Facilities Office

Concept of Operations
for the
Personal Property System



Prepared by:

Brian G. Mason

Headquarters Personal Property Management Officer

Date: March 13, 2000

Table of Contents

1. Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0

2. Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

3. Guiding Vision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

4. PPS Context Diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Figure 1 - PPS Context Diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

5. PPS Core Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

6. Customers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

7. Legal, Regulatory, and Policy Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

8. Hardware and Software Restraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

9. Other External Actors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

10. Concept of Operations - Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Figure 2. Creation of Skeleton Property Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

11. Payment/Cost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

12. Depreciation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

13. Conducting Physical Inventories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

14. Mass Changes including Transfers of Property Assignment . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

15. Tracking Excess / Disposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

16. Lost, Stolen, Damaged Equipment . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

17. History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

18. Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

19. Heritage Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

20. Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

21. Personal Property Management Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

22. List of Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

1 Purpose

This document describes high-level operational concepts for the future NOAA Personal Property System. It is based on the discussions that have been held over the past five years among the Personal Property Community within the Department of Commerce, within NOAA, and within the NOAA Personal Property Working Group, and it is based on the Personal Property Management - Requirements document published on May 17, 1999, by Aris Corporation under contract to NOAA.

This document is not intended to cover every situation that may arise in the management of personal property within NOAA, but is intended rather to provide an over-view of processes as envisioned with the implementation of a modern up-to-date Property system using currently available technology. It provides an opportunity to redefine work processes and even policy to ensure that when a new Property System is implemented, in line with the government-wide effort to re-invent old, tired ways of operating, that it provides a tool to NOAA management that makes the management of personal property simple and efficient while still ensuring that good internal controls exist to guarantee that NOAA's assets are all properly accounted for.

This document is intended to be non-technical, and should be understandable by both end users and system implementers. One purpose of a conceptual document is to solicit thoughts and ideas from stakeholders prior to defining the detailed requirements.

2 Executive Summary

The Department of Commerce, in 1990, contracted with the National Finance Center (NFC), Department of Agriculture, to provide a Personal Property System for managing the accountable personal property used by the Department. This system, written in the late 1970's, was originally designed to be a property tracking system. NOAA worked with the NFC to modify the system to provide a link between records of payments for property and the property records. This effort was only partially successful. When, in line with the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990, NOAA attempted to produce a financial statement which included an auditable record of the capitalized assets held by NOAA, it was learned that the NFC could not produce the required reports. Therefore, a system was created which took the NFC records and generated the financial reports off-line on the Internet.

In the meantime, the Department has begun implementing the Commerce Administrative Management System (CAMS). The goal of this enterprise-wide system is to integrate most, if not all, of the administrative functions to ensure that administrative tasks are streamlined, and to ensure that all administrative systems that feed the financial system are integrated to the extent that users are required to enter information only once.

The Personal Property System (PPS) needs to be tied very closely with the CAMS system. Information on purchases of accountable property comes from the Procurement system. Information on payments for accountable property comes from the Accounts Payable System. Depreciation, which can be calculated in the Property System, needs to be fed to the General Ledger.

The current system used by NOAA consisting of the NFC system supplemented by the Internet system is a temporary solution that is in serious need of replacement with a permanent solution. When the current financial system (FIMA) is replaced by CAMS, the feeder systems on which the current property system relies to generate financial reports, will disappear.

This document describes the concepts envisioned for the processes involved in a new PPS.

3 Guiding Vision

The following paragraphs set forth the ideal solution for a personal property system. Though some of this vision may not be achievable, the goal is to come as close to this vision as is possible given current technology, money and resources.

The personal property community envisions a dynamic system that will grow, change and remain current with available technology, changing philosophy, changing regulations, and reporting requirements.

The PPS will be fully and seamlessly integrated with other CAMS modules, specifically with the Core Financial System (CFS) and procurement modules.

The PPS will provide real-time capture, validation, processing and recording of personal property data.

The PPS will be a singular, user-friendly and flexible system that will be paperless, except as required by law or by logical property community decisions.

The PPS will be user-focused, provide flexible processing, be easy to change, and readily accommodate the addition and deletion of users.

The PPS will encompass all phases of the personal property management process from acquisition through excess processing and reporting.

The PPS will interface with General Services Administration's (GSA) Excess/Surplus Personal Property Disposal System for excess processing and annual reporting.

4 PPS Context Diagram

The Context Diagram provides an overview of the PPS functions in the context of internal and external factors which influence the required functionality of the system. The Context Diagram and the scenarios that are discussed later in this document present descriptions of the logical work (functions) that will be supported by the PPS. The Context Diagram also represents the roles and relationships of other entities that are involved in, or influence, the operations of Personal Property within NOAA. The other entities include: customers, suppliers, market forces and other external actors. A description of each component of the Context Diagram is provided below.

Figure 1 - PPS Context Diagram

5 PPS Core Functions

5.1 Planning and Budgeting

If a program calls for the acquisition of new equipment, the Property Office will assist the manager in determining whether to classify the property as constructed, capitalized, accountable, sensitive, etc., and therefore, what budget object class code to assign to all of the various aspects of the acquisition.

5.2 Excess Availability

In order to properly plan a new program, a manager needs to know what equipment will be needed to accomplish the stated goals of the program. To avoid the expense of having to buy new equipment, a manager will need an assessment of the equipment currently available, either within the office, within NOAA, or within the federal government. It is the job of the Property Office to assist the manager in making this assessment. The Personal Property System must provide easy access to the information needed to accomplish this goal.

5.3 Preliminary Accounting Review

Once an acquisition is formulated, the Property Office has a large stake in ensuring that the money is properly allocated to the items being purchased. One of the major mandates of the Property Office is to reconcile all payments for accountable property to a property record. If the money is not properly allocated, the Property Office may be looking for property when none was bought, or the Property Office may not be aware that money was actually spent for accountable property. To avoid these situations, it is important that the Property Office review all procurements for proper assignment of accounting classifications including project or task numbers and budget object class codes before the money is actually obligated whenever possible. The Property Office will also assist in the determination of what costs to include in the value of the asset being acquired in accordance with Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) standards.

5.4 Managing donations, transfers, exchange/sales

Property may be acquired through means other than purchase. If property is made available through loan, lease, donation, transfer, or exchange/sale, etc., internal controls must be in place to ensure that the accountable property acquired is recorded in the property records with the proper acquisition value.

5.5 Identification of Accountable Property

A major function of the Property Office is to assist Property Custodians in the identification of property that must be tracked and accounted for in the Personal Property System of record in accordance with Department of Commerce policy. In order to properly account for NOAA's assets, it is important to understand when an acquisition should be classified as a system, a component of a system, spare parts, supplies, or accessories, etc. A manager needs to know whether the property should be classified as real property rather than personal property or as an heritage asset rather than an asset for general use. It is also important to understand the accounting classifications as to whether an acquisition should be capitalized or not, including whether something qualifies as a bulk purchase that will need to be capitalized.

