What's New? on FMX

The Fiscal 2016 Statewide Agency Cost Allocation Plan by Method of Finance is not yet available. Because agencies listed on this schedule must submit the General Revenue Reimbursement of Statewide Allocated Costs form, the due date has been changed to Dec. 21. Listed agencies with federal funds must also submit the Federal Fund Reimbursement Calculation form at that time.

The first quarterly general revenue reimbursements for statewide allocated costs are due Dec. 31. Agencies may choose to make full payment at that time as well.

See General Revenue Reimbursement for Statewide Allocated Costs (FPP A.022) for additional information, including the fixed costs summary, instructions and forms. For assistance, please contact your appropriation control officer.

The USPS User Group meeting will be held on Dec. 14 at the Travis Building in Room 1-100 from 2 to 4 p.m. Discussion topics include:

• Commuter spending account
• 401K/457 changes
• 1095-C Reporting by CPA

Register to attend in person or via teleconference by logging into Training Center.

For more information, visit USPS User Group Meeting.

Note: Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credit will be awarded for in-person attendance, so registration is encouraged. Teleconference attendees cannot receive CPE credit.

Effective Nov. 23, the Comptroller’s office updated the password requirements for all systems and applications that authenticate with a mainframe password:

• Mainframe systems (HRIS, SPA, SPRS, TINS, USAS and USPS)
• Annual Financial Report Web Applications
• Comptroller’s Employee Time Accounting, also used by DPS
• FMX restricted areas
• FTP Reports
• INFOPAC/INFOSGA
• State Agency Payment Search
• Web Warrant Inquiry and Cancellation Request System

Any password changes or reset requests on a mainframe account starting Nov. 23 will have new requirements. For more information, please see Mainframe Password Requirements (Comptroller user ID required).

Effective Nov. 23, the Comptroller’s office is making RACF password requirements more robust.

The regular issue of FMXtra on Monday will link to a new page on Mainframe Password Requirements (Comptroller user ID required) that includes these changes:

• Passwords must include at least one alphabetic, numeric and special character, and more special characters can be used.
• Users are limited to one password change per day, not including a Comptroller Help Desk or security coordinator password reset.
• Users may not repeat any of the last 24 passwords.

If you have questions, please email sfs.security@cpa.texas.gov or contact a member of the Security Team.

The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts statewide financial systems will be unavailable due to scheduled maintenance on Saturday, Nov. 28, from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. For additional details, see the Systems topic page.

Dec. 15 is the maintenance/corrections deadline for the fiscal 2016 First Quarter Veteran Workforce Summary Reports (Sept. 1 – Nov. 30). Copies of the quarterly reports will be sent via electronic file transfer (EFT) on Dec. 16. The online quarterly report acknowledgement form (with required complaint reporting included) will be available Dec. 16 and must be submitted by Dec. 23.

For more information, see Veteran Workforce Summary Reports and Veteran Complaint Reporting (FPP F.038).

USPS will be unavailable all day Thursday, Dec. 10, while we conduct the calendar year-end (CYE) file split.

All USPS payrolls finalized after the 2015/2016 file split must have a warrant date in calendar year 2016 and will be reflected in the 2016 files.

For more information, see USPS Calendar Year-End Close Process (FPP R.014).

For questions, please contact the SHRPA Help Desk at (512) 463-4008 or your assigned USPS representative.

Agencies that reimburse employees for state-related hotel stays are due a refund for the associated hotel occupancy taxes. The refunds are generated automatically through USAS each quarter.

The hotel occupancy tax refund for September through November will be available on the DAFR8190 and DAFR8200 reports on Dec. 9.

For more information, see Hotel Occupancy Tax Quarterly Refund (FPP B.006).

Warrant pickup will be available only from 8 to 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 25. For more information, see Holiday Payment Distribution.

State and federal holidays listed on the System Outages and Holidays Calendar with no scheduled USAS cycle are excluded when determining the direct deposit settlement date of a payment.

