Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program Voucher Management System – VMS Version Released October 2011

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program VMS VERSION : Introducing the Prior Month Correction Module (PMC) Highlights: The PMC module will allow a PHA to make changes to previously submitted data at any time, regardless if the current reporting month has not yet been submitted. Changes to one or more months AND one or more fields can be made in one setting without waiting for Financial Analyst’s approval before entering the next correction.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program Highlights: A new VMS Users’ Manual will be available with this release. The system will be unavailable after 5:00 pm EST Friday, October 28 while enhancements to the system take place. The system will re-open November 1.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program PHAs will Login and access the VMS as usual. Enter your User ID and Password to Login.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program Click the “Accept” button to continue. After reading the Warnings, click on the “Accept” button to continue.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program Click in the “Voucher Management System (VMS) link to enter VMS. Access the VMS by clicking on the link, as shown above.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program Click in the “Enter PHA Data Tabs” link on the side menu bar. To begin the regular monthly VMS submission process, click on “Enter PHA Data Tabs.”

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program Enter the PHA code or select the State, and choose the PHA from the dropdown list Enter your PHA Code to continue. A user with multiple PHA Codes either enters the PHA code directly in the first box, or selects the State code from the drop-down menu, then selects the PHA name from the next drop down menu, and then clicks “Go.”

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program In addition to the usual status of Not Entered, Submitted or Submitted - Hard Edit Approved, the Status Column will now indicate those months where a Prior Month Correction (PMC) has been made. PHAs will still access and enter their data for the current reporting period by clicking on the link for Month/Year-Not Entered. Note: After this release, a PHA cannot make prior month corrections by clicking on a previously submitted month; previous months will be viewable, but not alterable. Changes to prior months will now take place in the Prior Months’ Corrections (PMC) Module. Status can be one of the following: Not Entered Saved Revised Submitted Pending Hard Edit Approved Hard Edit PMC Submitted PMC Pending Approved PMC Approved PMC Declined Status can be one of the following: Not Entered Saved Revised Submitted Pending Hard Edit Approved Hard Edit PMC Submitted PMC Pending Approved PMC Approved PMC Declined

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program PHAs will enter their Voucher UML and HAP data for the current reporting period as usual.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program PHAs will enter their Income and Expenses data for the current reporting period as usual.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program PHAs will enter their Disaster UML/HAP data for the current reporting period as usual.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program PHAs will validate the data for the current reporting period as usual.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program PHAs will submit and/or print their data for the current reporting period as usual.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program PHAs will submit their data for the current reporting period as usual.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program By clicking on the “OK” button, you are certifying the accuracy of the monthly submission. If you are not sure the document is ready to be submitted, click on the “Cancel” button, and you will be returned to the previous screen. If you pressed the “OK” button, and if your Monthly Submission passes a final validation check, the following screen will display. At the top will be a System Messages window with a message stating that the submission process is complete, and that the Voucher data was successfully submitted.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program The system will generate a message that the submission was successful. If submission has a Status of Pending Hard Edit, the FA will access the PHA’s submission, approve or disapprove the submission, and trigger the automatic notification to the PHA.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program PRIOR MONTH CORRECTIONS - OVERVIEW To make prior month corrections (PMCs), the PHA will use the PMC link on the left side of the screen, selecting the “Data Input” link under the “PHA” portion of the PMC process. This new process will allow the user to input a single or multiple correction(s) for one or multiple prior submission periods in one setting, without requiring FA approval before entering the next correction. Corrections will no longer be made in the regular monthly submission; once the monthly data has been submitted and received a status of “Submitted”, “Pending Hard Edit”, or “Approved Hard Edit,” the user must use the PMC process to correct even the current month’s prior submission. The submissions shown on the List of Submissions page will be available for review and printing, but no changes will be allowed within submissions themselves once submitted.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program PRIOR MONTH CORRECTIONS (continued): PHAs may make Prior Month Corrections to historical data at any time. The system will allow a PMC submission whether or not the current month submission has been made or whether there are any months pending FA approval. PHAs do not need to wait for FA approval of PMCs which are pending hard edits before the system will allow them to make another prior month change, whether to that month or another month’s submission. PHAs cannot make a change to a field in a given month which is currently pending hard edit, until action has been taken on that hard edit, i.e., it has been approved/disapproved by the FA. (Ex: PMC for June 2011 AOV HAP triggered a hard edit; PHA can still make changes to any other field for June 2011 or other months, but cannot change the June 2011 AOV HAP again until the hard edit has been addressed by the FA.)

