In Customer Service, we are primarily focused on providing our SSP customers with helpdesk support for the travel system software. This includes walking them through creating authorizations, assisting with basic reservation questions for airfare, hotel, rental car, and rail, and the creation of vouchers and local vouchers. Aside from the helpdesk, there are other functions within Customer Service that are performed by other employees. These include:

• Changes in Routing Lists/Groups
• Invitational Travel
• Exit Clearances
• Agency Travel Software Training in a Classroom Environment
• Registration Access to the Travel System
• New Agency Implementation
• Profile Updates/Changes
• Report Creation
• Post Payment Audits
• Travel System Issues that Require Further Research

These are just a few of the travel functions that our Customer Service group is responsible for but the main point is that it takes many subject matter experts to adequately service travelers. This flows into the other two areas of our Temporary Duty Services Branch, which are Accounting and Charge Card.

Our accounting area, also known as Systems and Accounting Support, is responsible for making sure travelers receive their travel reimbursements in a timely manner. There is an automated process that travel accounting technicians run every morning to process the documents from the travel system into the accounting system. Most documents post to the accounting system without issues but some will require additional assistance. For instance, if a traveler receives an advance in the authorization, it becomes a manual posting to the financial system. The same applies after the trip when the voucher is processed so that the advance can be deducted from the total cost of the trip.

As all document types (authorizations, vouchers, and local vouchers) are interfaced to the accounting system, many ‘checks’ are in place to ensure timely payments. Accounting technicians are proficient in running different reports throughout the interface process so that travel payments are issued to the traveler and charge card vendor to make sure that the payments are accurate. Travelers’ payments are directly deposited into their bank account within three to five business days after the voucher is approved in the travel system.

There are many factors involved to ensure that all runs smoothly from the beginning of the travel process to the end result. It takes all areas of our office to accomplish the following process.

When a new employee is hired by an agency, the first thing they must do in order to travel is to apply for a Government charge card and supply their direct deposit information to our office. Their profile is built in the travel system and the charge card information is added as well as the other pertinent information that leads to a successful payment. After a profile is built and the traveler creates their ID and password for the travel system, they create a travel authorization before traveling so that the funds can be obligated in the financial system.

After their authorization is complete with reservations and the other information such as accounting code, expenses, and proper routing, the document is electronically signed. It then follows the electronic path and is ultimately approved by an approving official. Some agencies route documents to an Examiner before it is approved so that a budget officer can review the accounting information to ensure the funds are available to cover the trip. After the authorization is approved, it is interfaced to the accounting system in our office. When the traveler returns from the trip, he/she creates a voucher.

The voucher is created from the authorization in the travel system. All information that was previously entered in the authorization populates into the voucher. The traveler updates the voucher to reflect the actual expenses incurred on the trip and they attach the required receipts to the voucher by either faxing or scanning. After reviewing the voucher for accuracy, it is routed electronically. It must first be signed by the traveler and then proceeds to route to the approving official. Our office interfaces the document to the accounting system and then the reimbursement will be deposited in the traveler’s bank account.

It takes all areas of Travel to accomplish a successful trip for a traveler. I have covered what it takes from my office’s perspective but other offices are involved as well. We all work as one big team from the traveler, the travel management center, our office, and many others to make the whole experience an enjoyable one.

By: Cindy Moore Pomrenke

The contents of this message are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the Government or my agency.

My team gets involved in the reconciliation process after the accounting department has provided the client with the matched file and the client has reviewed and recorded the information provided.  At this point there are still items that remain unmatched as some of the information is simply not found in our back office system.  Certain CBA transactions that take place after the original ticket has been issued such as ticket counter transactions, airline refunds and reissued tickets are not in our back office system since our agency did not initiate the transaction.  In an attempt to identify these items the client then reviews their physical paper statement. The client’s goal is to properly match report and record all CBA transactions to the specific traveler’s travel and voucher documents. Unfortunately, the passenger’s name is usually not listed on the client’s statement for these unmatched items so the client provides my team with the vendor name listed on the credit card statement as vendor names are not provided with the monthly JPMC electronic file.  Therefore, we are given this information so that we may contact the vendor requesting passenger name information.  Prior to contacting the vendor we generally search our back office system once again in hopes that the information has been matched since the JP Morgan Chase file was received.  A few items are identified at this point although most of the information is not found.  After this double checking has taken place we finally begin the time consuming task of contacting the vendor for each unmatched item.

