Financial services transformation: start with a click, skip the trip

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Erin Slaughter
  • 3rd Wing Public Affairs
ELMENDORF AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska --  The Air Force is increasingly giving Airmen greater ability to initiate pay-related transactions from their own home or office - perhaps saving them a trip to the finance office on a typically cold Alaska morning. You're probably already familiar with systems like LeaveWeb, the Defense Travel System and MyPay, but 2009 will bring additional changes to travel and military pay processing both here at Elmendorf and throughout the Air Force.

On Feb. 27, all Pacific Air Forces bases will begin sending manual travel vouchers to the Air Force Financial Services Center at Ellsworth AFB, S.D., for final processing. This will affect all non-DTS travel vouchers, such as PCS, deployment vouchers, and dependent travel reimbursement. This will be the first step in a series of steps that will eventually centralize the processing of travel and military pay transactions worldwide to one location.

As part of the files transfer associated with cutover, manual (non-DTS) travel processing will be Feb. 27 through March 2, with normal processing expected to resume March 3 said 1st Lt. Christina Geller, Elmendorf's Financial Services Officer. Customers can expect their travel vouchers to be paid in a timely fashion. According to finance officials, the Financial Services Center is currently computing and paying travel vouchers in about 10-15 days from receipt.

One great tip for customers to speed both travel and military pay documents for processing is by use of the Comptroller Assisted Self-Help (CASH) Forms Lite Web site (https://leave.hickam.af.mil/cashforms). This resource allows the user to fill out many pay-affecting forms in a popular tax preparation program like style. After the form is complete, the system gives a list of what documents to turn in with the particular form. This ensures the correct documentation is provided and eliminates delays associated with handwriting. In many cases, these documents can then be scanned and e-mailed directly to 3cptsfso@elmendorf.af.mil for review and processing without having to make a trip.

Sometimes information, rather than document processing, may be the help you need. In addition to CASH Forms Lite, the Air Force Portal now has Financial Services Frequently Asked Questions. This includes the top 180 questions Financial Services Offices throughout the AF receive on a recurring basis. Instead of going to the Finance Office in sub-zero weather to ask a question, just log onto the AF Portal. Odds are, someone has asked that question before and the answer is right at your fingertips. The 3rd CPTS website also maintains links to all these important sites (https://www.my.af.mil/gcss-af/USAF/ep/globalTab.do?channelPageId=-1441876).

Other changes are planned for 2009, such as the PACAF rollout of the Permanent Change of Station Inprocessing System (PIPS), which will streamline and automate many of the financial transactions associated with PCS financial inprocessing, the standup of a 24-hour contact center for round-the-clock pay and voucher information, and E-Finance, which will allow airmen to electronically prepare and digitally sign military pay documents.

"These are big changes for us but ones that will ultimately give Airmen more control into the initiation of certain transactions, standardize and simplify processing," said Lieutenant Geller. "This will also increase mission readiness and capability by allowing Airmen to spend more time on the job and less time in the finance office."

The customer service desk can be reached at 552-9104 or 3cptsfso@elmendorf.af.mil. Walk-in customer service hours are 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Thursday and 7:30 a.m. to noon Fridays.