5.6 Tracking Property

5.6.1 Once the property has been delivered, it is essential that it be accurately recorded in the PPS as soon as it is accepted.

5.6.2 Once the property has been recorded in the PPS, it is essential that the record of its location and condition be kept current.

5.6.3 Loans must be recorded and tracked.

5.6.4 Heritage assets must be identified and tracked.

5.6.5 Offices may need to track property configurations.

5.6.6 Offices may need to track equipment calibration records.

5.6.7 Offices may need to identify software licenses and locations.

5.7 Periodic Inventories

The PPS must permit periodic inventories to ascertain that the property records are accurate. When offices have a relatively significant number of items, the use of a barcode scanner can expedite the inventory.

5.8 Tracking Maintenance of Personal Property

5.8.1 Offices may have a need to track maintenance agreements on certain items of personal property.

5.8.2 Offices may need to track maintenance on certain classifications of personal property.

5.8.3 Deferred maintenance must be tracked in accordance with FASAB standards.

5.9 Financial Accountability

5.9.1 Reconciling Payments

It is essential that all payments for accountable property be reconciled or tied to a physical property item. As a corollary to this, it is essential that the PPS identify how every piece of property was acquired.

5.9.2 Tracking Depreciation

It is imperative that the PPS properly handle the calculation of depreciation on all capitalized assets in accordance with standard accounting practices and that this information is posted to NOAA's General Ledger.

5.9.3 Maintaining subsidiary ledgers

In order to properly formulate NOAA's periodic financial statements, it is essential that the PPS properly record all transactions that affect the financial standing of an item of personal property. The financial statement must be aware of all capitalized property added and deleted during a fiscal year, as well as any adjustments that would affect its stated value or depreciation calculation. Such adjustments may include, for example, any impairment, upgrades or downgrades, any liability for cleanup costs, etc. In addition, the system must be capable of reporting items that would be included in the Required Supplementary Stewardship Information.

5.10 Managing Excess Property

A major complaint of property users is that once they no longer need a piece of property, it is very difficult to get rid of it. A goal of a new Personal Property System should be to simplify this process as much as current regulations will allow. Capitalized items taken out of service must have their depreciation properly handled in accordance with standard accounting practices. The system must also have a way of handling excess non-accountable property in addition to the ability to handle excess accountable property. The system should work with whatever system the General Services Administration (GSA) has established for electronically reporting and screening excess property. Where there are GSA systems such as FEDS, or DRMO systems, or facilities such as warehouses or CASU's available, the system should work with these systems to avoid whenever possible the use of paper in favor of electronic processing and the duplicate entry of data. The system must also be capable of identifying and tracking the status of environmental assessment and remediation requirements associated with property disposal.

5.11 Managing Heritage Assets

A unique requirement for the federal government is to track and manage the nation's heritage assets. Any significant expenses involved with managing these assets must be reported as part of the Required Supplementary Stewardship Information in the financial statement. Adequate information must be collected by the PPS to meet these reporting requirements.

5.12 Reporting

The information in the Property System must be readily and easily available to all customers of the PPS in whatever format they may require in order to perform their duties. Specifically, the Property Custodians must be able to generate a listing of the property for which they are responsible at any time. Information Technology managers may need periodic reports of hardware and/or software configuration. The system must be able to generate all of the reports required by the Finance Office, including current and accumulated depreciation, additions and deletions during the period, property in-use vs. property not-in-use, payments for which the associated property has not been identified, etc.

6 Customers

Customers are the major entities that receive data, information, products and/or services from the Property Office. Customers may vary greatly in their need of PPS information and products.

6.1 Department of Commerce. The Department depends upon NOAA to provide summary reports which can be incorporated into Department-wide statistical reports, financial reports, and activity reports.

6.2 General Services Administration. The General Services Administration (GSA) is the major customer for excess property. GSA also requires annual statistical and activity reports.

6.3 NOAA Finance. The Personal Property System provides a subsidiary ledger to the General Ledger. The Finance Office depends on the PPS to provide reports required for the Financial Statement and supporting documentation.

6.4 NOAA Procurement. The Property Office depends upon the Procurement Offices to provide information regarding purchases made of accountable property. The Property Office assists the Procurement Office to structure a buy to properly identify any accountable property being purchased.

6.5 NOAA Warehouse. NOAA Headquarters depends upon the NOAA Warehouse to assist in the screening of property no longer required by the headquarters offices. The NOAA Warehouse depends upon the Property Office for information regarding unneeded property so it can be properly reported for excess screening.

6.6 NWS NRC and NLSC. The Property Office depends upon the National Reconditioning Center and the National Logistics Supply Center of the National Weather Service to properly track accountable property passing through these centers.

6.7 Property Accountability Officers (PAO). The PAO's depend upon the PPS to track accountable property for which they are responsible and to provide information and reports as required. The Property Office depends upon the PAO's to manage the accountable property within their area of responsibility and to oversee the Property Custodians under their supervision.

6.8 Property Custodians (PC). The PC's depend upon the PPS to track accountable property for which they are responsible and to provide information and reports as required. The Property Office depends upon the PC's to manage the accountable property within their area of responsibility and to ensure that information is provided on a timely basis to the Property Office of changes to their property inventory. The PC's are also responsible for ensuring that periodic inventories are completed when required in a timely manner.

6.9 Property Contacts. The Property Contacts are responsible for assisting the Property Custodians in the day-to-day management of property including the tagging of newly acquired property, assisting in the conduct of physical inventories, and the maintenance of the property records within the Property Custodian's area of responsibility. The Property Contact is often the prime contact on a daily basis regarding property matters for an office.

6.10 Task/Project Managers. The Property Office depends upon NOAA Task and/or Project Managers to provide information necessary to properly manage and record accountable property used or acquired under a project including property constructed for NOAA's use. The Property Office provides Task and/or Project Managers with reports of the value property being used in a program or project.

6.11 LO/SO M&B Offices. The Property Office depends upon NOAA Line Office / Staff Offices Management and Budget Offices to assign the necessary project and task numbers as well as the proper budget object class codes to a procurement of accountable property so the costs of the acquisition are properly classified. The Property Office provides the LO/SO M&B Offices with summary reports of the value of property acquired under specified projects and tasks.

6.12 Information Systems Office (ISO). The Property Office provides the ISO with required reports of computer deployment within NOAA.

7. Legal, Regulatory, and Policy Constraints

Legal, regulatory, and policy constraints are major factors that influence or drive the PPS concept of operations. The PPS must be in compliance with these constraints.

7.1 Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) Standards, specifically Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards (SFFAS) No. 6, Accounting for Property, Plant, and Equipment, SSFAS No. 8, Supplementary Stewardship Reporting, and SFFAS No. 10, Accounting for Internal Use Software.

