“What’s New” on FMX

Effective immediately, the vendor numbers used to process two types of USAS transactions have changed. Agencies must update their internal systems to accommodate these vendor number changes. After March 31, the previous numbers and all their mail codes will be inactive and cannot be used to process payments or accounting transactions.

• The vendor number for Replenishing Petty Cash is now 31001035687.000, replacing 38880026539.000. See Processing Third-Party Transactions in USAS for Payment, Travel Cards, Direct Bill Payments and Reimbursements (FPP A.043) (login required).
• The vendor number for Summary Cost Allocation Transfers is now 31001035695.000, replacing 38880025705.000. See Tracking Expenditures and Revenues Related to Natural Disaster Relief Efforts (FPP K.014).

Contact Payment Services with questions.

The Department of Education is halting collection actions and wage garnishments for federally held student loans for at least 60 days from March 13, 2020, due to the national COVID-19 emergency. The Department asks employers to adjust affected employees’ paychecks to ensure timely suspension.

Agencies should review current employee wage garnishment orders to determine if they are eligible for suspension under this federal directive. See the Department of Education announcement for more information.

Agencies that have already completed March payroll: If your payroll includes a garnishment eligible for suspension, do not send the payment to the garnishment vendor. Instead:

• Cancel the payment.
• Process a deduction refund.
• Return the withheld amount to the employee.
• Submit a request to delete the negative transaction from the USAS internal transaction (IT) file.

For questions about suspending the garnishment deduction:

• USPS agencies: Call the help desk at (512) 463-4008 or contact your Comptroller representative.
• CAPPS agencies: Call (512) 463-2277 or enter a service ticket into the application service provider (ASP) Solution Center.

The Comptroller’s office recognizes certain vendors may require payments before the 30-day period in response to a disaster declared by the governor. If an agency must process an early payment, it must document the business justification in terms of the disaster event. See Payment Scheduling for more information.

While a state agency may make an advance payment for goods or services in response to a disaster declared by the governor, the payment must be necessary and serve a proper public purpose, and the agency must be able to document the justification for the Comptroller’s office. See Advance Payments for more information.

Contact Expenditure Assistance with questions

The secure sockets layer (SSL) certificate chain for the Comptroller’s production mainframe is changing Sunday, April 5, because the previous Comodo CA certificates are expiring. Agencies must add the new certificate before April 5. Do not delete the current certificate.

This impacts anyone going to mvs1.cpa.state.tx.us using SSL, notably (but not exclusively) file transfer protocol secure (FTPS) transfers.

The certificate is currently available for download. See Comptroller’s Mainframe Certificate Changing for more information.

Contact your agency security coordinator (ASC) and technical team with questions about certificate/key installation and configuration. For additional help, contact the Comptroller’s office help desk at help.desk@cpa.texas.gov or (512) 463-HELP.

The secure sockets layer (SSL) certificate chain for the Comptroller’s production mainframe is changing Sunday, April 5, because the previous Comodo CA certificates are expiring. Agencies must add the new certificate before April 5. Do not delete the current certificate.

This impacts anyone going to mvs1.cpa.state.tx.us using SSL, notably (but not exclusively) file transfer protocol secure (FTPS) transfers. It also affects customers who interact with mainframe web services.

Agencies that access mainframe web services only in test environments should have already updated their certificates.

See How to Download & Install Sectigo Intermediate Certificates – RSA to download your certificates.

See Instructions for Comptroller’s Mainframe Certificate Change for more information.

Contact the Comptroller’s office help desk at help.desk@cpa.texas.gov or (512) 463-HELP for assistance.

Deposits and hours: The state’s treasury is accepting check and cash deposits during the coronavirus outbreak. Teller window hours are Monday–Friday, 8:30 a.m.–2 p.m. All deposits received during business hours will post to USAS effective that day.

Warrant distribution: Payment Services will continue to distribute warrants Monday–Friday, 8–10 a.m. at the Lyndon B. Johnson Building, room G-17.

• If agencies need to alter their warrant pickup schedule (for example, to reduce their pickup days), email tins.mail@cpa.texas.gov with the agency number and the altered schedule.

• If agencies want to pick up their warrants instead of having the Statewide Procurement Division (SPD) deliver them, email tins.mail@cpa.texas.gov with the request. The agency representative picking up warrants must be on the Agency Authorization for Warrant Pickup form.

• Agencies that have warrants delivered by SPD can call SPD at 512-463-3440 or email spd.mailroom@cpa.texas.gov to adjust their delivery schedule.

State agencies and institutions of higher education might need to send documents with confidential information to Fiscal Management.

Email is not a secured transmission. Agencies must send confidential information as an encrypted email attachment as prescribed by your agency’s information security policy.

See Confidential Information Must Be Encrypted Before Emailing to Fiscal Management (FPP D.004) for details.

On April 6, a new CAPPS Production landing page and dashboard will replace the current portal.

