Glossary of Terms

Method to make a payment directly from a bank account using an Automated Clearing House (ACH).

An application used by general government agencies to estimates the costs of salaries and benefits for budgetary control and allotments. Also used by general government agencies to prepare data for the Compensation Impact Model.

The final settlement of a matter as to whether your agency will retire or retain a computer system/application.

All electronic technology systems, products and services. Equipment, software, services, and products used in processing information, office automation, and telecommunications (voice, data and/or video).

One Washington holds seven advisory committees; one for each process area, overseen by the process owner, and one for OCM, overseen by the OCM Director. Members are comprised of agency leadership and process SMEs.

Client Purchases – Client Service Contracts are for services provided directly to agency clients by contractors, including but not limited to, medical and dental services, employment and training programs, residential care, education and subsidized housing. Clients are those individuals whom the agency has statutory responsibility to serve, protect or oversee. Clients are the targeted individuals in the public that an agency is responsible to serve. Injured Worker Providers – Client services provided by a network of doctors or other providers that L&I or DSHS has approved by the agency that meet standards similar to those used by health insurance providers.

An integration containing AFRS accounting values. 

This is a phase within the contract life cycle. Typically, the Agency is working with stakeholders to develop the requirements and initiate a solicitation. Activities include; defining the scope, product, or service, vendor, market review, budget, procurement documents and drafting the contract.

Stakeholder engagement is the systematic identification, analysis, planning and implementation of actions designed to influence individuals who may be affected by decisions or who can influence the implementation of decisions.

Permission for agencies to disburse moneys or accrue liabilities during specific fiscal periods, up to specified amounts, from specific accounts. Authority is provided by the Legislature, through appropriations or inclusion of nonappropriated account moneys in the legislative budget, and by the executive through allocations, approval of unanticipated receipts, or across-the-board spending reductions.

Asset, liability, equity, revenue and expense accounts. Balance sheet accounts are entered directly on transactions and revenue and expense accounts default from the Spend/Revenue Categories of the Pay Component.

A legal authorization to make expenditures and incur obligations for specific purposes from a specific account over a specific time period. Appropriations typically limit expenditures to a specific amount and purpose within a fiscal year or biennial timeframe. Only the Legislature can make appropriations in Washington State.

The need for cost contingency is generated by a lack of information, at a particular point in time, for the task being estimated. Appropriate contingency amounts are dependent on the degree of risk present and the extent of the technical challenge surrounding the task. The design contingency legitimately covers uncertainties in a project and should be reduced through each phase of the design. Construction contingencies should be limited to 5 percent on new construction and 10 percent on remodeling work. Contingencies should not be considered as opportunities for extra work or to change original budget decisions

Accumulates costs for planned work over a period of time for planned outcome that may be capitalized or expensed. Project types include non-billable, billable, capital and opportunity. Project can be subdivided into sub-projects, phases and tasks.

Accounts that have cash on deposit in and under the control of the State Treasurer and are disbursed by means of a warrant of electronic means. Treasury accounts are subject to appropriation unless specifically exempted.

A fixed, physically attached, and permanent improvement or real property. Fixed assets are normally those that are capitalized.

Multi-tenancy is an architecture in which a single instance of a software application serves multiple customers. Each customer is called a tenant.

An enterprise application developed as a tool to assist agencies in building all components of the decision package and submitting operating and transportation budget requests online. The new Agency Budget System (ABS) replaced BDS in June of 2018.

A visually intuitive and easy to understand graphical representation of key performance indicator shown on a single screen.

Amounts expended for or on account of the project that, in accordance with the terms of the appropriate agreement, are to be reimbursed by the agency/institution such as telephone charges and travel expenses in accordance with state guidelines.

Statewide bond issues whose repayment is guaranteed by the full faith, credit, and taxing power of the state and that are subject to the state’s debt limit. General obligations bonds are the traditional form of government debt financing for major construction projects.

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

Creation of the long-term financing and expenditure pan for acquisition, construction, or improvement of capital assets such as land and buildings, and for programs that accomplish facility improvements. The capital budget is included in an appropriation bill for a specific biennium; the Ten-Year Capital Plan is proposed by the Governor but not enacted into law.

A schedule breakdown on a month-to-month basis by the contractor to show the intended percentage of completed work by the construction trades. The schedule of values is the basis for the amount of the request for payment by the contractor.

Economic life in the context of cost/benefit analysis refers to the span of years necessary to compare similar costs of operating and maintaining alternative solutions. It may not equate to the time required to fully depreciate the structure. The economic life span should be the same for each alternative for a project. The period of time, extending from the date of installation to the date of retirement for the intended service, over which a prudent owner expects to retain the property in order to obtain a minimum cost.

The planning and management process for information technology resources and investments overseen by the Office of the Chief Information Officer.

Any state office or activity of the executive and judicial branches of state government, including state agencies, departments, offices, divisions, boards, commissions, institutions of higher education as defined in RCW 28B.10.016, and correctional and other types of institutions.

As opposed to systems maintained on-premise, the Cloud is a network of remote, internet-based systems hosted on the internet used to store and process data.

Managed file transfer (MFT) is a technology platform that allows organizations to reliable and securely exchange electronic data between systems. 

A report and process completed at the beginning of a project that clearly and accurately defines the need/problem to be addressed. The predesign study provides an analysis of alternatives and describes the selected alternative in detail with cost estimates. This study is the basis for large stand-alone capital projects.