Enterprise Payment Services
This page contains resources to inform state agencies about the Enterprise Payment Services (EPS) project.
What is the EPS project?
The initial purpose of the project was to modify the statewide Agency Financial Reporting System (AFRS) and related vendor payment applications to comply with proposed federal 3% withholding requirements and implement a self-service vendor portal solution to streamline back office business processes. However, in December 2011, the purpose of the project changed due to the repeal of the federal 3% withholding requirement which eliminated the withholding component of the project.
The changing business environment is further impacting the project. As of October 1, 2011, Section 702 of Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 5931 created the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) with a charge to standardize and consolidate information technology infrastructure across the state to support enterprise-based system development. To this end, the OCIO released an action plan in February 2012. Action item 10 “Make it easier for Washingtonians to interact with state government” proposes a single entry point for businesses to interact with agencies without having to go to each agency website individually.
Additionally, Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 6356 introduced in the 2012 legislative session proposes a single portal for Washington businesses. Given the high level of interest in an enterprise business portal, the decision was made to pause the EPS payee portal activity for an undetermined duration.
The following EPS project activities are either continuing, completed, or on hold:
| Continuing | Completed | On Hold |
|---|---|---|
| Implementation of a 1099-MISC reporting solution | Exception codes | Payee portal |
| Testing and implementation of the 950 key record changes | Elimination of optional subobjects | Payee database which includes:
|
| Clean up and standardization of the statewide vendor data. | Interest and ownership |
1099-MISC reporting solution
The Disbursement Reporting System (DRS) and the 1099 system were available to process 1099-MISC forms for 2011, but the DRS has now been decommissioned. A new solution will be designed and developed for 2012.
- 1099-MISC reporting in 2012 and beyond
- How to look up AFRS payments in Enterprise Reporting Web Intelligence
950 key record changes
The changes to the AFRS record (referred to as the 950 record) are technical in nature, but will eventually affect every agency that sends files electronically from an internal agency system to AFRS. Even agencies that do not make payments through AFRS will need to modify their interface files.
It is imperative that fiscal shops communicate with their respective information technology (IT) groups to ensure they have the necessary information to make the changes. Since these are technical changes, the AFRS support team (now part of the Department of Enterprise Services) will provide the details of the changes and will support agency testing of the changes to their interfaces. There are two major components of the AFRS record layout changes:
- Changes to the record key: The record key is the transaction identification that is unique for each AFRS record. The format of the record key is changing with an estimated completion of April 2012. Agencies will be given sufficient time to modify their interface files, once the changes are available in AFRS.
Noticeable results of this change are: (a) the elimination of certain batch types (WW, WC and WS); (b) implementation of the new transaction type field which replaces the batch type functionality that indicates the type of transactions in the batch, such as warrant wrap or cancellation; and (c) the associated changes to batch type security, reporting, and files received from AFRS. - Other changes to the AFRS record layout: Additional changes to the record layout add new fields, such as the exception code. These changes have already been made in AFRS.
Exception codes
Pseudo vendor numbers (V0D0 and V0D1) are being eliminated and replaced with new exception codes. Exception codes allow agencies to process payments to payees that do not have payee (vendor) records or that have not provided their taxpayer identification numbers to the state. Agencies have legitimate business reasons for making certain payments in these circumstances, such as revenue refunds and emergency payroll payments.
By the end of summer 2012, pseudo vendor numbers will NO LONGER be allowed. Exception codes are available in AFRS now, so agencies can begin the transition any time.
Optional subobjects on payment transaction codes eliminated
The change to eliminate optional subobjects on payment transaction codes (TCs), including interagency payment TCs, went into effect on February 1, 2012. The number of TCs affected by this change was relatively small, so some of you may not have encountered a situation that required a change yet. We encourage you to read the summary of changes to transaction codes document that explains the changes and provides lists of the TCs that changed, new TCs that were added, and the related variable general ledger codes. Then, you’ll be ready when you do come across a situation requiring a change.
Interest and ownership features
The project team devised solutions for assigning interest in vendor/payee records and ownership of client records.
The “interest” feature allows agencies to identify and select vendors/payees that are of interest to them. Agencies that have their own payment systems and need to crosswalk statewide vendors/payees back to their own systems will find this feature useful.
As for ownership, the short-term solution provides an ownership field in AFRS. The Statewide Vendor unit (now part of the Department of Enterprise Services) is responsible for manually adding and maintaining the ownership field in client records based on the information they receive from the owner agency. The tentative long-term solution is to provide the owner agency with functionality to automate the update of client records.