After login, the new landing page defaults to the employee self-service dashboard with multiple tiles for various user options based on each user’s profile. New navigation menus will replace current favorites and “breadcrumbs.” The CAPPS Support team is working with designated agency support staff through a user acceptance testing process to prepare for this change.

Agency Level 1 support staff received a desk aid with additional details on these changes. Users may contact their agency’s support staff for more information.

Effective March 31, the vendor numbers used for the processing of two types of USAS transactions will change. Agencies must update their internal systems to prepare for these vendor number changes. Agencies have the option to start using the new numbers immediately. However, after March 31, the previous numbers and all their mail codes will be inactive and cannot be used to process payments or accounting transactions.

• The vendor number for Replenishing Petty Cash will be 31001035687.000, replacing 38880026539.000
• The vendor number for Summary Cost Allocation Transfers will be 31001035695.000, replacing 38880025705.000

Contact Payment Services with questions.

The Comptroller’s office provides accounting guidance and resources to assist agencies and institutions of higher education in disaster relief efforts. See Accounting for Disaster Relief Efforts (FPP K.011) for additional information.

To assess the fiscal impact of coronavirus-related activity on state resources, the Comptroller’s office requires agencies and institutions of higher education to track expenditures and revenues directly related to significant disaster relief efforts. See Tracking Expenditures and Revenues Related to Disaster Relief Efforts (FPP K.014) for additional information, or contact your agency’s appropriation control officer.

As state agencies and institutions start to alter work schedules, emergency leave tracking must be standardized within the statewide payroll systems. For more information on COVID-19 leave reporting:

• USPS agencies can call the USPS help desk at (512) 463-4008 or contact their Comptroller representative.
• CAPPS agencies can call (512) 463-2277 or enter a service ticket into the application service provider (ASP) Solution Center.
• Institutions of higher education can call the HRIS help desk at (512) 463-4008 or contact their Comptroller representative.

Every two years, the Comptroller’s office requires all state agencies and institutions of higher education to renew their Agency Authorization for Warrant Pickup form (74-189).

Agencies and institutions must return the completed, signed form by close of business April 15. All authorization forms on file terminate at 5 p.m. on April 30. New forms are effective May 1.

See Authorization for Warrant Pickup for the form and more information.

Contact Payment Services with questions.

Effective March 13, ACR 60196 automates the deposit vouchers for the warrant hold offset process and implements a new TINS Automated Offset Process (AOP) Agency Deposit Report that identifies the payees and amounts credited against a hold source agency’s state debts. This new report replaces the current manual spreadsheet emailed by Payment Services and is available to the agencies via remote print. The manual spreadsheet will no longer be emailed as of March 13.

Contact Payment Services with questions.

A CAPPS HR/Payroll user group webinar will be held March 24, 9–11 a.m.

A CAPPS Financials user group webinar will be held March 26, 9–11 a.m.

See CAPPS HR/Payroll User Group Meetings or CAPPS Financials User Group Meetings for agendas and webinar information.

The Fiscal 2019 Statewide Cost Allocation Plan Summary of Fixed Costs (PDF) provided by the Governor’s Office is now available.

Deadlines for agencies listed on the Fiscal 2019 Statewide Cost Allocation Summary of Fixed Costs by Agency are:

• March 27 – Statewide Cost Allocation Worksheet due
• April 6 – Fiscal 2019 Agency Statewide Cost Allocation Plan by Method of Finance available
• April 20 – General Revenue Reimbursement of Statewide Allocated Costs and Federal Funds Reimbursement Calculation (only for listed agencies with federal funds) due
• May 4 – First quarter general revenue reimbursements for statewide allocated costs due

See General Revenue Reimbursement for Statewide Allocated Costs (FPP A.022) for instructions, contacts and forms.

State agencies and institutions of higher education must report payables and binding encumbrances for second quarter fiscal 2020 appropriations by March 30 to the Comptroller's office.

Each agency must enter quarterly certification in the online form.

See Encumbrance Report and Lapsing of Appropriations (APS 018) (FPP A.019) for more information.

Effective April 6, electronic confirmation of the Confidential Treatment of Information Acknowledgement (CTIA) will be recorded in a new CTIA system. New state employees and contractors with valid state email addresses will be able to view and acknowledge the policy electronically. Signed paper CTIA forms are still acceptable. Existing records must be retained per Access Requirements for Comptroller Systems (FPP K.015). Instructions and more information will be available on FMX at the end of March.

Note: Once the new CTIA system launches, the CTIA function on the CAPPS login screen will no longer be available, but existing records will be retained and remain valid.

USAS documentation has updates on FMX:

• USAS T-Code Reference Guide (FPP Q.014) features nine transaction code sorts available in HTML and an expanded table of commonly used T-codes
• USAS Reference (FPP Q.012) includes updated lists of Comptroller general ledger accounts and comptroller objects sorted by object group for appropriation year 2020

The online quarterly Veteran Workforce Summary Report acknowledgment form (with required complaint reporting included) must be submitted by March 24.

See Veteran Workforce Summary Reports and Veteran Complaint Reporting (FPP F.038) for more information.