Since financial institutions are closed, no direct deposit activity occurs on those days. Agencies must exclude these dates when determining when to process their payments to ensure prompt payment and avoid late payment interest.

Note: Do not submit USAS or TINS files on holidays when no cycle runs. Files sent on a holiday will be overwritten by files submitted after the holiday.

The CAPPS Production environments will undergo maintenance on Sunday, Nov. 22 from 5 a.m. to 12 noon during the approved maintenance window.

The following environments may be impacted:

• PIHPRD1 – CAPPS Portal Production
• FINPRD1 – CAPPS Financials Production
• FINRPT1 – CAPPS Financials Reporting
• HCMPRD1 – CAPPS HR/Payroll Central Production
• HCMRPT1 – CAPPS HR/Payroll Central Reporting

Due to changes enacted by SB 805, 84th Legislature, Regular Session, the scheduled delivery of the quarterly and annual (cumulative) Veteran Workforce Summary Reports changed effective Sept. 1, 2015.

SB 805 directs the Comptroller’s office to:

• Discontinue the calendar-year based release of the quarterly Veteran Workforce Summary Reports and, as of Sept. 1, 2015, make the quarterly reports available on a fiscal-year basis.

  — AND —

• Provide the cumulative fiscal year report to the Legislature before Dec. 1 of each year.

The Comptroller’s office will create a special, one-time Veteran Workforce Summary Report that includes all fiscal year 2015 report information for the period Sept. 1, 2014, through Aug. 31, 2015.

Please note that:

• The report will be made available for download on Tuesday, Nov. 17. *The release of the fiscal 2015 report has been delayed. It will be available for download on Wednesday, Nov. 18.
• This one-time special report does not require that agencies submit an electronic Veteran Workforce Summary Report Acknowledgment Form.
• The fiscal policy and procedure (FPP) Veteran Workforce Summary Reports and Veteran Complaint Reporting (FPP F.038) is in the process of being updated with the new fiscal-based quarterly report schedule. The FPP update and availability of the fiscal 2016 first quarter Veteran Workforce Summary Report will be announced in FMXtra later in November. As before with the calendar-based quarterly reports, agencies will submit an electronic Acknowledgment Form after reviewing their quarterly report data.

If you have questions, please contact your HRIS, SPRS or USPS representative or the Statewide Human Resource and Payroll Assistance (SHRPA) Help Desk at (512) 463-4008.

State agencies and institutions of higher education must report certain payments to the Internal Revenue Service on a Form 1099-Miscellaneous (MISC) or Form 1099-Interest Income (INT) and send a duplicate Form 1099 to the payee.

To help agencies and institutions comply with this requirement for calendar year 2015, USAS will capture 1099-related data and generate 1099 Verification Reports (DAFR 7940), Forms 1099-MISC and/or Forms 1099-INT (DAFR 7950) for each agency or institution upon request.

For instructions on requesting 1099 data from USAS, see USAS Procedures for 1099 Reporting for Calendar Year 2015 (FPP E.001).

Please note: Per IRS instructions, if you are submitting hard copy 1099 forms to the IRS, Copy A must be completed using the 12-point Courier font and printed using black ink only.

The USPS Calendar Year-End Close Process (FPP R.014) has been updated for 2015. State agencies that produce payments through USPS with payment dates in calendar year 2015 must complete the calendar year-end close process according to the schedule and follow the instructions provided in the manual.

For more information, contact the SHRPA Help Desk at (512) 463-4008 or your assigned USPS representative.

Note: Instructions on how to request the generation of your agency employees’ 1095-C forms related to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will be communicated separately.

Warrant pickup will be available only from 8 to 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 25. For more information, see Holiday Payment Distribution.

State and federal holidays listed on the System Outages and Holidays Calendar with no scheduled USAS cycle are excluded when determining the direct deposit effective (settlement) date of a payment.

Since financial institutions are closed, no direct deposit activity occurs on those days. Agencies must exclude these dates when determining when to process their payments to ensure prompt payment and avoid late payment interest.