7.2 Federal Property Management Regulations (FPMR) (Title 41, Code of Federal Regulations, Chapter 101, Public Contracts and Property Management).

7.3 Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) (Title 48 Code of Federal Regulations, Chapter 1)

7.4 Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circulars, specifically,

7.4.1 OMB Circular A-11, "Planning, Budgeting, and Acquisition of Capital Assets (Part 3) Supplement to Part 3, Capital Programming Guide",

7.4.2 OMB Circular No. A-102, "Grants and Cooperative Agreements with State and Local Governments",

7.4.3 OMB Circular No. A-110, "Uniform Administrative Requirements for Grants and Other Agreements with Institutions of Higher Education, Hospitals, and Other Non-Profit Organizations",

7.4.4 OMB Circular No. A-123, "Management Accountability and Control",

7.4.5 OMB Circular No. A-127, "Financial Management Systems", and

7.4.6 OMB Circular No. A-130, "Management of Federal Information Resources"

7.5 Department of Commerce Personal Property Management Manual.

7.6 NOAA Finance Handbook

7.7 Appropriations and funding.

8. Hardware and Software Constraints

To build an integrated system with other NOAA systems, it is necessary to build the PPS within the current hardware and software environment.

8.1 Server Hardware. Current NOAA hardware configurations consist of Alpha servers running Windows NT tied together on an Ethernet LAN.

8.2 Client Platforms. NOAA clients utilize a variety of platforms including Windows, Macintosh, and Linux/Unix.

8.3 NOAA offices have the option of providing printing capability to their employees either through local printers or network printers. Reports generated from all parts of the PPS must be capable of being printed from either type of printer regardless of the capabilities of the printer available to the end-user.

8.4 Nationwide Distribution of Users. Users of the PPS are scattered throughout the nation and range in size from clusters at Headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, and at the Administrative Support Centers (ASC) in Seattle, Boulder, Kansas City, and Norfolk, to small local weather stations and ships at sea.

8.5 CAMS Data Tables. It is the ideal to be integrated with the Finance systems and Procurements systems running within CAMS. CAMS is being written as an application based on Oracle databases.

9. Other External Actors

The external actors represent major entities that can set requirements for the PPS and may influence the operation of the PPS.

9.1 Department of Commerce

9.2 NOAA

9.3 Executive Branch (OMB)

9.4 Congress (GAO)

9.5 GSA

10. Concept of Operations - Scenarios

With the development of the Commerce Administrative Management System and given the problems NOAA has faced providing information on capitalized assets for the financial statement, it has become imperative that NOAA acquire a modern property management system that will work closely with the Procurement, Accounts Payable, and General Ledger modules of CAMS, that will provide the required financial reports, and that will give access to property information to any and all of the managers of personal property within NOAA. Also, modern technology demands access to information through an Internet interface. The following scenarios attempt to describe how many of the normal, day-to-day activities would take place within a new PPS.

10.1 General

Paperless processing, using electronic forms and electronic approvals, shall be utilized whenever possible. Electronic processing avoids cumbersome, costly, and complex paper processes that significantly increase cost, compromise data integrity, and encourage "cuff-record" systems. A fully functioning Personal Property System would alleviate the need for "cuff systems."

A mechanism of data validation and edits shall be used throughout the PPS to insure accuracy of data input. Predefined data entry screens automatically generate transactions to seamlessly balance entry of accountable property between the CFS, Procurement and PPS. The cost savings realized through reduced data reconciliation and error correction is an expected benefit of an integrated system.

Up-to-date personal property data shall be available for on-line query and reporting based on user security level. Personal property data entry shall be maintained as close to the source of the data as possible while concurrently supporting the official accounting records for the Bureau. Data integrity will be enhanced by the elimination of data entry redundancy and extensive data reconciliation.

Personal property managers shall have ready access to all data and information needed to satisfy these requirements.

10.2 Acquiring a new piece of property

The basic concept throughout when acquiring a new piece of property is to make the process as simple and painless as possible with easy access to the system, taking advantage wherever possible of integral system controls to ensure that the process is completed by all parties involved. Every effort will also be made at every step of the way to eliminate entry of data that is available from another NOAA system. This means that a person ordering a piece of property will not have to tell the PPS what was ordered. Rather, this information, once entered in the Procurement system, will be available to the Personal Property System. A person receiving and accepting the property when it is delivered, will not have to tell the Personal Property System that an item was received or what it was. Rather, this information, once entered in the Accounts Payable or Procurement system, will be available to the PPS.

Property records will be created through a combination of automatic and manual processes. Many of the data elements will be moved into the PPS from various CAMS modules, including the Small Purchases module, the Purchase card module, and the Accounts Payable module. Other data elements will be entered into the PPS through manual entry. The PPS shall provide the flexibility to allow for partial entry of property records at various stages, e.g., acceptance and receipt, until the property record is complete. Thus we want to establish the concept of

a skeleton property record, a record of property being acquired which is generated from the information available in the Procurement system, which is supplemented by information from the Finance system regarding the cost or value of the item, and is completed by the Property Custodian or the Property Contact, reviewed by the Property Office, and posted to the PPS. (See Figure 2.)

10.2.1. Acquisition Form

10.2.1.1 The PPS will have the ability to generate an on-line form, to be completed by the Property Contact, which will solicit additional information required to complete the property record.

10.2.1.2 The form will include information that is in the system to this point.

Figure 2. Creation of Skeleton Property Record

10.2.1.3 The system will allow the Property Contact to modify incorrect information on the form.

10.2.1.4 Each form will individually identify each property item. However, provision will be made for entry of multiple items that are alike or similar by duplicating information from one form to the next.

10.2.1.5 Provision will be made for electronic exchange of the information on the form as well as any comments or other correspondence of additional information between the Property Contact or Property Custodian and Property Office.

10.2.2 Preliminary processes

Before procurement begins, it is essential that the Property Offices are afforded access to preliminary discussions in order to assist with budget planning and in order to convey to task and project managers the importance of property management considerations in any project. Property Offices should be afforded the opportunity to review requisitions before they get very far in the approval process. This will ensure that there is not excess available that would fulfill the need . It will also ensure that proper accounting is assigned to the purchase so that after the property is received it will be possible to properly match the property purchased with the payments made for the property.

10.2.2.1 Review for available excess. Through integration or interfacing with GSA and with local CASU's or warehouses, access should be provided to all requisitioners and other interested parties to lists of available excess property in order to ensure maximum usage of personal property in the hands of other parts of NOAA, the Department of Commerce, and the federal government to forestall the purchase of new.

10.2.2.2 Review for proper assignment of accounting. In cooperation with the Procurement community, the Property Offices must have early review of the accounting to which payments for the property will be assigned. This is to ensure that it will be possible to match the payments made with the property that is delivered. In order to forestall and catch errors, the Property Offices must review all requisitions using object class codes 23 25, 26, and 31. Through experience it has been shown that requisitions using these object class codes most often involve property issues.

