The role of a Certifying Officer dates back to the establishment of the Treasury Department in 1789. While the role has 

evolved from a paper-intensive process to an automated one, the responsibility remains the same. Certifying officers are 

responsible for certifying payments that are legal, proper, and correct. Although systems evolve and offer greater 

conveniences, the responsibility to certify legal, proper, and correct payments remains intact. For example, the Secure 

Payment System (SPS) was recently enhanced to provide for the reuse of schedule numbers when schedules and/or 

payment files must be corrected (see Page 6 for more information on this SPS change). It is important to recognize that 

while this enhancement offers new convenience to Certifying Officers, this does not relieve them of their inherent 

responsibilities to ensure the payments they certify are correct. 

Certifying Officers play a critical role in the issuance of $1.7 trillion dollars worth of payments on an annual basis, and it 

is therefore imperative that they stay abreast of the Treasury rules, policies, and applications related to the Federal 

payment process. While the Treasury Financial Manual (TFM) and other Treasury directives provide guidance on how 

to properly process Federal payments, the information below describes the most prevalent issues impacting Certifying 

Officers today. 

Misdirected Payments

It is important that Certifying Officers understand the importance of assuring that the payment data they certify is 

correct. This is especially critical in the case of Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments, commonly referred to as 

Electronic Funds Transfers (EFT). The inclusion of erroneous information in an ACH payment entry may result in the 

payment being misdirected to an incorrect bank account, thereby delaying payment to the intended recipient. Per the 

ACH Rules, financial institutions are only obligated to post ACH payments based on the account number and routing 

number contained within the payment record; in other words, they are not obligated to verify that the name on the 

account matches the name on the payment record. In the event that a payment is certified with incorrect information and 

consequently misdirected to an incorrect account, a Regional Financial Center (RFC) can request that a financial 

institution return the misdirected payment, but the institution is not obligated to do so. Additionally, while the ACH 

rules provide for payment and file reversals, the limited window available and complexities of the Federal payment 

process restrict the circumstances in which this process can be utilized. It is critical that agencies are exercising due 

diligence and performing thorough checks of their payment files to ensure accurate payments are made. Misdirected 

payments often result in unnecessary losses and additional collection efforts that could have 

been averted by proper controls over the payment process. 

Minimum Dollar Value for Fedwire Payments

Fedwire is a same-day payment mechanism offered to Federal agencies making payments 

through the Financial Management Service (FMS). This payment mechanism is intended for 

high dollar, low volume payments which must be paid the same day the payment is requested. 

Given that Fedwire is a more costly payment mechanism for both FMS and the payment 

recipients, the TFM (Volume I, Part 6, Chapter 8000, Section 8040) states that agencies 

should only use Fedwire for payments of $100,000.00 or greater. Over the past year, the 

Philadelphia Financial Center (PFC) has been actively monitoring agency usage of Fedwire 

As a Certifying Officer, What Do I Need to Know? 

Written by Lisa Andre, Supervisory Management & Program Analyst 

 Philadelphia Financial Center 

PFC Journal 

Inside this issue:

Certifying 

Officers 

1-3 

SPS: What’s 

New? 

4-6 

Check Payment 

Address Hygiene 

7 

Presort 

Milestone 

8 

 Philadelphia Financial Center 
and found several agencies utilizing Fedwire to make payments far below the $100,000.00 threshold. In fact, PFC was 

aware of several Fedwire payments made for below $5.00 in 2009. As PFC continues to monitor Fedwire usage, it will 

work closely with the agencies to help them comply with the TFM guidelines on Fedwire usage and assist them in 

utilizing more cost-effective payment methods, such as ACH or the International Treasury Services (ITS.gov). 

Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) Compliance

Certifying Officers also carry responsibility for ensuring that they are making payments in compliance with OFAC. 

Executive Order 13224 was issued to prohibit funds transfers to persons who commit, threaten to commit, or support 

terrorism. Agencies are prohibited from making payments and/or drawing checks or warrants that are payable to an 

individual or organization listed on OFAC’s Specifically Designated Nationals (SDN) and Blocked Persons list. The 

TFM Part 4, Chapter 1000 includes comprehensive guidance on how to implement the requirements in Executive Order 

13224. Cooperation with OFAC through Executive Order 13224 is vital to ensure that payments are not inadvertently 

made to an organization or individual associated with terrorist activities. Agencies are required to consult the SDN list 

prior to certifying a payment; the list is available online at http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac. 

