S000000251 Attachment 2 Program Complexity.pdf

Attachment 2 Program Complexity

A. Complexity Overview The AIRS-Tax and AIRS-DSMV Systems are extremely complex systems that are composed of multiple sub-systems and services that provide all functionality such as transaction management, case management, financial management, revenue accounting, financial disbursement, and other functions required for both of these massive systems.

There are over 900 AIRS-Tax DFA users and almost 1,500 AIRS-DSMV DFA users utilizing the AIRS Systems to provide Tax and Driver Services and Motor Vehicle services for Arkansas taxpayers and citizens. In addition, over 250,000 online transactions are received from taxpayers and citizens each month through multiple public-facing websites provided by AIRS-Tax and AIRS-DSMV.

B. Sub-Systems The sub-systems for the AIRS (AIRS-Tax and AIRS-DSMV) systems include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. Cashiering – The functionality that handles financial transactions for customers in the 135 State Revenue Offices (SRO’s) across the 75 counties in Arkansas, as well as the daily deposits and financial reconciliation for each of those offices.

2. Driver License Issuance – This functionality covers the issuance of driver license and state identification cards.

3. Driver License Exam – This component contains the extensive functionality required to administer and record the driver license written exams and skills tests for both commercial and non-commercial drivers conducted by the Arkansas State Police (ASP) at multiple locations across the state.

4. Driver Control – This is a very complex component that involves driver history and any accidents, traffic violations, and convictions associated with the driver history; as well as hearings scheduled and conducted by DFA Hearing Officers.

5. Motor Vehicle Registration and Renewal – This functionality covers the motor vehicle titling and registration transactions. This includes the collection of sales tax for the motor vehicle, the registration of the motor vehicle, the license plate issuance for the motor vehicle, and the title for the motor vehicle. Each of these pieces includes additional complexities as well.

6. Inventory – This functionality is used to monitor the movement, status and issuance of physical items maintained by the Agency. In addition, it manages the locations used to store and issue the inventory.

7. Financials – The functionality to process financial transactions is extremely complicated and is comprised.

8. Returns Issue/Generation – This subsystem includes the following functionality for issuing returns and renewals and the associated functionality to facilitate the process:

• Issuing returns and renewals

• Defining customer account filing frequencies

• Maintaining customers’ return and renewal filing

• Creating individual customer returns and renewals online

• Capturing return and renewal information directly into a customer’s account

• Sending customers correspondence with respect to returns and renewals

• Generating and accepting interfaces with respect to returns and renewals

• Maintaining filing frequencies

• Maintaining filing periods

9. Financials - Processing financial transactions is an extremely complicated process that involves multiple levels of functionality to accomplish.

A. Return Processing – This component handles the functionality for processing returns from multiple sources. Many of the return formats are very complex. Functionality within this component contains:

• Receipt of return and renewal data

• Return batch and return item validation

• Workflow creation for batches and returns or renewals failing validation

• Determination of grace days

• Extension days

• Amended returns and renewals

• Heads down data entry

• Automatic returns and renewal processing

• Verification of return and renewal data

B. Payment Processing – This functionality handles the payment processing for transactions, many of which contain very complicated calculations. Functionality within this component contains:

• Receipt of return and payment data

• Payment batch and payment item validation

• Payment directions and allocations

• Generation of payment vouchers

• Determination of grace days

• Batch payment uploads (from multiple sources) C. Refund Processing – The refunds subsystem creates, tracks, posts, and sends out refunds. The system will calculate refund interest and process credit transfers before the refund is sent out. Refunds may also have multiple stages and corresponding statuses to track where a particular refund is in the refund process.

D. Billing - This functionality supports multiple streams with a series of complicated stages that advance a debt through various actions, notices, or into collection based on specific criteria.

10. General Ledger/Revenue Accounting – This is a very complex component that handles the tracking of revenue between revenue accounts. It is driven by transactions and payments, which may or may not result in a transfer of funds between revenue accounts and may involve multiple distributions. Each revenue transfer has a debit and credit entry, which is summarized daily into journal vouchers and interfaced to an external accounting system.

