Glossary of Terms

Washington Electronic Business Solutions (WEBS) allows for vendors to register and be notified for bid opportunities by registering the commodity codes that best match the goods and services they provide. The system allows agencies and other political subdivisionsto post solicitations and also allow search within the system for vendor contact information. The system also notifies vendors of apparent successful bidder.

Accounts that are subject to the appropriation and/or allotment process.

Accounts set up by law to receive revenue from a specific source and to be spent for a specific purpose.

A set of defined rules that enable different applications to communicate with each other. It acts as an intermediary of the layer that processes data transfers between systems. 

Uniform minimum standards for financial accounting and reporting. They govern the form and content of the financial statements of an entity. GAAP encompass the conventions, rules, and procedures necessary to define accepted accounting practice at a particular time. They include not only broad guidelines of general application but also detailed practices and procedures.

Creation of a biennial plan for the revenues and expenditures necessary to support the administrative and service functions of state government.

Those portions of cash amounts due to be paid to a contractor for work completed that are held back (retained) by the agency/institution and not paid until some later date; often at substantial completion or at final completion of the work, according to the terms and conditions of the contract and any relevant legal statue; as a security for proper performance of work and fulfillment of contractor’s requirements.

A fiscal and accounting entity with a self-balancing set of general ledger codes in which cash and other financial resources, together with all related liabilities and residual equities or balances, and changes therein, are recorded and segregated for the purpose of carrying on specific activities or attaining certain objectives in accordance with special regulations, restrictions, or limitations. For reporting purposes, the state identifies major accounts, and administratively combines all remaining accounts into roll-up funds. Most accounts are set up in state law to isolate specific activities.

Cash receipts are any moneys (e.g., checks, cash, warrants, credit or debit card amounts, or EFTs) received by the state during a period regardless of when the moneys are earned.

A measure that shows the relationship between inputs (dollars or FTEs) to output or outcome.

The same as "first cost" or the cost to provide the service or product in today’s dollars for a project. Different from life cycle costs, or future costs.

Construction in which design and production more or less overlap, thus shortening project time; usually practiced in construction management projects. See: Fast Track.

"Small business" means an in-state business, including a sole proprietorship, corporation, partnership, or other legal entity, that: (a) Certifies, under penalty of perjury, that it is owned and operated independently from all other businesses and has either: (i) Fifty or fewer employees; or (ii) A gross revenue of less than seven million dollars annually as reported on its federal income tax return or its return filed with the department of revenue over the previous three consecutive years; or (b) Is certified with the office of women and minority business enterprises under chapter 39.19 RCW.

Refers to an agency’s capacity (availability of time and resources) and capability to support and adopt the upcoming transformation. People, process, and technology are the core elements used to assess and measure agency readiness over time. Agency Readiness is a component of OCM.

This is the State of Washington including all agencies, higher education and other entities. The Company Code has one tax ID number.

The three-character code assigned by OFM to identify each legislative or executive authorization to incur expenditures. Agencies are to use only those expenditure authority codes that have been authorized in writing by OFM. The assigned codes are valid only for the biennium for which they are established.

A legacy system is an old method, technology, computer system, or application program of, relating to, or being a previous or outdated computer system yet still in use.

A process is more mature if it is standardized, automated, and rarely experiences problems. Mature processes are typically easier to migrate than immature ones.

A system of record (SOR) is an information storage and retrieval system that is the authoritative source for a particular data element. To ensure data integrity, there must be one -- and only one -- system of record for a given piece of information.

This is a phase within the contract life cycle. Activities include; the Competitive Solicitation procurement process; negotiating (where permissible) with successful bidders; and contract execution.

An account in the general ledger in which the aggregate of all debit and credit postings to a number of related accounts (called the subsidiary accounts) are recorded. For example, the Accounts Receivable account is a control account supported by the aggregate of the individual customer subsidiary accounts.

A process in accounts payable where the invoice from the vendor is matched against the purchase order, the shipping documents, and the quantity and price tolerance defined, before it is posted. The goal is to highlight any discrepancies in the purchasing process in order to save agencies from overspending or paying for an item that they did not receive.

Accounts related to the state General Fund as defined in RCW 43.88.055; includes the Washington Opportunity Pathways Account and Education Legacy Trust Account.

(A15) - A form used by agencies to request the Department of Enterprise Services, to order materials, supplies, and equipment, or to request an amendment of a previous requisition.

This includes the policies and procedures for the chain of activities from identifying appropriate buying channels through issuing and managing a purchase order with the supplier, to matching purchase orders with receipt and handoff to accounts payable. It also includes requisition that become purchase orders to suppliers, and submission of paper or electronic invoices. It also includes p-card and blanket purchase order as a buying channel.

A component of OFM's Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) used for supporting HR & Payroll business intelligence & data analytics. The current user interface (web front-end) for WWA is the SAP Business Objects WEBI tool.

A fund whose expenditures are subject to appropriation if held in the state treasury or subject to allotment if held outside the state treasury.

A backlog of activities that agencies deem necessary to bring facilities into good repair. Deferred maintenance is generally work that is left undone due to the lack of resources or perceived lower priority than projects funded. Failure to perform deferred work may result in the progressive deterioration of the facility condition or performance, and if not addressed, will significantly increase restoration cost. Deferred maintenance backlog reduction plans must be submitted with the capital budget request.

For One Washington, data conversion is the process of translating data from one format to another (AFRS to Workday) and migrating the data from an Agency legacy system to the One Washington Workday system. Example: If an agency is retiring a system for Pass 3 and intends to utilize Workday for its functionality, there’s a good chance they need to convert that data to Workday.”

The cost to do soils boring, sampling, testing, and prepare recommendations. The soil boring and sampling process, together with associated laboratory tests are necessary to establish subsurface profiles and the relative strengths, compressibility and other characteristics of the various strata encountered within depths likely to have an influence on the design of the project.