10.2.3 All Obligations

The PPS will provide the ability to review obligations created in CAMS and legacy procurement systems (SPS) for accountable property and to generate forms and reminders to Property Custodians that information is required about the property being purchased.

10.2.3.1 Once an obligation has been created in CAMS, (and until it is completely replaced nationwide, in the legacy Small Purchasing System (SPS)) information about that obligation will need to be made available to the PPS. The PPS will provide the functionality of being able to review the obligations both on-line and in hard copy to identify accountable personal property being purchased.

10.2.3.2 The personal property staff must have complete control over this process to ensure that they are aware of what has been moved into the PPS from procurement for review and what has not. This is an internal control issue to ensure that no obligations for personal property are missed.

10.2.3.3 The PPS will provide the ability to delete or remove from further consideration all obligations for non-property related items.

10.2.3.4 The property staff must have the ability to add to and/or change the data brought in from the obligation record without changing the obligation record itself.

10.2.3.5 Vendor tables. Procurement will maintain the vendor tables. The data in these tables will be used in the PPS to indicate from whom property was purchased.

10.2.3.6 The PPS shall provide the capability to associate multiple acquisition ACCS code(s) to a single property item.

10.2.3.7 The PPS shall provide the capability to split, combine or delete pending property records.

10.2.3.8 The PPS shall provide the capability for a personal property item to be matched to several or only a portion of individual line items on one or more procurement documents. Explanation: The line items on purchase orders, purchase card statements, or contracts do not correspond directly with individual property items. There is not necessarily a one-for-one correlation between an individual line item on a purchase order, contract or purchase card and a property item. Following are four examples:

10.2.3.8.1 There may be 3 line items on one order that when added together make up one property item -- recorded as one property item with a cost of $2,798.

10.2.3.8.2 There may be 5 line items on one order that together make up 10 property items (one tenth of the total cost of the 5 line items is reconciled with each personal property item) -- recorded as ten property items with a cost of $3,656 each.

10.2.3.8.3 There may be 5 line items on one order that together make up 10 property items with no direct correlation between each property item and the associated cost -- recorded as ten property items, 6 with a cost of $2,798 (lines 1, 2, & 3), 2 with a cost of $3,127 (lines 1, 2, 3, and 5), 2 with a cost of $6,757 (lines 2, 3, 4, & 5).

10.2.3.8.4 There may be several orders that make up one or more property items -- recorded as ten property items, 3 with a cost of $3127 (Doc #1, lines 1, 2, & 3 and Doc #2, line 1), 3 with a cost of $3,926 (Doc #1, lines 1, 2, & 3 and Doc #2, line 1 and Doc #3, line 1), 2 with a cost of $3,127 (Doc #1, lines 1, 2, 3, and 5), 2 with a cost of $7,556 (Doc #1, lines 2, 3, 4, & 5 and Doc #3, line 1).

Document #1:

Document #2:

Document #3:

10.2.3.9 It is essential that the PPS be capable of tracking components of systems with both the components and the system receiving Property Identification Numbers. The value of the components may either be totaled with the system to provide the total cost of the system or, at the discretion of the user, the system may hold the total value of the system with the value of the components not being added in. For example, you may have a rack which contains a number of disk drives and tape cartridge drives. The value of the system would be the total value of all the disk drives, the tape drives and the rack. On the other hand, you may have a CWIP project during the course of which accountable items are acquired. The value of these components which would be tracked in the PPS would not be included in the total cost of the final product, but rather, the value of that product would be derived separately from the total accumulated costs of the project.

10.2.3.10 Because identification of new Property Custodians and Property Contacts often occurs while reviewing new property acquisitions, provision will be made for the ability to update Property Network tables from within the obligation review module.

10.2.3.11 It is extremely important that new acquisitions be recorded in the Property System promptly. As months go by, it becomes more and more difficult to gather information about accountable property acquired under a particular acquisition document. Provision will be made for an automatic electronic reminder system when information is not received timely.

10.2.4 Purchase Orders

There are no differences from the above general obligation provisions that apply specifically to purchase orders.

10.2.5 Purchase Cards

There are no requisitions involved when purchases are made with purchase cards. An obligation is not established in CAMS until the purchase is identified in the Accounts Payable system. This means that a skeleton property record may not be created until the payment for the item is made or at least until the property is received. The principal person involved in creating this property record may be the purchase card holder, even though that person may not be the final recipient of the property. It must also be considered that purchase card holders are scattered throughout the world. Use of the Internet for the most part will satisfy this issue.

10.2.6 Contracts

It is most important before a contract is let that the Property Office be involved in the process of establishing the obligation to ensure that accountable personal property is identified so it can be tracked from the beginning of the process. Whether the contract is simply for the construction or acquisition of property, whether the contract involves the construction or the acquisition of property in order to accomplish a particular task, or whether the government will furnish property to the contractor, the contract needs to be written to clearly identify any accountable property that may be involved in the execution of the contract.

10.2.7 Interagency agreements.

Orders are often placed for the acquisition of property from other agencies. Once these obligations are established, it will be necessary for Property to be made aware of them so that they can be tracked and the property entered into the PPS upon receipt.

10.2.8 Blanket Purchase Agreements.

Blanket Purchase Agreements permit users to order equipment without going through the usual procedures every time a purchase is made once the arrangement with the vendor has been established. Procedures need to be in place to ensure that Property is aware of this purchase of equipment and that it is entered into the PPS upon receipt.

10.2.9 Transfer from another federal agency (acquired from any government source).

The PPS shall provide the capability to complete the data elements necessary to properly record personal property items that are acquired from excess utilization sources including GSA and other federal and state government offices where initial data entry takes place in the PPS rather than the procurement module or the accounts payable module. It shall also have the capability of generating the required SF-122 Transfer Order form when appropriate.

The PPS shall have the capability to record personal property acquired by transfer at the actual cost to NOAA and that cost will be the basis for depreciation, if applicable. The PPS shall also have the capability of tracking transferred-in property at the book value (original cost less depreciation) from the transferring agency's books. When this information is not available, the PPS shall have the capability of determining the Net Book Value from available information including the original acquisition cost, the salvage value, the original acceptance date, and the remaining useful life.

10.2.10 Lease

Leases may be let with or without the intention to own the property at the end of the lease. Leases let without the intention to own the property will be recorded including the monthly lease payment and the expiration date of the lease.

10.2.10.1 Lease-to-Purchase. Leases let with the intention to own the property at the end of the lease shall be recorded as an acquisition with the acquisition date and acquisition cost entered in accordance with standard accounting practices. The PPS must allow for monthly payments to be made in Finance without affecting the stated value of the property recorded in the PPS.

