“What’s New” on FMX

The CAPPS HR/Payroll Production environments will be unavailable beginning Wednesday, Aug. 31 at 5 p.m. through Tuesday, Sept. 6* at 7 a.m. in order to complete Fiscal Year End (FYE) activities.

During this time, the following environments will be unavailable:

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

Additionally, the Standardized Payroll/Personnel Reporting System (SPRS) will be unavailable Wednesday, Aug. 31 at 5 p.m. through Sept. 2 at 7 a.m. in order to complete FYE activities.

*CPA will be closed on Monday, Sept. 5 due to the Labor Day holiday. However, CAPPS HR/Payroll Production will be available that day should any agencies choose to perform validation. The CAPPS Help Desk will be closed, so agencies will be responsible for responding to any internal questions. If any issues are discovered, an ASP ticket should be created. There will be no batch processing on Monday, Sept. 5, 2016. The CAPPS Help Line will not be available until Tuesday, Sept. 6.

Additionally, to support FYE activities, the CAPPS HR/Payroll User Acceptance Test and Sandbox environments will be refreshed:

• User Acceptance Test (HCMUAT1) environments will be refreshed Friday, Sept. 2 from 5 p.m. until 7 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 6.
• Sandbox (HCMSBX1) environments will be refreshed Tuesday, Sept. 6 from 5 a.m. until 7 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 7.

During this time, the following environments will be unavailable:

• HCMUAT1 – CAPPS HR/Payroll User Acceptance Test
• HCMSBX1 – CAPPS HR/Payroll Sandbox

CAPPS HR/Payroll and Financials Agencies (CPA, DMV and DIR)

CAPPS Financials Production and Non-Production environments will remain available during this time; however, there will be impacts to CAPPS Financials:

• Wednesday, Aug. 31
  • Batch schedule journal generation will not run
  • USAS outbound interface will not run
  • Note: USAS inbound interface will run as scheduled
• Monday, Sept. 5
  • No batch schedules will run

CAPPS Financials Production and Non-Production environments will be available beginning Wednesday, Aug. 31 at 5 p.m. through Tuesday, Sept. 6 at 7 a.m. during Fiscal Year End (FYE) activities; however, there will be impacts to CAPPS Financials:

• Wednesday, Aug. 31
  • Batch schedule journal generation will not run
  • USAS outbound interface will not run
  • Note: USAS inbound interface will run as scheduled
• Monday, Sept. 5
  • No batch schedules will run

The CAPPS Financials Sandbox (FINSBX1) environment will be refreshed from the User Acceptance Test environment from 5 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 26 until noon on Saturday, Aug. 27.

The refresh will support the CAPPS Financials go-live at 11 new agencies on Sept. 1, 2016. This will enable agencies to compare their recent deployment testing results to what they are seeing in Production. This will also give the agencies the ability to further test issues that come up in Production and validate if the issue(s) existed during original deployment testing.

The following environment will be unavailable: FINSBX1 – CAPPS Financials User Acceptance Testing. The Production environments will remain available during this time.

The Annual Financial Reports (AFR) Ad Hoc Review Reports display exceptions that must be corrected during AFR preparation. Each report contains a footer explaining its purpose.

These AFR reports are electronically transmitted daily to each agency beginning on Monday evening, Sept. 5, as part of the agency’s system reports and Ad Hoc reports. Agencies should receive these reports on Sept. 6. These reports are located behind the Ad Hoc reports banner (cover page).

These reports are manually generated each weekday afternoon (Monday through Friday) — rather than system-generated during the nightly USAS cycle. Therefore, transactions entered into USAS after 2 p.m. may not appear on a report until the report that is manually generated the following day (received by the agency two days after the USAS entry). For example, a transaction entered at 2:30 p.m. on Monday may not appear on Tuesday’s report — but will appear on the report received on Wednesday.