The list of unmatched items each month seems to be steadily growing.  The reason for these items is that vendors such as airlines and rail service providers have the credit card information in the reservation as the original form of payment.   Once the original ticket is issued any changes, exchanges, re-issues, and/or refunds, done at the ticket counter or by the vendor, many times at the request of the passenger are automatically charged and/or credited to the original form of payment.  Unfortunately, the vendor does not always communicate all necessary transaction related information to the bank vendor.  Therefore, this turns into quite a large task for the TMC responsible for assisting the agency in monthly account reconciliation.  To make matters more complicated several airlines and rail vendors are becoming more and more difficult to work with in regards to unmatched items. Reasons given for not providing needed passenger name information are usually attributed to security purposes, or that the information is no longer in the system, or that the customer service representative is told to say “we are not allowed to give that information”, etc.   This is even becoming the case if we have a refunded ticket number.  Vendors will even state these same reasons to the client when they call stating that they are the cardholder.  In the end all unidentified or unmatched transactions on the CBA (this includes refunds) will be disputed by the cardholder as everything must match, no exceptions.

It seems to me that we spend hours of wasted time on reconciliation each month because vendors simply do not want to deal with the calls for information.  Ultimately, however they eventually are forced to deal with the matter in the form of a disputed transaction which creates more work for everyone involved.

By Michelle Kennard

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 must contain an appropriation or fund code and cost center.  For even more detail, some agencies may use project codes and reporting categories.

For the Government to define and track the type of travel expense incurred, expenditures are recorded using budget object codes (BOC).  Travel expenses are usually classified as major object class 2100, which is further broken down into sub object classes where the last two digits of the BOC define the type of expense selected such as Lodging, Common Carrier or POV.    In an eTS the BOC is automatically assigned as the document preparer selects each type of expense.

When using an eTS the accounting string (usually a combination of the fund, cost center and project code/reporting category) selected on the authorization will automatically pull forward to any amendments or vouchers for the trip.  Some agencies require that an authorization route to a budget reviewer who may review or assign the accounting as well as verify the availability of funds.  Some agencies have a fund check built into the authorization that will verify funds and accounting once the document preparer or traveler has entered it.   Once a travel document is approved in the eTS it interfaces to the financial system where all the accounting data is recorded and used for financial and other reporting.

Agencies use the travel accounting information to better manage their travel program.  For example agencies can use travel reports from the financial system to determine if fleet cars are cost effective by analyzing costs to travel by POV and rental car. Reports are also used to help develop travel budgets and create policy.

Disclaimer: The contents of this message are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the Government or my agency.  Use of this equipment is consistent with the agency’s policy governing limited personal use.

By Diana Bonnell

Moving to an eTS hosted by a vendor was not a huge leap for us since we already had 10 years of experience managing an electronic travel system.  The functionality of the eTS we selected was similar to that of Travel Manager with the addition of on-line booking.  One thing we had learned from our experience with Travel Manager is that you must provide adequate training to the users and you must support them once they begin using the new system.  I believe most people can adapt to anything as long as they have a “life-line” to be able to reach out to and confidence in those they are asking for help from.   And reach out they did and based on our existing relationship supporting them on Travel Manager they had the confidence we knew how to help them. Upon deploying the eTS, our help desk calls increased by over 300%.   Calls continued to be high for many months after deployment.  We were able to keep up with the calls by phasing in customer migrations and adding extra resources to our help desk.  Our schedule was aggressive to meet the September 2006 deadline but we were able to transition all of our existing customers from Travel Manager to an ETS by the deadline.