Large Dollar Notifications

Agencies are obligated under the TFM (Part VI, Chapter 8500) to notify FMS of any disbursements totaling $50 million 

dollars or greater. Large dollar notifications are necessary for FMS to project the available cash-flow of the Federal 

government and the potential value available for investments. The standard notification for disbursements totaling 

between $50 million and $499 million is a minimum of two business days advance notice, prior to disbursement. If a 

disbursement is greater than $500 million dollars, there is a minimum of five business days advance notice required. In 

the event final disbursement amounts are not available in advance, you must report to FMS daily (by 9:30 a.m. eastern 

time) the approximate amount(s) and approximate deposit date(s). Upon contacting FMS about a large dollar 

disbursement, the following information should be provided: 

• Name and address of the agency, department, bureau, or administration 

• Name and telephone number of contact 

• Agency location code (ALC) 

• Account title and account symbol number 

• Description of transaction 

• Transaction settlement date 

• Amount of the disbursement 

• Payment mechanism (wire transfer or check) 

• Check number for check payments 

Agencies can report their large disbursement information to FMS Funds Control at (202) 874-9790, or via fax at (202) 

874-9945 or (202) 874-9984. 

EFT Compliance

31 CFR Part 208 requires that all Federal payments be made by EFT. Payments by EFT are safe, secure, efficient, and 

less expensive than check payments. For more information on the EFT requirement, including specific agency 

guidelines and exemptions to the rule, please visit http://fms.treas.gov/eft/regulations.html. 

Continued on Page 3 

Page 2 

 Summer 2009 Special Edition 
Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) Compliance 

The Debt Collection Improvement Act (DCIA) requires agencies to offset eligible Federal payments to satisfy a 

delinquent non-tax debt owed to the Government by a payee (31 U.S.C. 3716). FMS utilizes the Treasury Offset 

Program (TOP) to conduct offset of eligible payments by matching the TINs submitted in agency payment requests with 

the TINs of delinquent debtors. In order to facilitate the offset of delinquent debtors, agencies are required to submit a 

valid TIN in all payment requests submitted to Treasury for payment. For more information about this requirement, 

please visit FMS’ TIN Policy website at http://www.fms.treas.gov/tinpolicy/regulations.html 

Fedwire Payments Subject to Offset

As of July 23, 2007, Fedwire payments are reviewed for offset eligibility prior to payment certification. This status is 

determined by the TIN you provide on the SPS same-day payment request. In the event you enter a TIN that matches the 

TIN of a delinquent debtor, you will receive a warning in SPS that you are certifying a payment that should be offset. If 

you receive this warning, your agency should resubmit the payment request as an ACH or check payment so that the 

payment can be offset through TOP. Given the large dollar value associated with Fedwire payments, this TIN-matching 

tool provides agencies with an excellent opportunity to recoup significant amounts of delinquent debt for the Federal 

government. 

Payment Application Modernization (PAM)

PAM is an FMS effort to modernize the current mainframe-based software applications that are used to disburse 

approximately 1 billion federal payments annually. PAM is in the process of developing a standardized application 

which streamlines several applications into one standard system, and makes use of more current technologies. FMS 

expects to begin implementing PAM in 2010 for vendor/miscellaneous payments, and will continually keep agencies 

abreast of the PAM implementation dates. 

Currently, agency payment requests are processed by an RFC at the end of the day, which allows the Certifying Officer 

the convenience of correcting or stopping the issuance of a potentially erroneous payment file if it is detected within a 

few hours of certification. However, the PAM process will perform all edits and processing immediately after the 

request is certified. This change will have a major impact on agencies, as the window available to make corrections to 

an erroneous certified payment file will be eliminated. As a result, it will be even more critical for agencies to ensure, 

with absolute certainty, that the payments they are certifying are legal, proper and correct, after the implementation of 

PAM for vendor/miscellaneous payments. 

If you have any questions regarding your responsibilities as a Certifying Officer, please visit 

http://www.fms.treas.gov/tfm/vol1/CertifyingOfficer_29nov07.pdf. Otherwise, if you have any questions regarding 

FMS’ payment policies or applications, please contact Lisa Andre, Education and Marketing Section Supervisor at (215) 

516-8142 or Lisa.Andre@fms.treas.gov. 