10.2.10.2 Non-capitalized. The PPS shall provide the capability to complete the data elements necessary to properly record personal property items leased by NOAA that are non-capitalized when the procurement document, receiving report, and payment data are processed through the CFS.

10.2.10.3 Capitalized. The PPS shall provide the capability to complete the data elements necessary to properly record personal property items leased by NOAA that are capitalized when the procurement document, receiving report, and payment data are processed through the CFS.

Note: Personal property acquired through lease agreements shall be capitalized when placed in service if the value of the property is equal to or exceeds the amount set for capitalization of personal property.

10.2.10.4 Value of lease. The PPS shall be capable of computing lease liability, imputed interest, executory costs, accumulated depreciation, current year depreciation by task code, prior period adjustments, future minimum lease payments for five years and additional out years on leases from the lease payments, number of payments and interest percentage in accordance with the NOAA Lease Handbook and procedures.

Note: Lease liability is computed by determining the present value of future payments over the life of the lease. The interest rate used to compute the present value is the lesser of the following two rates: (a) the annual interest rates published by OMB under Circular A-94, or (b) the rate that the vendor charges when computing the lease payments.

Note: Imputed interest is calculated in one of two methods: (a) the difference between the cost to the government of the asset had the asset been purchased and the total payments under the lease, or (b) using the interest rates chosen in the above paragraph, calculate the interest on each monthly payment.

10.2.10.5 Operating leases. The PPS shall be capable of recording operating leases including the amount of the periodic payments, the beginning lease date and the ending lease date.

10.2.10.6 General Ledger accounts. The PPS shall be capable of adjusting the general ledger accounts for all lease related events, including acquisition cost, cost adjustments, ancillary costs, lease liabilities, depreciation expense, prior period adjustments, and deletions of leases.

10.2.11 Bulk Purchases

The PPS shall provide the capability to record and track property that was procured as a bulk purchase. This is used to record property items that are capitalized because the cumulative amount represents a significant outlay of funds. This includes the capability of controlling each piece of property with separate PIN numbers and recording depreciation on each piece of equipment separately, but having the capability to report that depreciation as a single summary amount.

Note: Current policies define any one purchase where the items costing over $25,000 total $1 million or more as a bulk purchase.

10.2.12 Constructed Property

The PPS shall provide the capability to complete the data elements necessary to properly record personal property items that are constructed or manufactured by or for the Government. This includes tracking the personal property during all phases of the construction process. Once the property is completed it shall be transferred from work-in-process to the actual property records, and in the finance records from the CWIP account to the asset account..

Note: Full cost of goods produced or constructed shall include labor and other direct or indirect production costs such as supplies, and an appropriate share of the cost of the equipment and facilities used in construction work. (See SFFAS #6.)

10.2.13 Government Owned Property Acquired by a Contractor or Grantee.

The PPS shall provide the capability to complete the data elements necessary to properly record personal property items acquired for the Government by a contractor or grantee where initial data entry takes place in the PPS whether or not actual possession of the item by the Government occurs immediately or not.

10.2.14 Donations.

The PPS shall provide the capability to complete the data elements necessary to properly record personal property items acquired from donations where initial data entry takes place in the PPS.

Note: Personal property acquired from non-federal donations shall be recorded with the placed-in-service date and at the estimated fair market value for property management purposes and at the cost incurred to place the property in use for financial purposes.

10.2.15 Loaned to NOAA.

The PPS shall provide the capability to complete the data elements necessary to properly record personal property items on loan to NOAA regardless of ownership (other federal agency or private concern) where initial data entry takes place in the PPS.

Note: Personal property loaned shall be recorded on the placed in service date at the estimated fair market value for property management purposes and at the costs incurred to place the property in use for financial purposes.

10.2.16 Found, Forfeiture, or Seizure (Confiscation).

The PPS shall provide the capability to complete the data elements necessary to properly record personal property items found during physical inventories or received from forfeiture or confiscation where initial data entry takes place in the PPS.

Note: Personal property found during physical inventory or acquired by seizure or foreclosure shall be recorded on the estimated placed in service date at the estimated fair market value for property management purposes and at the costs incurred to place the property in use for financial purposes.

10.2.17 Receipt and Acceptance.

The CAMS provides for recording receipt and acceptance of items ordered and approval of payment of invoices. Accountable personal property may or may not be linked to the payment of a specific invoice. If it is, this functionality will need to be integrated with the PPS so that receipt and acceptance of property in CAMS can be linked to the property record for audit trail purposes. If it is not, functionality will need to be provided so the acceptance date can be entered into PPS by the user regardless of how the property is acquired.

10.2.18 Tracking and followup

The personal property system shall provide the capability to track those acquisition records that have not been completed and provide a mechanism for followup with the responsible personnel.

11. Payment/Cost

The value of an item of accountable personal property must be entered in accordance with generally accepted accounting rules and practices. There must also be a link between the value entered into the PPS and the payment of invoices received in the Accounts Payable module of CAMS. It is the responsibility of the Property Office to ensure that all invoices paid using object class code 31 are either accounted for by corresponding entries in the PPS or by an explanation for the differences. The value entered for all capitalized property must be supported by complete documentation and a complete audit trail of the final valuation of the property item.

11.1 The PPS shall record the acquisition cost and related adjustments for all personal property items including transportation, installation, and related costs of obtaining the assets in their current form and place. (Reference: GAO Title 2, Standard A-20.)

11.2 The PPS shall provide the capability to record the acquisition cost net of purchase discounts taken. Purchase discounts and lost or late payment penalties should not be included in costs of assets, but should be classified as operating expenses.

11.3 The PPS shall record the acquisition cost of personal property acquired as a result of trade-ins at the amount paid and/or liability incurred plus the net book value of the traded-in property not to exceed the fair market value of the new equipment. The PPS should generate the appropriate general ledger entries to recognize a gain or loss from the trade-in.

11.4 The PPS shall provide the capability to distribute residual accountable costs associated with a particular payment to all property items purchased on the procurement document. Such unanticipated amounts might include service charges or transportation charges. (This is equivalent to a manual cost adjustment.)

11.5 Information on all capitalized property entered into the PPS must be reported to the NOAA CAMS General Ledger, including capitalized property acquired through donation, transfer, gift, or any other means which does not involve an obligation or a payment of an invoice.

11.6 The PPS shall capitalize the costs of additions, alterations, upgrades, rehabilitations, or replacements that extend the useful life of capitalized personal property or its service capacity over the remaining useful life of the asset. Costs of assets or components removed, superseded, or destroyed in the improvement process shall be expensed, net of accumulated depreciation, if any. The PPS shall generate the appropriate general ledger entries to record the gain or loss.

11.7 The PPS shall provide the capability to generate the appropriate general ledger entries to record the cost in the CFS general ledger module.

11.8 The PPS shall provide an audit trail of all the cost adjustments.

11.9 Invoice credits. Any credits received for prior payments for accountable property must be linked to and reconciled with the PPS.

