Glossary

ALC (Agency Location Code)

A numeric symbol identifying the agency accounting and/or reporting office.

BETC (Business Event Type Code)

An eight-character code that indicates the type of activity being reported such as  borrowing, repayment, offsetting collection, receipt, disbursement, and so on.

A combination of a BETC and a Treasury Account System (TAS) determines the effect of the transaction on the fund balance with Treasury.

CKey Classification Key

A code that an agency assigns to a transaction

Agencies will set CKeys in the Shared Accounting Module (SAM) for their collection and payment transactions. The agency will use the CKeys to get the appropriate values for BETC/TAS from the agency's internal accounting information.

Classification, Transactions, and Accountability (CTA) Module

This module replaced the old Partial 224. Treasury Disbursing Offices use this module to report their monthly accounting activity to Treasury.

GWA (Governmentwide Accounting and Reporting Modernization Project)

This project covers central accounting and reporting functions and processes related to carrying out the federal budget, providing accountability, and managing cash and other assets. The purpose of the GWA project is to improve the timeliness and accuracy of the government's financial information to support better financial analyses and decisions.

GWA Non-Reporter

GWA has a new process that gives agencies more timely information, eliminating end-of-month reporting and Statements of Difference.

A GWA Non-Reporter is an Agency Location Code that classifies the BETC and TAS at the start of a collection, intra-governmental, or payment transaction.

Provisional View of the Account Statement:

GWA Reporters can see and reconcile their Fund Balance With Treasury every day by choosing the Provisional Account Statement.

SAM (Shared Accounting Module)

Agencies use the Shared Accounting Module to classify all transactions with the appropriate BETC and TAS before entering the transaction in the GWA system.

To use SAM, agencies set up CKeys and Default Classification Rules (defined earlier on this page).

SAM will have lists of valid Agency Location Codes and BETC/TAS codes to help agencies properly classify their transactions.

Fiscal Service systems, such as the CARS Central Accounting Front-End (CAFÉ), interacts with SAM to verify values of BETC/TAS.

TAS Treasury Account Symbol

Fiscal Service assigns symbols and titles for each fund account related to appropriations, expenditures, revenues, and so on.

Testing Period

As your agency moves from the way it now reports to the new way, you go through a testing period. We recommend that you take at least 2 months for testing.

During this time, you continue to report the old way but you include BETC/TAS classifications.

We discuss discrepancies in reporting and statements of differences with you during this transition time.

Transition Period

The transition Period is the time when you are becoming a GWA Reporter for IPAC, Payment, or Collections. The transition process has 3 phases: preparation, parallel reporting (the "testing period") and implementation.