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program PHA entry of Prior Month Corrections Data Input Status Checking

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program PHAs will make changes to prior months by accessing the Prior Month Change (PMC) module. The PMC module is accessed by clicking on the Data Input link on the left side of the screen. Click on the Data Input link. If the end user has multiple PHAs assigned to their ID, they will be presented with the screen to enter the appropriate PHA number, or by choosing the appropriate “State” code and then selecting the right PHA listed in the drop-down list.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program The Data Input table contains drop-down menus to choose the Month/Year to be updated, as well as the Tab and Field to be changed. Example of drop-down menu for Month and Year.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program Example of drop-down menu for Year

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program Example of drop-down menu for Tab Selection (choose the Tab in which the field to be changed is located).

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program Example of drop-down menu for Fields Selection within a given Tab.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program Once the Month/Year and Tab/Field selections are made, the PHA can enter the new value for the field(s) in the “New Adjusted Value” section(s) of the screen. (The “New Adjusted Value” field will first appear pre- populated with the old value; if no change is necessary, leave this value in the field). The system will maintain the Old Value and generate the Difference to the Old Value as read-only, if a change to New Adjusted Value is entered.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program All information points related to a given field are provided. Ex: MTW has both HAP and UML, so both will show on the screen if this field is selected. Both will be populated with the existing “Old” value as the Old and New. The PHA can choose to change either HAP or UML or both in the New Adjusted Value boxes; any change can be identified by a value other than “0” in the Difference field. Note, as with prior VMS releases, the FINAL value is to be entered in the field, not the value of the difference of the change. (e.g., if HAP changed from $10,000 to $10,400, enter $10,400 in the New Adjusted Value, not $400; the Difference in New to Old Value field serves as a confirmation to the PHA that the change reflects the value of the adjustment.)

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program The Comment field allows you to describe the purpose of the correction, or any information about the correction, for future reference.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program Once you have entered the New Adjusted Value in one or both of the displayed fields, the next step is to press the “Validate” button at the bottom of the page. By clicking on the validate button, the system will execute the validation process for the field. If no errors are provided the data can be saved, otherwise the user will have to respond to the Hard Edit message. No other validation of the form will occur.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program If you would like to clear your entries without saving the changes, press the “Reset” button to return to an initial Data Entry screen. Press the “Exit PMC” button to leave PMC entirely and return to the VMS Home Page. Note: For “Reset” or “Exit PMC” you will lose all corrections you have made on this screen.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program On the screen above the system displays the error messages directly below each data field which has triggered a hard edit, with a system message at the top of the screen telling the user to “Please Validate Each Field and Correct Errors” and to select the appropriate reason and enter a comment if necessary (required for “Other” selection). Comments should be descriptive enough to explain why the data is correct and to further explain the change.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program Once the system has validated the error messages, or there were no validation errors, the system will display a system message “Form is Valid and Can Be Submitted”. A “Submit” button will appear at the bottom of the page. To continue with submission, press the Submit button. To exit without submitting, press the Exit PMC button instead.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program The system will then display a system message as shown above, and the user will select the “Continue” button to return to the initial PMC Data Entry Screen for additional correction data entry. You may also navigate to any of the selections on the navigation menu to the left of the screen.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program PMC Approval / Disapproval to PHA When the HUD Financial Analyst Approves or Disapproves a PMC Pending Hard Edit, the system will automatically send an to the PHA Point of Contact, notifying them of the Approval / Disapproval. The “From” address of the will be the FA approving / disapproving the PMC Hard Edit. The PHA can respond through normal channels, not via the VMS system. Examples of the notifications are shown on the following screens.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program

PHAs can check the status and see a history of any Prior Month Corrections by clicking on the Status Checking link.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program Prior Month Corrections will have a status of one of the following: PMC-Submitted (passed validation edits with no errors); PMC-Pending (Hard Edits, requires FA approval); and PMC- Approved (HE approved by FA) or PMC-Disapproved (HE disapproved by FA). Click on the Record Id hyperlink to access the PMC record to view further details (see next slide).

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program The record will be displayed as read-only. Click on the Return button or any of the selections on the navigation menu to continue or Exit the VMS.

Office of Housing Choice Voucher Program QUESTIONS? If you have any questions about the new Prior Month Correction module or any questions concerning the Voucher Management System, please contact your Financial Analyst at the Financial Management Center. Thank you.