12. Depreciation

Depreciation of capitalized personal property will be calculated daily within the PPS and the depreciation costs and all depreciation adjustments will be passed monthly to the CAMS General Ledger Module.

12.1 The PPS shall provide a mechanism to calculate depreciation on personal property, software, and leases that meet the capitalization criteria. The PPS shall generate the appropriate general ledger entries for recording depreciation by task code including appropriate prior period adjustments.

12.2 The PPS shall provide the capability to identify capitalized personal property for the purpose of calculating depreciation by task code.

12.3 The PPS shall provide the capability to specify the depreciation method (straight-line or usage calculations) applicable to each personal property item.

Note: Usage calculations are based on actual hourly usage.

12.4 The PPS shall provide the capability to allocate depreciation for a property item to multiple depreciation ACCS code(s) based on the applicable percentage assigned to each ACCS code for depreciation. The ACCS code for depreciation may or may not be the same as the ACCS code(s) that was originally used to purchase the item. Duplicate ACCS codes will not be allowed.

12.5 The PPS shall calculate depreciation for non-manufactured equipment based on the acceptance date, useful life, and total amount minus salvage value. The PPS shall provide the capability to assess "catch-up" depreciation resulting from timing issues.

12.6 The PPS shall calculate depreciation for manufactured equipment based on the acceptance date, useful life and total amount minus salvage value. The PPS shall provide the capability to assess "catch-up" depreciation resulting from timing issues. The asset is transferred from the Construction Work in Process (CWIP) equipment account to the appropriate asset account.

12.7 The PPS shall calculate depreciation of capital leases over the period of the lease using the NOAA Lease Determination Worksheet as the basis for the value of the lease. (See the NOAA Lease Handbook and procedures.)

12.8 The PPS shall allow depreciation of bulk items on the individual items even though the cost of each individual property item does not equal the threshold for capitalization.

12.9 The PPS shall provide the capability to specify the salvage value as a user-specified dollar amount or percentage.

12.10 The PPS shall provide the capability to allow authorized personnel to assign a different useful life than the default useful life for a specific property item.

12.11 The PPS shall provide the capability to stop depreciation on a specific property item based on its current use or when it is taken out of service.

12.12 Modifications Requiring Changes in Depreciation Calculations

12.12.1 The PPS shall have the capability to record depreciation adjustments. For example, if depreciation was not recorded, or recorded incorrectly because of an error in one of the data elements used for the calculation, an adjustment would be entered in the current period with future period depreciation recorded accordingly.

12.12.2 The PPS shall provide the capability to allow the ACCS code for depreciation to be changed during the life of the property, allow previously calculated depreciation to remain intact, and charge depreciation from that time on against the new depreciation ACCS code(s).

12.12.3 The PPS shall allow for the adjustment of the useful life and the salvage value of an asset. Either of these adjustments will effect the depreciation. The PPS shall generate the appropriate general ledger entries to record the adjustments. If the useful life or salvage value changes after depreciation of an item has begun, changes shall affect future depreciation calculations only and shall not result in the modification of previously recorded depreciation.

13. Conducting Physical Inventories

13.1 The PPS shall provide a mechanism for users to conduct physical inventories of personal property and compare the results with active personal property records contained in the module.

13.2 The PPS shall include the capability to use personal computers, barcode readers or scanning devices to conduct personal property inventories. The use of the scanning devices shall be optional to the successful completion of the inventory.

13.3 Because some organizations are not located in just one location, the physical inventory shall be capable of being conducted either by location or by organization.

13.4 The PPS shall provide the capability for data from physical inventories conducted manually and/or by use of personal computers, barcode readers, or other scanning devices to be uploaded and compared with active data in the PPS. However, it must be possible to review the inventory data before posting it to the main database.

13.5 The PPS shall subject inventory transactions, which will be uploaded in batch from personal computers or scanning devices, to the same edits as on-line interactive transactions.

13.6 All batch transmissions must receive confirmation back from the data base regarding what was accepted and what was rejected, and if an item is rejected, the reason for the rejection.

13.7 The PPS shall automatically generate required reports from the physical inventory for data comparison. The reports required will show the following comparisons for each Property Custodian, Property Accountability Officer, and Property Management Officer:

13.7.1 Active PINs on record but not inventoried

13.7.2 PINs inventoried that are not on record as active

13.7.3 PINs inventoried where room numbers are invalid (The PPS shall automatically change the room number to the one supplied with the physical inventory data.)

13.7.4 Invalid PC, PAO or PMO codes recorded with the physical inventory data.

13.8 The PPS shall automatically insert the inventory date into each personal property record when provided in the physical inventory data.

13.9 The PPS shall automatically insert the property location and property contact for each record when the owner organization from the inventory matches the owner organization stored in the PPS.

13.10 The PPS shall automatically flag the item as "not found" if the item was not found during the physical inventory.

14. Mass Changes including Transfers of Property Assignment

14.1 The PPS shall provide the capability to perform a mass transfer of assignment of property items at each of the levels in the hierarchical management network. Types of mass transfers would include but would not be limited to assigning property from one Property Custodian to another Property Custodian, and from one Property Accountability Officer to another Property Accountability Officer.

14.2 In addition to changing management network assignments, the PPS shall provide the capability to perform a mass transfer of assignment of property items from one organization to another, from one property location (building, room, site, and country code) to another, and from one depreciation ACCS code to another.

14.3 The PPS shall also employ a mechanism to facilitate mass transfers where there is no one-to-one correlation, for example, when an reorganization takes place breaking up one organization into two or more pieces, reassigning property from one Property Custodian code to several new Property Custodian codes.

14.4 Finally, there shall be the capability to do mass changes to other fields in the database such as the manufacturer, the vendor, the model number, etc.

15. Tracking Excess / Disposal (Excess is defined as property no longer required at the Bureau level)

15.1 Excessing Personal Property

15.1.1 The PPS shall allow for processing of personal property reported as excess to the needs of the NOAA regardless of whether it is accountable or not.

15.1.2 The PPS shall provide the capability to identify and track the status of environmental assessment and remediation requirements associated with the disposal of personal property.

15.1.3 The PPS shall provide the capability to allow NOAA personnel to screen available excess property for possible utilization elsewhere prior to final disposition.

15.1.4 The PPS shall permit electronic reporting of excess to warehouse, CASU, DRMO, and GSA systems to eliminate as much as possible re-entry of data.

15.1.5 The PPS shall provide the capability for authorized personnel to assign excess property voucher numbers and excess property report numbers.

15.1.6 The PPS shall provide the capability to transfer information provided by the property user either electronically or on hard-copy to the PPS, to insert information missing from the user's report, and generate the appropriate GSA form.

15.1.7 The PPS shall provide the capability to print excess reports on-demand.

15.2 Disposing of Personal Property

15.2.1 The PPS shall provide the capability for tracking property as it goes through the disposal process generating the appropriate general ledger entries when appropriate.