Page 3 

 Summer 2009 Special Edition 
On June 22, 2009, the Financial Management Service (FMS) deployed a new software release of the Secure Payment 

System (SPS). This release provided several enhancements that will impact Data Entry Operators (DEO’s), Certifying 

Officers (CO’s), and/or all SPS users. These changes will be evident to those in the DEO and CO role upon their access 

of SPS. The changes are detailed below and categorized by the role the SPS user maintains: 

Continued on Page 5 

All SPS Users Impact

Change to “Rules of Behavior” An enhancement has been made to the existing “SPS Rules of 

Behavior” functionality. A new button has been added to the 

main screen that allows users to review and print the “SPS 

Rules of Behavior” agreement. 

Java Plug-in version support for SPS Java release 1.6.0_11 is the preferred version for SPS Web 

Installations. 

Current SPS Web Installation users who have Java Plug-in 

version 1.5.x_y will see a popup during their login process 

informing them of the newer version of Java Plug-in that can 

be used. Please note that SPS no longer supports the Java 

Plug-in versions 1.3.x_y or 1.4.x_y. 

Visual boundaries for row data in table displays An enhancement has been made to improve the appearance of 

the SPS table display by implementing an alternating rowcolor scheme. This will serve as a visual aid for users to identify data in table rows. An example is displayed below. 

Secure Payment System: What’s New?

Page 4 

 Summer 2009 Special Edition 
Continued on Page 6 

Both Data Entry Operator & Certifying Officer Impact

Inclusion of schedule state when schedule details are 

printed 

Includes the state of the schedule when “print details” is 

selected. An example of the enhancement is shown below. 

 

 

Ability to print details for multiple schedules from the 

main SPS screen 

This change has been made to allow users to print details for multiple highlighted schedules. This is accessible from both the DEO and CO Main Screens. 

Extracted schedules screen filtering This change allows users to select the date range when 

viewing schedules in the Extracted state. The default 

display for this screen will default to schedules extracted on the current date. 

“Save to file” option from “View Extracted Schedules” 

Screen 

An enhancement has been made to allow agencies to 

save the summary details from the View Extracted 

Schedules screen onto their hard drive. The content will 

be saved in Adobe PDF format in the C:\SPS\logs directory and a confirmation popup is presented to identify 

the location and the name of the saved file. 

Page 5 

 Summer 2009 Special Edition 
For additional information regarding enhancements detailed above, please visit: http://www.fms.treas.gov/sps, or contact the 

Philadelphia Financial Center (PFC) SPS Help Desk at (215) 516-8034. 

Certifying Officer Only Impact

Addition of a warning to the CO of large dollar 

notification responsibilities for Same Day Pay Requests (SDPR) 

An alert window appears when a CO certifies any schedule-type 

with a total dollar value exceeding $50,000,000.00. This alert instructs the CO that, given the high dollar value of the payment, 

they must contact FMS Funds Control Division at (202) 874-9798 

for cash forecasting purposes. The CO must acknowledge the alert 

by clicking the “OK” button before completing the certification 

process. 

Schedule Number Reuse for Summary-type Schedules This enhancement has been created to enable the Federal Program 

Agencies (FPA) and FMS to more efficiently address problems 

caused by Summary-type schedules containing incorrect information”, such as the payment amount in the SPS certification not 

matching the payment amount of the file. A new button has been 

added to the “View Extracted Schedules” screen to allow a CO to 

“Request Removal of Schedule Number Use (SNU) Entry” on a 

Summary-type schedule that has been certified within the last five 

days. 

 

RFC personnel will review the request and determine its appropriateness. If the RFC Personnel accepts the request, the FPA can 

create a new SPS schedule with the same schedule number and 

complete the certification with the correct information in the 

schedule. Approvals for this option will be made on a case by case 

basis. It is important to note that changes can only be made on 

future dated schedules, where the payment date has not passed. 

Payments already issued cannot be reversed. 

Data Entry Operator Only Impact

Removal of large dollar notification responsibility 

warning for Same Day Pay Requests (SDPR) 

This release removes the alert to notify FMS Funds Control Division to individual payment amounts exceeding $50,000,000.00. 

This warning now appears to the CO. 

Constraints on payment date field value for Summary-type schedules When creating or editing a Summary-type or Summary Prenote

schedule, the “Payment Date” field cannot contain a date value in 

the past nor more than 25 days in the future. 

