Common Terminology

Bureau of Fiscal Service (BFS) is the name of the Federal Government’s central debt collection agency.

An administrative amount charged for intercepting a payment with an outstanding debt record. This amount is a summary of the default intercept fees associated with the DISRQ record.

Intercept is when all or a portion of a payment to a vendor is offset due to an outstanding debt that is owed by that vendor. The debt may either be internal or external. Instead of paying the vendor the entire or partial amount, the amount is redirected to a third party.

The intermediary table updated during the Disbursement process that stores records selected for intercept. The data object name is INCT_DISB_RQST_IN.

Offset is the process of reducing funds paid to a person or entity who owes an outstanding delinquent debt or debts and applying the funds toward the balance of the delinquent debt.

State Reciprocal Program (SRP) is a reciprocity program within TOP whereby the participating states offset state payments to satisfy federal non-tax debts, and the federal government offsets federal payments to satisfy state debts.

An administrative amount typically charged on behalf of an external entity for intercepting a payment with an outstanding debt record. This amount is a summary of the supplementary intercept fees associated with the DISRQ record.

The Treasury Offset Program (TOP) is the debt matching and payment offset program that uses payment and debt data received from federal and state agencies to collect delinquent debt from payments disbursed by Treasury and other disbursing agencies.