Note: If necessary, agencies may save the report transmission or print their reports each weekday (Monday – Friday) since each day’s information is superseded on the following business day by the next updated electronic transmission. These daily transmissions of the AFR Ad Hoc Review Reports only occur during the financial reporting period (Sept. 1 through Nov. 20). Please contact your financial reporting analyst if you have questions.

The daily transmission of the AFR Ad Hoc Review Reports is listed on the AFR webpage.

For more information, see Instructions for the GR Reconciliation Web Application.

Per Texas Government Code, Section 403.273, the property manager of each state agency must conduct an annual physical inventory of the trust, capitalized and controlled personal property (excluding libraries and historical arts and treasures) in the agency’s possession.

State agencies must submit the Certification of Physical Inventory Conducted by Agency (73-283) form for fiscal 2016 with the signature of the agency head or designee to the Comptroller’s office by Sept. 20.

For more information, see Certification of Physical Inventory in Chapter 2 of the SPA Process User’s Guide.

State agencies and institutions of higher education that award a state grant in an amount greater than $25,000 from funds appropriated through the General Appropriations Act are required to publish the purpose of the grant on the agency’s public website.

• Unless your agency is already reporting, email the link to state.grants@cpa.texas.gov to be published on the State Grant Listing on TexasTransparency.org.
• Notify the Comptroller’s office only if the URL of the agency link changes. The Comptroller’s office does not need to be notified of new applicable grants.

Please see Requirement to Publish Purpose of State Grants (FPP S.010) for more information.

Sept. 15 is the maintenance/corrections deadline for the fiscal 2016 Fourth Quarter Veteran Workforce Summary Reports (June 1 – Aug. 31). Copies of the quarterly reports will be sent via electronic file transfer (EFT) on Sept. 16. The online quarterly report acknowledgment form (with required complaint reporting included) will be available Sept. 16 and must be submitted by Sept. 23.

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

This is an important reminder about coding on the Recurring Transaction Profile (55) in USAS. Do not set an effective end date on certain Recurring Transaction Indexes (RTIs) used during the interagency reconciliation process for the annual financial report (AFR) until after Sept. 26.

Interagency Transaction Voucher (ITV) transactions must process successfully during the interagency reconciliation process for the AFR. An RTI (receiving) agency that sets an effective end date on the 55 profile will prevent a transaction (paying) agency from processing any ITV transactions past that effective end date.

Example: A transaction entered on Sept. 2 using an RTI with an effective end date of Aug. 31 would not process, even if the effective date on the transaction is backdated to Aug. 31. To avoid problems, the RTI agency should not set an effective end date on the 55 profile until after the completion of the interagency reconciliation process.

The Comptroller’s office recommends that agencies leave the effective end dates blank on RTIs unless there is an explicit need to include a date. For more information, please see the ITV/RTI Process section of USAS Frequently Asked Questions.

The USAS annual cash-basis close for fiscal 2016 will occur on Wednesday, Aug. 31.

The fiscal year-end close process requires shutting down the statewide fiscal systems. For more information, please see the Master Schedule of Year-End Close Events, which includes:

• The dates and times the online systems will be unavailable
• Contacts for any issues

The CAPPS Non-Production environments will undergo multiple scheduled maintenance windows beginning Thursday, Aug. 11 through Sunday, Aug. 14.

• Thursday, Aug. 11 from 6 p.m. until 10 p.m.: administrative account maintenance
• Saturday, Aug. 13 from 12 a.m. (midnight) until 3 a.m.: Windows patching
• Sunday, Aug. 14 from 1:30 a.m. until 8 a.m.: Linux patching

The following environments will be unavailable during these times:

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

In addition, the CAPPS Production environments will undergo administrative account maintenance on Sunday, Aug. 14 from 5 a.m. until 11 a.m.

The following environments will be unavailable during this time:

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

Several substantive changes have been made to the Texas Comptroller Manual of Accounts (FPP Q.009). The list of changes includes entries that have been added, deleted or significantly modified.

