The Web Time and Attendance System (webTA) is a paperless, web‐based system which provides electronic review and approval of individual time and attendance (T&A) records. WebTA is a Commercial Off‐The‐Shelf (COTS) product designed by Kronos Inc. exclusively for the Federal Government. The webTA application is used by USAID employees, including Direct‐Hires, Personal Services Contractors (PSCs), and Foreign Service Nationals (FSNs). The webTA database is designed to capture hours worked, leave used and accounting information on a bi‐weekly basis. WebTA tracks hours worked as well as current balances for the various leave buckets for each user.
For U.S. citizen employees (i.e.,U.S. Direct‐Hires and U.S. PSCs), USAID transmits this T&A information to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Finance Center (NFC) for payroll processing. A data refresh is performed every four weeks to re‐synchronize the data in webTA with the data at NFC. For these employee types, webTA contains Social Security Numbers (SSNs). Additionally, webTA may optionally retain locator information, such as addresses and phone numbers; however, while USAID does not require these fields to be completed by its users, any individual user may opt to enter the locator information. USAID is currently researching a solution to this issue through the vendor.
For non‐U.S. citizen USAID employees (i.e., Foreign Service Nationals/FSNs and Third Country Nationals/TCNs) who cannot be paid by the NFC, webTA uses an internally unique employee identifier rather than an SSN. For these employees, USAID exports T&A data from webTA (using Business Objects Enterprise) and records the information in other systems, including the Department of State Payroll Processing System, the Peachtree Accounting System, and USAID's Phoenix Financial Management System for further processing.
The webTA application is a COTS product developed by Kronos to track user time and attendance and to forward these payroll records to the USDA NFC at the end of each pay period. Kronos designed webTA to improve productivity, performance, and outcomes. This system incorporates Federal‐ specific workforce technology architecture rules; privacy and security rules; accessibility rules; audit‐ability and financial controls rules; modernization, accountability and efficiency rules; cost accounting rules; business rules; compliance rules; pay rules; work plans; work schedules; and workflows.