15.2.2 The PPS shall provide the capability to record a disposal code for the categories of disposal as defined by required reporting requirements, and to change the status of the accountable property recorded in the PPS to "inactive".

15.2.3 Contracts may authorize the proceeds from the sale of personal property in a contractor's or subcontractor's custody to be credited to the cost of work, in accordance with the contract or subcontract, pursuant to 40 USC § 485 (e). The PPS shall record the amount of sale when personal property is sold and generate the appropriate general ledger entries to adjust the Cash and Miscellaneous Receipts Due Treasury accounts (a liability) unless disposed as exchange/sale and used to replace similar assets.

15.2.4 When disposing of depreciated personal property, the PPS shall generate the appropriate general ledger entries to remove the net book value (difference between the acquisition cost and the accumulated depreciation) and recognize a gain or loss where applicable.

15.2.5 Most disposals from the PPS are reported annually to GSA on the Annual Report of Utilization and Disposal of Excess and Surplus Personal Property (SF-121). The PPS shall collect the data from the disposals that meet the report requirements (usually based on fiscal year) and provide a report at the close of each fiscal year in accordance with GSA requirements.

15.2.6 The PPS shall collect the data from exchange/sale transactions that meet the report requirements (usually based on fiscal year) and generate a report at the close of each fiscal year in accordance with GSA requirements.

15.2.7 The PPS shall collect the data from personal property donated to non-federal recipients that meet the annual report requirements (usually based on fiscal year) and generate a report at the close of each fiscal year in accordance with GSA requirements. The PPS shall require the user to record data elements for each donation including the disposal recipient contact and disposal recipient organization.

15.2.8 The PPS shall provide the means to properly document the abandonment or destruction of property in accordance with GSA and Department policies and regulations.

16. Lost, Stolen, Damaged Equipment

Property that is discovered to be lost, stolen, or damaged must be reported and in certain circumstances, the report must be presented to a Board of Review for determination of financial liability of the employee(s) involved. The processing of this report (Department of Commerce Form CD-52, Report of Property for Survey) shall be available on-line including electronic signature authority.

17. History

17.1 The database will include a complete history of every transaction affecting every piece of property including inactive records until authorization is given to purge a particular item from the data base. The historical record will enable information to be reported about the state of the data base at any particular time in the past. This includes:

17.1.1 Adds, changes, and deletions to the property information.

17.1.2 Adds, changes, and deletions to the financial information.

17.2 Provision will be made to enter notes regarding any transaction that is made.

17.3 Each transaction on the data base will automatically record the following information:

17.3.1 The date and time of the transaction

17.3.2 The identification of the person making the transaction

17.3.3 The type of transaction (e.g., addition to match finance payment, addition as found, general change, change of status, type of deletion, etc.)

17.4 A history record will be created regardless of whether the transaction occurred as the result of a batch upload, or as the result of entry from the keyboard.

17.5 The PPS will have the capability to store a snapshot of the current state of the database on a fixed schedule. The snapshot will be taken at a minimum at the end of each Fiscal Year on September 30. The snapshot records will be retained for three years in accordance with accepted Departmental policy and be maintained and available online for review and analysis.

18. Maintenance

The Personal Property System must assist managers in monitoring the physical status of property. This includes tracking maintenance and utilization, and determining when to overhaul, retire, transfer, or dispose of specified classes of property. The PPS must also maintain calibration records for offices that need to track this information on certain types of equipment.

18.1 The PPS will have the ability to record and track the condition of an asset

18.2 The PPS will have the ability to track warranties and guarantees..

18.3 The PPS will have the ability to record the results of an inventory, inspection, or official Condition Assessment Survey to include the current condition of property items.

18.4 The PPS will have the ability to capture appropriate changes to the useful life for calculating depreciation in current or future periods.

18.5 The PPS will have the ability to record any environmental or hazardous substance located on or contained within a property item.

18.6 The PPS will provide information to determine whether an item of property needs to be maintained, retired, or disposed, as the result of damage, deterioration, or obsolescence.

18.7 The PPS will support development of property maintenance, upgrade, and overhaul schedules.

18.8 The PPS will track scheduled maintenance and identify items and their value for which scheduled maintenance was deferred. It will also capture and report adjustments made to the schedule.

18.9 The PPS will provide the capability to maintain calibration records on specified types of equipment.

18.10 The PPS will be capable of reporting all deferred maintenance projects at a specified dollar threshold ($50,000), including quantity and category of asset.

19. Heritage Assets

The federal government has a unique mission of maintaining for posterity certain assets that are retained not for use, but rather for their historical, cultural, artistic, or educational value. NOAA has custody over a wide variety of such assets. Though the requirements are somewhat different, the Personal Property System, in order to be all-encompassing, must be capable of tracking this type of property and of providing end-of-year reports required for the Required Supplementary Stewardship Information part of NOAA's financial statement. The current value of the property is irrelevant; however, the cost of acquiring and maintaining the property is not.

19.1 The Personal Property System will identify the reason for classifying an asset as an heritage asset; i.e., whether it has historical, educational, artistic, or cultural significance.

19.2 The PPS will be capable of identifying the classification to which an heritage asset belongs, e.g., art, books, clothing, models, etc.

19.3 Because heritage assets may include collections of items as well as individual items, the PPS must be capable of identifying the number of items in a collection.

19.4 The PPS will track loans of heritage assets to museums or other institutions including the name, address, and phone number of both the party loaning the item and the party to whom the item is loaned, the expiration date of the loan, and any information about insurance required of the loanee.

19.5 The PPS will identify the current condition of an heritage asset.

19.6 The PPS will provide a means to completely describe the heritage asset including such items as its past history, its past owners, its creator, the materials out of which it is made, and how it is mounted for display,

19.7 The PPS will identify how an heritage asset was acquired and from whom, including the name and address of donors, transferees or vendors, as well as all accession numbers, catalog numbers, and property numbers of the items received from such sources.

19.8 The PPS will identify the date the heritage asset was accessioned into NOAA's heritage asset collection.

19.9 The PPS will identify the person or organization currently responsible for the care of an item and its current location.

19.10 The PPS will be capable of recording physical inventories of heritage assets, which will be conducted in much the same way as inventories of general personal property. However, the instances of heritage assets on loan will be much higher than the instances of general property on loan. Therefore, inventories of heritage assets will largely be documented by correspondence with the loanees. The PPS must be capable of tracking this documentation.

19.11 The PPS will be capable of storing and displaying an image of the heritage asset.

19.12 The PPS will be capable of reporting the identification of reproductions vs. original heritage assets.

19.13 The PPS will be capable of recording expenses for the maintenance, care and upkeep of NOAA's heritage assets.

19.14 The PPS will be capable of reporting the yearly additions and deletions.

19.15 The PPS will be able to identify multi-use heritage assets; i.e., general PP&E that also qualifies as heritage assets.

