Posts Tagged "accounting"

I work in the Travel Division of a Government Shared Service Provider (SSP). Under the Director’s office is a section for Division wide policy research and information. Travel is a broad subject; therefore, the Division is broken down into two Branches of travel expertise. One is for travelers relocating to a new city or country which is called Permanent Change of Station. The Branch in which I work is for travelers that are traveling on a temporary basis and is called Temporary Duty Services. This is for travelers that will be traveling for one day up to approximately a month. It can be more but generally, the time-frame is typically a week or less. Our Branch is then broken down into the following areas: Customer Service, Accounting, and Charge Card. In...

Each month I am involved in the CBA (Centrally Billed Account) reconciliation process for our largest government client.  This client’s current bank card vendor is JP Morgan Chase. Each month our agency receives an electronic file from JP Morgan Chase for this client’s 19 CBA accounts.  This file is generally received by our accounting department around the 8th of each month for the previous month.  After receiving the file we have approximately 3 to 5 days to match transactions in the data file to information in our back office.  Our reconciliation team works relentlessly to match all data as accurately as possible in order to provide the information to the client in a timely manner so that they may pay their bill which is due around the 20th of each...

Many Federal employees will travel or relocate for their jobs at some point in their career.  Travelers are mostly concerned about staying at a preferred hotel and getting a direct flight and may not realize that every travel authorization and voucher is also an accounting entry. In the accounting world, a travel authorization becomes an accounting document called an obligation and has the same accounting impact as a purchase order for goods or services.  The obligation reserves the estimated amount to ensure funds are available when the traveler submits a voucher for payment.  When the voucher is recorded in the financial system, the obligation is reversed and a payment is made. To determine what “pot of money” the traveler is using, the travel documents...

In 1995 my agency purchased the Gelco Travel Manager software and I worked on transitioning our travelers from a paper based manual system to a fully automated one that was hosted in-house.   Almost 10 years after implementing an electronic travel system, the Federal Travel Regulations (FTR) were updated to require all government agencies to migrate to one of three ETS systems hosted by the vendor.  During those 10 years with Travel Manager the Bureau I work for began franchising accounting and travel services and we converted our 30 plus customers from a manual travel process to that of an automated one.  During those years, we supported our customers with training and a robust help desk.  In addition, we had developed a strong travel program that revolved...

Implementation of E-Gov Travel simplifies the voucher processing. When I began my career in administrative accounting 19 years ago, our agency used the paper-based system for processing travel reimbursements. A traveler submitted a manually prepared travel voucher with original receipts to his/her approving official. The voucher and receipts arrived at the administrative office for payment by internal mail or hand delivery. Prior to issuing a reimbursement to the traveler, the administrative office reviewed the voucher and receipts. Every detail of the trip was analyzed for compliance to the Federal Travel Regulations and any pertinent accounting regulations to assure the claim for reimbursement was proper and valid for payment. Upon validation of the claim a...

The travel business is constantly changing which makes my job interesting and challenging.  When I first started working for my agency, the travel software was a simple program with limited capability.  The software we are currently using is much more complex with features enabling the traveler to access airline, hotel, and car rental reservations all within one program.  Specializing in one particular area is very helpful and having a team of people to work from every aspect makes a travel team complete.  As an analyst in the Accounting area of our office for five years, I acquired knowledge of the E Gov Travel system.  Even though the main objective was to reimburse the traveler in a timely manner, many factors entered into the equation.   A lot of...