 

Constraints on payment remarks field 

values for SDPR Schedules 

When creating or updating a SDPR payment, the “Payment Remarks One” and “Payment Remarks Two” fields are now validated for their values. If there is an annotation in “Payment Remarks Two” there must also be an annotation in “Payment Remarks One” field. 

 

 Summer 2009 Special Edition 

Page 6 
The majority of agency check payments processed by FMS are presorted to obtain postage savings from the Post Office. 

In order to assist FMS in this effort, we are requesting agencies to comply with the Postal Service address format and not 

enter data after city, state and zip code on the last line. Any information after the zip code on the last line designates the

mail piece as a foreign mail piece and manual intervention is required to presort the mail piece properly. 

Below are excerpts from the United States Postal Service Publication 28 - Postal Addressing Standards, July 2008 Postal 

Service Stock Number (PSN) 7610-03-000-3688: 

211 Standardized Delivery Address Line and Last Line 

The Delivery Address Line and the Last Line of the address should be complete with a valid City, State, and ZIP 

Code or ZIP+4 Code, respectively. 

214 Attention Line 

The Attention Line should be placed above the Recipient Line, that is, above the name of the firm to which the 

mail piece is directed. Below are acceptable examples of appropriately formatted Attention Lines: 

225.2 Domestic Locations 

Use the approved city name and appropriate state abbreviation, along with the ZIP Code or ZIP+4 Code as pictured below: 

Agencies should implement procedures to ensure that check payment files include valid addresses and that recipient address changes are processed timely. Failure to do so may result in a higher incidence of return mail and/or lost postage 

discounts for FMS. If you have any questions regarding address hygiene, please contact the Customer Service Branch at 

215-516-8154. The United States Postal Service (USPS) address standards are available at 

http://pe.usps.gov/cpim/ftp/pubs/Pub28/pub28.pdf. 

 Summer 2009 Special Edition 

Page 7 

Agency Reminder! – Check Address Formatting 
On July 22, 2009, the Philadelphia Financial Center (PFC) 

achieved a significant milestone by reaching the $2 million plateau in daily presort savings using its Pitney Bowes Olympus II 

Sorter. PFC, as well as the regional centers in Austin and Kansas 

City, purchased the Olympus II Sorter in December 2004 to presort its daily checks and letters to obtain significant postage savings from the Post Office. PFC began using the Olympus II to 

presort its daily mail in April 2005, with the other centers implementing the equipment shortly thereafter. PFC’s Payment and 

Mail Operations Branch (PMOB) is responsible for presorting 

the daily checks and letters on the sorter. 

The incorporation of presort equipment into daily operations at 

PFC has been a challenging undertaking. However, PFC’s 

PMOB employees exhibited teamwork, vigilance, and creativity 

to implement a new business line that has provided for significant taxpayer savings and improved check payment controls. 

Congratulations to all those who contributed to this significant 

achievement. 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

PFC Agency Meeting 

October 27, 2009 ~ Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia ~ 8:00am—4:30pm 

 

Agenda: 

• Collections & Cash Management Modernization (CCMM) 

• Transaction Reporting System (TRS) 

• FMS Systems Enrollment/Recertification Process 

• Government-wide Accounting (GWA) 

• Judgment Fund 

• Payment Application Modernization (PAM) 

 

You can enroll for the meeting online at http://www.fms.treas.gov/pfc/training.html. 

Space is limited, so sign up today! 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

The Philadelphia Financial Center Newsletter entitled PFC Journal is presented by the 

Customer Service Branch and addresses a variety of topics of interest to individuals in 

the Federal financial community.

The PFC Journal is available exclusively on our website. 

http://www.fms.treas.gov/pfc

P.O. Box 51317 

Philadelphia, PA 19115 

Phone: 215-516-8000 

Fax: 215-516-8010 

Email:philly@fms.treas.gov 

 Summer 2009 Special Edition 

Presort Milestone 

Contacts for Agency Forum 

Deborah Jackson—215-516-8027 

Debbie.Jackson@fms.treas.gov 

Vendetta Patterson—215-516-8191 

Vendetta.Patterson@fms.treas.gov 

Lisa Andre—215-516-8142 

Lisa.Andre@fms.treas.gov 

PFC Presort Team: Joe Marshall, Matthew Moore, Joe Dugan, Sharon 

Johnson, James Bullock (not pictured—Randy Fowler)