AUGUST 2009

CONTENTS

U.S. POSTAL SERVICE PARTICIPATING IN TREASURY OFFSET PROGRAM (TOP) ›

USPS ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE – FIELD TRANSPORTATION CONTRACTING ›

eSOURCING SUPPLIER REGISTRATION NOW AVAILABLE ›

POSTAL SERVICE eACCESS APPLICATION UPGRADE ›

USPS PARTICIPATING IN TREASURY OFFSET PROGRAM (TOP)

Since June 2009, the U.S. Postal Service has been participating in the Department of the Treasury’s Financial Management Service (FMS) Treasury Offset Program (TOP). As required by 31 U.S.C. 3716, supplier payments are subject to offsets, in whole or in part, for delinquent tax and non-tax debts owed to the United States, any individual state, or for delinquent child support payments. Postal Service contract clause 4-2, Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Policies, Statutes or Executive Orders, now includes a notification of Postal Service compliance with this federal law and its participation in TOP.

TOP Notification and Supplier Inquiries

After payments are offset by the Postal Service, suppliers will receive a notification from the Department of the Treasury’s FMS that includes details about the government agency (or agencies) collecting the debt. Generally, the notification will be sent by FMS within 48 hours of the offset being applied.

An offset can be ascertained by the abbreviation “TOP” denoted on USPS check remittance advice under the heading “Travel Dates/Invoice/Claim Number.” For example:

TOP USP20090723 767123-1234
TOP (creditor agency phone number) (creditor agency name)

Because only 30 characters are available in the second TOP data field, the information may get truncated and the supplier may be unable to determine the creditor agency name or phone number. When this occurs, suppliers may obtain creditor agency contact information by calling the Department of the Treasury’s FMS Call Center at 1-800-304-3107.

When an offset occurs with respect to a payment by EFT, the phone number and name of the offset creditor agency are provided electronically to the supplier’s financial institution. Back to Top ›

USPS ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE – FIELD TRANSPORTATION CONTRACTING

Area Distribution Networks transportation contracting offices are consolidating.

This organizational change means 11 field transportation contracting units, formerly assigned to area offices, will consolidate into five offices (with one satellite branch), and will report to a single unit – the Supply Management Surface Transportation Category Management Center (CMC) in the Transportation Portfolio at Headquarters, Washington, DC.

 This consolidation of field transportation contracting is part of our ongoing efforts to reduce costs, improve operational efficiencies and to identify additional opportunities for leveraging and improving our supply chains. On August 10, the effective date of this organizational change, Area Vice Presidents and the affected employees were briefed.

Details of any impacts related to the administration of your transportation contracts will be via direct communication from your contracting officers. In the interim, we appreciate your patience, support and understanding as we work to further improve our operations and service to our customers. Please direct any questions to your contracting officer. Back to Top ›

eSOURCING SUPPLIER REGISTRATION NOW AVAILABLE

In our last issue of usps/re:supply, you heard about some of the benefits of the Postal Service’s new eSourcing tool, including eRFx, optimization, and reverse auction capabilities.

Another benefit is centralized supplier registration. This eSourcing module allows suppliers to register for upcoming eSourcing events with the Postal Service.

How do suppliers register?

Suppliers should first register on FEDBIZOPPS (www.fedbizopps.gov) to learn of Postal Service solicitations as well as the notice of intent to post solicitations in the Postal Service eSourcing application. Following this process, suppliers must then register their organization on the Postal Service eSourcing site: uspsesourcing.emptoris.com.

The person registering the supplier organization (i.e. account executive, sales manager, etc.) is the Application Manager and is responsible for managing the supplier account. This person will have overall account administration responsibilities, including entering and maintaining supplier data and authorizing additional users within the supplier’s organization. Suppliers will need to review and update their data on a yearly basis.

After completing the eSourcing registration process, the Postal Service will review the registration entry for completeness and accuracy within one business day of supplier entry. Once the entry is approved, the supplier will be notified the same day via e-mail of their log-in credentials, enabling them to participate in events.

Suppliers are encouraged to review the registration process outlined in the eSourcing Supplier Registration guide. 

Additional eSourcing information will soon be available on the Postal Service’s external Web site, www.usps.com.

Questions? Contact the USPS eSourcing technology support team at eSourcing@usps.gov.

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POSTAL SERVICE eACCESS APPLICATION UPGRADE

To comply with SOX requirements related to user access and roles within Postal Service systems, we are implementing a significant upgrade to the eAccess application, effective August 24, 2009.

The upgrade will impact all contractors that have an “active” status in eAccess. Suppliers may experience the following:

• Contractors with expired clearances or contracts will be terminated if extensions are not processed prior to their expiration dates. Notifications will be sent to the contractor’s manager on record in eAccess, the COR(s), and the contractor, ifs/he has a valid email address in eAccess.
• Only Postal Service employees can have a manager (MGR) role in eAccess. Contractors that currently have a manager role have been notified via email that they will lose this access on August 21, 2009. An additional email notification will be sent on or about August 10, 2009.
• All contract/delivery orders will now be known as awards in eAccess. The current relationship between a delivery order and a contract will be removed. Multiple award records may be attached to a contractor if the contractor is working on multiple awards.
• To ensure the effective dates for awards in eAccess are accurate, all award data will be extracted from CAMS (Contract Authoring and Management System). On August 21, 2009, eAccess will synchronize its database with CAMS to retrieve the most current awards data. Data received from CAMS will supersede existing data in eAccess. If the award connected to fa contractor’s profile has expired, access will not be revoked right away; this action will be deferred until October 15, 2009. The delay is necessary to ensure end of Fiscal Year processing.
• All vendor records will be extracted from NOAFA (Apex). The ability to add new vendors will only be given to selected individuals with the Super COR (SCOR) role. Additionally, SCORs will have the ability to add new awards if they do not exist in CAMS. Those requesting Super COR roles must be approved by the Corporate Information Security office (CISO).
• All security clearance data will be extracted from the Security Clearance Tracking System (SCTS), the Inspection Service application located in Memphis. No one within eAccess will have the authority to change security clearance types and/or effective dates.
• On August 21, 2009, eAccess will sync its database with SCTS to retrieve the most current security clearance information for each contractor. If the contractor’s security clearance is shown as expired, the contractor will lose all system access on August 25, 2009. In this case, no advance notification will be sent.

Questions? Send your inquiries to eAccessQuestions@usps.gov.

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We value your questions and feedback to this newsletter. Please feel free to reply to this message with your feedback or mail to:

US Postal Service
Supply Management Communications
475 L’Enfant Plaza, SW Room 4320
Washington DC 20260-4320

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