Another strategy we employed was relying as little on the ETS vendor as possible.  Since the system is hosted externally there were many things that we needed to partner with the vendor on for a successful implementation but those functions we could control we kept in-house, which included training and help desk.  We know our travelers and know we were in the best position to train and support them on the new ETS system.

Being one of the first agencies to deploy an ETS meant dealing with many system issues and developing new processes.  I consider our implementation successful and based on feedback I know our travelers would agree due to being adequately trained and having superior help desk support when they needed it most.

by Diana Bonnell

Disclaimer: The contents of this message are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the Government or my agency.  Use of this equipment is consistent with the agency’s policy governing limited personal use.

Now, thanks to technology and E-Gov Travel, the traveler needs only to update the trip expenses on an electronic version of the travel voucher, electronically attach receipts, and then electronically sign the document initiating his/her claim for reimbursement. The travel voucher is automatically routed to the appropriate approving officials for review and approval by electronic signatures. The travel administrative office receives the completed and approved travel voucher through the travel system. The payment data for the travel voucher interfaces into the financial accounting system directing the payment to the traveler’s bank account and/or the traveler’s individually billed travel card account by an electronic funds transfer. In two or three days the traveler and the travel card vendor receive their payments.

With the built in audit features of the E-Gov System, on-line booking, and the use of various travel programs, the agency can be reasonably assured that travel arrangements are made and expenses claimed in compliance with the Federal Travel Regulations and established travel programs. In lieu of the time consuming hundred percent prepayment review of each submitted travel voucher, the travel office performs an audit of a random sample of the paid vouchers processed during the month to ensure the integrity of the travel system and accounting processes. Streamlining the payment process benefits the agency and the Government traveler. The agency adheres to the regulatory requirements for travel management and for accounting of federal funds while reducing the cost of voucher processing. The Government traveler receives reimbursement in a timely manner.

by Regina Potter

The contents of this message are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the Government or my agency.

• October 28, 2008: The Secure Flight Final Rule was published in the Federal Register, and went into effect on December 29, 2008
• January 2009: Secure Flight began implementation with volunteer airlines
• May 15, 2009: Domestic airlines are required to request and provide full name
• August 15, 2009: Domestic airlines are required to request all Secure Flight Passenger Data
• October 31, 2009: All airlines are required to request and provide full Secure Flight Passenger Data
• Deployments for domestic airlines will occur through March 2010
• Deployments for foreign airlines will begin at the end of 2009 and continue through 2010

Benefits of the Secure Flight initiative:

• Enhances the security of commercial air travel
• Raises the baseline standard in terms of the technology and automation used in watch list matching
• Decreases the chance for compromised watch list data by limiting distribution
• Expedites law enforcement notification by gaining earlier insight to potential matches
• Provides fair, equitable, and consistent watch list matching across all airlines
• Facilitates an expedited and integrated redress process for misidentification passengers
• Supports the travel industry’s operational needs

The form of ID seemed to be one of the most confusing issues with this change.  In answer to that, TSA released the following outline to inform travelers of which forms of ID were acceptable documents.

1. US federal or state government-issued photo ID
   1. Must contain a name, date of birth, gender, expiration date and some tamper-resistant feature
   2. State IDs must meet REAL ID benchmarks; Federal IDs meet equivalent standards
   3. Examples: US passport, US passport card, “Trusted Traveler” cards

i.    (such as NEXUS, SENTRI or FAST), US military ID, Border Crossing Card,

ii.    DHS-designated enhanced driver’s license, and any state-issued driver’s

iii.    License that has received a REAL ID extension

1. U.S. and Foreign Government-issued passports
2. Native American Tribal Photo ID
3. Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) Card

After the E Gov travel system software was updated in order for the correct information to be entered in travelers’ profiles and traveler’s felt comfortable with the transition, all seemed to go smoothly.

Change will always be part of the travel industry and with each change there will be challenges for us to face but it’s an exciting business in which to belong.

By Cynthia Moore, CGTP

The contents of this message are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the Government or my agency.