Note: Do not submit USAS or TINS files on holidays when no cycle runs. Files sent on a holiday will be overwritten by files submitted after the holiday.

The CAPPS Production environments will undergo extended maintenance to conduct Operating System (OS) patching beginning Sunday, Nov. 15 at 5 a.m. until Monday, Nov. 16 at 7 a.m.

The following environments will be unavailable during this time:

• PIHPRD1 – CAPPS Portal Production
• FINPRD1 – CAPPS Financials Production
• FINRPT1 – CAPPS Financials Reporting
• HCMPRD1 – CAPPS HR/Payroll Central Production
• HCMRPT1 – CAPPS HR/Payroll Central Reporting

The Comptroller’s office bills agencies for their portion of statewide costs using the Statewide Allocated Costs and billing procedures prescribed by the Governor’s Office. Agencies indicate the basis used to allocate statewide costs and use that basis to distribute their statewide costs among sources of funding on the Statewide Cost Allocation Worksheet. The worksheet is due Nov. 20.

For agencies not submitting a worksheet, the Comptroller’s office will distribute statewide costs based on the agency’s appropriation year (AY) 2016 method of finance.

See General Revenue Reimbursement for Statewide Allocated Costs (FPP A.022) for additional information, including instructions and forms. For assistance, please contact your appropriation control officer.

The deadline for the fiscal 2015 annual financial report (AFR) is Friday, Nov. 20. The Financial Reporting section highly recommends all USAS entries related to the AFR be made and released by 7 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 19.

If your agency needs to make entries to USAS on Nov. 20, you must use USAS Batch Edit Mode 2 for all entries. Any entries made on Nov. 20 using any edit mode other than 2 will fail to process.

USAS will be unavailable after 7 p.m. on Nov. 20, and agencies will be unable to make further entries in USAS for fiscal 2015 after Nov. 20.

All entries for the fiscal 2015 AFR must be backdated using an effective date of 08322015.

Please contact your financial reporting analyst for any questions related to the AFR submission requirements and deadlines.

The State of Texas Annual Cash Report, fiscal 2015, is now available. The report presents the state’s financial position and details revenues and expenditures on a cash basis, as required by Government Code, Section 403.013.

Benefits Proportional by Fund Reports and related adjustments are due Nov. 19.

Agencies and institutions funded with a single appropriated fund must submit a letter confirming this status by Nov. 19.

For forms and sample letters, see Benefits Proportional by Fund (APS 011) (FPP A.010).

Final copies of the 2015 Equal Employment Opportunity Report (FPP F.016) will be sent to each agency and institution of higher education via electronic file transfer on Nov. 16.

Nov. 12 is the deadline for making data corrections. Corrections entered or submitted after this date will not be reflected in the final report. The Comptroller’s office will send the final report to the Civil Rights Division of the Texas Workforce Commission on Nov. 16.

The CAPPS HR/Payroll Production environments will undergo scheduled maintenance on Sunday, Nov. 8 from 5 a.m. to 12 noon during the approved maintenance window in order to increase the database memory.

The following environments will be unavailable during this time:

• HCMPRD1 – CAPPS HR/Payroll Central Production
• HCMRPT1 – CAPPS HR/Payroll Central Reporting

Additionally, the CAPPS Non-Production environments will undergo extended maintenance to conduct Linux and Windows patching beginning Sunday, Nov. 8 at 5 a.m. until Monday, Nov. 9 at 7 a.m.

The following environments will be unavailable during this time:

• HCMMNT1 – CAPPS HR/Payroll Central Maintenance
• PIHMNT1 – CAPPS Portal Maintenance
• FINMNT1 – CAPPS Financials Maintenance
• HCMSBX1 – CAPPS HR/Payroll Central Sandbox
• PIHSBX1 – CAPPS Portal Sandbox
• FINSBX1 – CAPPS Financials Sandbox
• HCMUAT1 – CAPPS HR/Payroll Central User Acceptance Test
• PIHUAT1 – CAPPS Portal User Acceptance Test
• FINUAT1 – CAPPS Financials User Acceptance Test