Center (TSC) at the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis. Additionally, users requesting access to Agency Location Code (ALC) information can be granted limited access to SAM. For more information, please refer to SAM Agency User Roles.

When SAM is implemented, will the FMS SF 224 or 1219/1220 be obsolete?

No, the FMS SF 224 and 1219/1220 will be retired when all ALCs (who report on the SF 224 and 1219/1220) become full GWA Reporters. For more information, please refer to Final Partial 224 Business Rules
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What is a TAS?

Treasury Account Symbol - The receipt, expenditure, appropriation, and other fund account symbols and titles as assigned by Treasury. For more information, please refer to GWA Treasury Account Symbol (TAS).

What is a BETC?

Business Event Type Code - The BETC is a code used in the GWA system to indicate the type of activity being reported, such as payments, collections, borrowings, etc. This code must accompany the Treasury Account Symbol (TAS). For more information, please refer to the Business Event Type Code(BETC).

What is a C-Key?

A C-Key, or Classification Key, is any agency accounting or collection mechanism data (e.g., account code, fund code, Merchant ID, etc.) which cross walks directly to a TAS. Agencies will establish C-Keys in SAM that will be used to derive appropriate TAS and BETCs.

What is a Cash Flow Profile (CFP)?

A Cash Flow Profile is the component of SAM which facilitates the validation or derivation of TAS and BETC data for agency transactions. A CFP can consist of one or more cash flows. Each cash flow lists an agency's business activities, accounting rules, ALCs, collection mechanisms, and C-Key information. CFPs are created and maintained by agency personnel. For more information, please refer to SAM Agency User Roles.

What are Access Groups?

An Access Group is a grouping of one or more ALCs, either in terms of business commonality (e.g., similar accounting rules or business practices) or for security reasons, to which SAM Users are granted permissions, CFPs are assigned and Default Rules are defined. Access Groups can be Primary or Descendent and each Access Group structure can contain four levels. Access Group structures are maintained by the FPA.

What are Access Group Default Rules and why do they need to be managed?

In the event an agency transaction is submitted with invalid or missing TAS and BETC or C-Key data, the transaction will be assigned a valid "default" TAS and BETC for GWA reporting. The default TAS and BETC is selected for the Access Group in SAM by the agency during the GWA Pilot Reporter set up process.

A complete list of current Disbursement, Intragovernmental and Collection TAS and BETCs is available on the SAM public Web site at: https://www.sam.fms.treas.gov/sampublic.

The SAM public Web site does not require a user ID or password.

Who can I contact if I need additional assistance with SAM?

For questions concerning SAM, please contact: SAM Treasury Support Center at (877) 255-9033. For any questions concerning GWA, please call (202) 874-8270.