USAS User’s Manual –
Chapter 12 – Understanding Financial Tables (continued)
How USAS Edits Transactions
About this Procedure
When processing transactions in the IEU batch cycle, USAS makes sure that the user has entered all the required data for the transactions and the transactions do not over-expend budgets and cash. These system checks are called edits. The first series of edits are data-element edits; the second series, funding edits.
Data-Element Edits
Data-element edits make sure the user enters the data necessary to process a transaction. For example, if the user enters an expenditure transaction without an appropriation number or year (the basic data needed for this type of transaction), USAS will not process the transaction. Data-element edits also make sure that the data entered is valid. For example, if the user enters a nonexisting appropriation number, USAS will flag the error and stop the processing. USAS identifies the requisite and valid data for a transaction by referring to the Transaction Edit Indicator section of the 28A Transaction Code Decision Profile. If a transaction passes the data-element edits, it undergoes the next series of edits-funding edits.
Funding Edits
Funding edits make sure users do not over-expend their agency’s budget and cash. The funding edits consist of calculations called funding-edit algorithms. These algorithms add and subtract the balances of identical records with differing balance types, as shown in the following illustration.
Specific Algorithms
Each primary table has a set of funding-edit algorithms specific to the type of financial data the table is designed to maintain. For example, the Appropriation table uses 11 algorithms to edit the types of transactions it maintains. (For example, cash, accrued, and encumbered expenditures; excess revenues; and other budgetary transactions.)
Detailed steps of how USAS performs a funding-edit are outlined later in this chapter.