20. Reporting

The Personal Property System shall provide the capability to produce reports based on the data in the system as described below.

20.1 General Requirements

20.1.1 The PPS shall provide on-line querying of all personal property and related accounting data. This capability must be available through an Internet interface.

20.1.2 The PPS shall support user-specified routing to a specific output device and on various media including:

20.1.2.1 Report files available for computer-to-computer transfer of reports electronically (formatted as reports with titles, headings, and totals and/or in ASCII format as straight data).

20.1.2.2 Output files available for subsequent processing and/or production of CD/ROM.

20.1.2.3 Computer predefined hard copy formats which can be produced on either networked or local printers.

20.1.2.4 On-screen display for visual inspection.

20.1.3 The system should allow the capability of forwarding reports electronically to designated recipients with the capability to resend reports when the original transmission fails.

20.2 Pre-defined Reporting

20.2.1 The PPS shall contain a menu of pre-defined reports that can be produced on-demand.

20.2.2 The PPS shall provide the capability to easily add additional pre-defined reports to the menu.

20.2.3 The PPS shall provide the capability to easily modify pre-defined reports by setting report parameters such as, division, date range, etc., without the intervention of a programmer.

20.2.4 The PPS shall provide the capability for capturing, classifying, summarizing and reporting current year and cumulative data on capital acquisitions, disposals, and assets on hand up to the Bureau level.

20.2.5 The PPS shall allow reports to be sorted by various and multiple data elements.

20.3 Scheduled Reports.

The PPS shall automatically produce specific reports on predefined schedules on a recurring or periodic basis for internal use. Reports may be required to be scheduled daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly.

20.3.1 The PPS shall provide the capability to define and modify the schedule for automatically producing pre-defined reports.

20.3.2 The PPS shall produce pre-defined reports that can be automatically sent to the designated recipient by electronic means. It must be possible to regenerate and/or resend reports for which the original transmission fails.

20.3.3 The PPS shall be capable of producing hard copies of scheduled pre-defined reports.

20.3.4 The PPS shall automatically produce specific reports on predefined schedules on a recurring or periodic basis for external use by other federal agencies after internal validation.

20.4 Ad Hoc Reporting

20.4.1 The PPS shall provide an ad hoc reporting capability for both current (default reporting condition) and historical data for users without the intervention of a programmer.

20.4.2 Capability must be provided to obtain a "snap-shot" of the data base as of a specified prior date.

20.4.3 The PPS shall provide the capability to produce summarization data sorted in hierarchical levels up to the Bureau level.

20.4.4 The PPS shall provide query capabilities based on minimal user input.

20.4.5 The PPS shall permit the use of logic for selection criteria in order to support flexible record selection (standard query language, query by example or query by form).

20.5 Financial Reporting.

At any time, it must be possible to generate reports showing the current value of capitalized and non-capitalized property as stated in the property data base as of a specified date. These reports generally would be by major system category and/or object class code, appropriation, organization, and task number.

20.5.1 End-of-Year Reporting (Capitalized Property). Summary reports must be generated for the acquisition cost and the depreciation on all capitalized property at the end of each fiscal year giving the following information:

20.5.1.1 Beginning balance

20.5.1.2 Prior period adjustments

20.5.1.3 Additions by type

20.5.1.4 Deletions by type

20.5.1.5 Suspense (paid for, but the property record is not yet completed.)

20.5.1.6 Ending balance

20.5.1.7 Late adjustments

20.5.1.8 Final balance

20.5.2 In addition, reports are required on capitalized property giving the following information:

20.5.2.1 Property in-use and not-in-use

20.5.2.2 Government Furnished Equipment in the hands of contractors

20.5.2.3 Government Furnished Equipment in the hands of grantees

20.5.2.4 Contractor Acquired Property belonging to the Federal Government

20.5.2.5 Property for which the value is and is not supported by documentation

21. Personal Property Management Network

21.1 The Department of Commerce (DoC) utilizes a hierarchical management network of personal property management officials to manage and physically control Commerce personal property. Authority to use various functions within the PPS will often be based on a person's position within the Personal Property Management Network. The PPS shall provide the capability to record the personal property management network which consists of a minimum of four hierarchical management levels. Use of the first three management levels is mandatory. Many offices in NOAA also utilize a fourth level which shall also be recorded in the PPS. The levels are:

21.1.1 Property Management Officers (PMOs) - The Bureau-level official responsible to the Department of Commerce for the management and administration of the Personal Property within the Bureau.

21.1.2 Property Accountability Officers (PAOs) - Usually Office-level directors responsible for the management and oversight of property management within their organization.

21.1.3 Property Custodians (PCs) - Usually Division-level directors responsible for the property within their immediate office or organization.

21.1.4 Property Contact - Employees responsible to the Property Custodian for the day-to-day operations of property management.

21.2 Each of these officials are identified by a unique identification number. For each personal property network official, the PPS shall provide, at a minimum, the capability to record the appropriate unique management network code, and relate this information to the CAMS Employee table which will provide the employee number, the official's name (employee name), organization, and location (which consists when applicable of building, room, street address, city, state, zip code, country code), telephone numbers including voice and fax numbers, and an email address.

21.2.1 The PMO code (2 character alphanumeric code) is the Bureau identification code.

21.2.2 The PAO code is the PMO code concatenated with 4 alphanumeric characters. The fourth of these four characters also identifies the regional Administrative Service Center (ASC) that is responsible for overseeing the management of the property for the particular PAO and his/her respective PC's.

21.2.3 The PC code is the PAO code concatenated with a 3 alphanumeric characters.

21.2.4 The Property Contact shares the same number(s) as their Property Custodian(s).

21.3 Information about the employees assigned to fulfill each of these Property positions shall be brought into the PPS from the CAMS Employee table database.

List of Acronyms

ACCS - Account Classification Code Structure

ASC - Administrative Services Center

CAMS - Commerce Administrative Management System

CASU - Consolidated Administrative Support Unit

CFS - Core Financial System

CWIP - Construction Work In Process

DoC - Department of Commerce

FAR - Federal Acquisition Regulations

FASAB - Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board

FEDS - Federal Excess Disposal System

FPMR - Federal Property Management Regulations

GAO - General Accounting Office

GSA - General Services Administration

ISO - Information Systems Office

LAN - Local Area Network

LO - Line Office

M&B - Management and Budget

NFC - National Finance Center

NLSC - National Logistics Services Center

NOAA - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

NRC - National Reconditioning Center

OMB - Office of Management and Budget

PAO - Property Accountability Officer

PC - Property Custodian

PIN - Property Identification Number

PMO - Property Management Officer

PPS - Personal Property System

RPM - Regional Property Manager

SFFAS - Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards

SO - Staff Office

SPS - Small Purchasing System