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SPA Phase-Out Plan

Over the next few years, the Comptroller’s office will be retiring the State Property Accounting system (SPA) and transitioning state agencies to CAPPS in incremental steps. Statewide asset management and required capital asset financial reporting will be accomplished using:

  • The Centralized Accounting and Payroll/Personnel System (CAPPS) Asset Management (AM) module for both CAPPS Central and CAPPS Hub agencies
  • The Capital Asset Note Submission System (CANSS)
  • A new custom-built Texas Capital Asset Transfer System (TCATS)

Implementation

The SPA retirement timeline is based on the continual development and future implementations of required CAPPS AM modifications. During this transition, SPA remains the state’s capital asset system of record, and all agencies, including those that are currently reporting to CAPPS AM, will be required to interface with SPA.

Note: The current Comptroller and Texas Facilities Commission (TFC) surplus process will require modifications. The process is currently under review and details will be announced when available.

Data Warehouse

A data warehouse will serve as the state asset repository to allow for centralized reporting of capital assets and related financial reporting data. The data warehouse will initially be loaded with SPA historical data, and thereafter will receive asset data from CAPPS Central and Hub agencies. This data will be used to fulfill standard ad hoc reporting, Capital Asset/Asset Balance (CAAB) reports, open records requests, legislative and State Auditor Office requests.

Institutions of Higher Education

SPA will be retired for institutions of higher education effective Aug. 31, 2024. Institutions of higher education were exempted from reporting to SPA in 2011 per Senate Bill 5, 82nd Legislature, 2011, Chapter 1049. The only capital asset reporting requirements for higher education will be to report interagency transfers in the new TCATS system and to submit Note 2 capital asset information in the CANNS system.

Depreciation Transition

Both SPA and CAPPS AM use straight-line depreciation methodology. CAPPS AM depreciation is modeled similarly to SPA depreciation and is calculated over the estimated useful life of the asset using the asset cost, useful life based on the asset class code, and residual value.

Like SPA, the depreciation convention used in CAPPS AM is the actual month convention for additions and disposals. This convention allocates a full month of depreciation in the month of the addition, and zero depreciation in the month of the asset disposal. The only depreciation difference between the systems is that SPA uses an Entity Fiscal Year (EFY) layer method for improvement or betterment additions, which calculates depreciation separately for each fiscal year that a capitalized addition is made to the original asset.

In CAPPS AM, capitalized additions can be either added to the value of the existing capitalized asset or capitalized as a stand-alone fixed asset separate from the previously existing asset. When added to the value, the remaining net book value of the asset will be combined with the new outlay and the remaining total net book value spread over the new remaining useful life.

When SPA is retired and CAPPS becomes the state capital asset system of record, any differences between SPA and CAPPS AM depreciation will be booked as a change in accounting estimate at the agency level.

Interagency Transfers

Interagency transfers for all state entities will be reported to a new Texas Capital Asset Transfer System (TCATS) web application. TCATS will accept transactions to and from SPA, CAPPS central and Hub agencies, and institutions of higher education. Transfers involving an exchange of cash will require a Uniform Statewide Accounting System (USAS) entry at the time of transfer to balance statewide.

Transfers that do not involve exchange of cash will not require a USAS transaction at the time of transfer, but will be reconciled at the summary level during year-end preparation of the agency’s Annual Financial Report (AFR).

Agencies will not be allowed to certify Note 2 in CANSS until all open transfers are balanced and completed. The TCATS system implementation date and more details regarding the new system will be released prior to implementation.

Capital Asset Note 2 Reporting

CANSS, which serves as the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) Note 2 reporting system, will be modified to receive summary-level detail from CAPPS Central and Hub agencies and institutions of higher education. CANSS will also receive transfer data from the new TCATS web application. This modification will allow population of the system with capital asset summary information. CANSS will still have update functionality, but will no longer require initial manual entry of all data fields.

For more information

If you have questions, contact your SPA analyst.