Definitions

Definitions A. ACH: Automated Clearing House. Affiliated with the U. S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve System and used as the conduit for electronic payments and collections. B. EFT: Electronic Funds Transfer. Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) provides for electronic payments and collections. EFT is safe, secure, efficient, and less expensive than paper check payments and collections. Issuance costs for EFT payments are approximately 80% less than the cost to issue the same payment on a paper warrant. EFT transactions use the ACH network associated with the Federal Reserve System. 1. The State of Mississippi uses "standard EFT" for transferring funds to employee bank accounts for direct deposit of payroll payments and for some transfers to checking accounts of State agencies. 2. The State uses expanded EFT in the transfer of funds and remittance information using PayModeTM. The State has established PayModeTM as the default payment method for those payments and transfers requiring supporting remittance information. C. E-payment vehicle: Tool that captures the payment and remittance information and pushes it electronically to the designated vendor from the source system (Statewide Automated Accounting System or successor system). The ACH is used to move the funds while a proprietary system is used to provide access to supporting remittance data and notification of the availability of funds to the State's vendors. D. E-invoicing vehicle: Tool that allows vendors to submit invoices electronically to individual agencies. E. MAGIC: Mississippi's Accountability System for Government Information and Collaboration, the successor system for SAAS and SPAHRS. F. PayModeTM: A Bottomline Technologies product offered through Bank of America, PayModeTM is the State's present repayment and reinvoicing vehicle. G. Primary Agency: State agency with which a vendor transacts most of his business. H. SAAS: Statewide Automated Accounting System. I. SPAHRS: Statewide Payroll and Human Resource System. J. Vendor Payments: Payments initiated and approved by State Agencies for various goods and services or as used to transfer funds to other governing authorities such as school districts, cities, and counties.