The manual provides current information on state agencies, appropriated funds and accounts and object codes to be used in properly recording accounting transactions.

The following GASB questionnaires are due Sept. 1:

• GASB 49 – Pollution Remediation Obligations Questionnaire
• GASB 60 – Service Concession Arrangements Questionnaire
• GASB 62 – Codification of Accounting and Financial Reporting Guidance Contained in Pre-November 30, 1989 FASB and AICPA Pronouncements
• GASB 69 – Government Combinations and Disposals of Government Operations Questionnaire
• GASB 70 – Non-exchange Financial Guarantees Questionnaire
• GASB 77 – Tax Abatement Questionnaire

See Financial Reporting for more information, including questionnaire previews.

Institutions of higher education must report certain information about jobs and reappointments to HRIS at the beginning of each fiscal year. Due dates for when institutions must submit reappointment information via electronic file transfer (EFT) are:

• Sept. 7: EFT #1 — Classifications and Carriers
• Sept. 9: EFT #2 — Reappointments for Fiscal 2016
• Sept. 15: EFT #3 — Terminations for Fiscal 2016

The deadline to submit HRIS September maintenance is Oct. 7.

See HRIS Higher Education Reporting Procedures for Reappointments (FPP M.003) for details, including instructions for reporting reappointment information.

Note: During the fiscal year reappointment process, Fiscal Management still requires an HRIS EFT Specifications form (73-162) for EFT #1, #2 and #3.

Junior/community colleges must certify estimates of state matching contribution funds for employees participating in the Optional Retirement Program (ORP) by Aug. 15.

For complete information including instructions and forms, see Annual Certification of Estimated ORP State Contributions (FPP A.003).

CAPPS Security Role Documentation (login required) is now available in the restricted area for CAPPS secure documentation on FMX. The new website:

• Introduces Job Profiles that group CAPPS roles based on job responsibilities
• Lists roles for each Job Profile for the Financials and HR/Payroll applications
• Covers security fundamentals, such as the role naming convention

Level 1 support staff and managers who need to understand or approve security setups can request access from the agency Security Coordinator (Comptroller user ID required).

The final SPA processing cycle prior to the fiscal year-end closeout will run on Wednesday evening, Aug. 31. SPA is expected to be available on Friday, Sept. 2, to accept both fiscal 2016 and fiscal 2017 transactions.

For more information, see SPA Fiscal Year-End Close Process (FPP N.008).

GASB Statement No. 62, Codification of Accounting and Financial Reporting Guidance Contained in Pre-November 30, 1989 FASB and AICPA Pronouncements, provides guidance on accounting and financial reporting on the following activities:

• the debtor and creditor for a troubled debt restructuring
• foreign currency transactions
• investments in common stock
• research and development arrangements
• broadcasters
• cable television system operators
• insurance entities (other than public entity risk pools)
• lending activities
• mortgage banking activity

All agencies are required to complete the online 2016 GASB 62 – Codification of Accounting and Financial Reporting Guidance Questionnaire by Sept. 1.

CAPPS Security Role Documentation (login required) introducing Job Profiles that group CAPPS roles based on job responsibilities is now available. Job Profiles are standard across all agencies and include the elements deemed necessary to perform job duties. The website includes the roles for each Job Profile for the Financials and HR/Payroll applications.

Security coordinators already have access to the restricted area for CAPPS secure documentation on FMX. Submit a Security Request for Level 1 support staff and managers who need to understand or approve security setups at your agency. Please see System File Layout and Other Secure Documentation (login required) in Security Coordinator Reference for instructions.

Once agency employees have the required security, they can access the website from the CAPPS topic page. The new resource will be announced to users in FMXtra on Monday, Aug. 8. Level 1 support staff and managers can review the documentation to help you determine what security employees need.

The Security Request must continue to include the list of roles that the user needs. A single security role can still be requested or removed. You can also clone an existing user to set up a new user’s security. Please see CAPPS Security Request Instructions (login required).

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