11. Collections – This subsystem manages all collection activities such as liens, garnishments, payment plans, writ of execution, and business closure.

12. Audit – This subsystem provides all of the functionality to manage account audits for a wide range of DFA customers.

13. Image Processing – This functionality handles the receipt and processing of images associated with transactions and accounts.

14. Case Management – This subsystem provides the functionality to manage workflow through multiple stages.

15. Task Management – This subsystem provides the functionality to manage the assignment, communication, and tracking of work items.

16. Data Warehouse – This subsystem manages the numerous data sets that are received from multiple sources and are used in conjunction with other processes within the AIRS-Tax and AIRS-DSMV Systems.

17. Discovery – This subsystem uses complex business analytics to process data from multiple sources to support critical DFA business processes.

C. e-Services

The AIRS Service Center maintains public-facing websites to provide DFA Revenue Division services for DFA Revenue Division customers, as well as special application portals for law enforcement, courts, and other authorized users. These are all web-based applications utilizing GenTax proprietary services for session management and SQL Server as the database management system (DBMS) integrated with web service interfaces. These applications were developed using Microsoft .NET framework, MVC and GenTax architectures. The e-Services include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Arkansas Taxpayer Access Point (ATAP):

The ATAP application was developed as a public-facing web application where taxpayers may electronically manage their state tax accounts.

• Arkansas MyDMV This application was developed as a public-facing web application for Driver Services Motor Vehicle customers to be able to do transactions online without having to travel to a State Revenue Office.

• Law Enforcement This web application is provided for law enforcement to search for information regarding driver license and motor vehicle information in their daily efforts to ensure public safety.

• Courts

This web application provides Arkansas courts with the ability to update driver record information, which increases efficiency and reduces the workload on DFA Revenue staff.

• Vehicle Portal This web application provides authorized users with the ability to file direct liens and inquire on vehicles.

D. Interfaces The AIRS-Tax and AIRS-DSMV Systems maintains more than 70 SOAP and RESTful web services, as well as almost 600 file interfaces with multiple file formats utilizing PGP and SSH key encryption. The AIRS-DSMV System also maintains special interfaces with AAMVA to support numerous Driver Services and Motor Vehicle transactions.

E. Security Management The security of the AIRS-Tax and AIRS-DSMV Systems and the data contained within these large systems is critical. The management and maintenance associated with securing these systems and more than 900 AIRS-Tax users and almost 1,500 AIRS-DSMV users is a huge effort that requires very specific knowledge and experience to ensure the highest level of security, as well as conformance with DFA, state and federal compliance standards.

F. Forms/Letters/Notices The AIRS Tax System and AIRS DSMV System generate letters either in real-time or through batch processing. There are over 600 mail templates for AIRS-Tax and almost 300 mail templates for AIRS-DSMV. Many letters contain additional parameters that contribute additional complexity to the configuration and generation of the letters. Letters are either printed locally in the offices or sent via SFTP for printing and mailing at the DFA Print and Mail Facility.

G. Reports

The AIRS-Tax System contains over 960 different reports. The AIRS-DSMV System contains almost 500 different reports. Most reports include multiple parameters, which creates additional complexity with the configuration and generation of the reports. Reports can be printed, emailed, or exported to various file formats.

H. Batch Jobs AIRS-Tax and AIRS-DSMV batch jobs run daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually, and are also scheduled on demand as needed.

I. Production Support Statistics

Over the past three (3) fiscal years the AIRS Service Center completed over 2,500 work items for AIRS-Tax and almost 6,900 work items for AIRS-DSMV, which averaged to a yearly rate of approximately 850 AIRS-Tax work items and 2,300 AIRS-DSMV work items each year. This involved an overall effort from the AIRS Service Center production support resources of approximately 29,700 hours for AIRS-Tax and 56,600 hours for AIRS-DSMV, which averaged to a yearly effort of 9,900 hours for AIRS-Tax and 18,900 hours for AIRS-DSMV each year.