Report from SanAntonio…Reflections on the 5th Annual GSA SmartPay® Conference

newsI N S I D EVisa InformationManagement: UniqueSolutions for UniqueChallenges

Citibank®CommercialCards Welcomes the Department ofHomeland Security

Technology Tips

governmentCitigroup® GlobalTransaction Services

F A L L 2 0 0 3

We were pleased that so many of you were able to

join us at conference –– over 800 this year. But, for

those that did not get a chance to attend, here are

a few highlights.

• Roundtable Sessions –– Purchase Card and

Travel Card roundtables featured AOPCs telling

tales from the frontlines and sharing how

they are getting the maximum from

their programs.

• General Sessions –– Over the

three days of the conference,

general sessions on a variety

of topics were

held –– ranging

from disputes, to

purchase card program

management, to surviving an audit.

Some were presented by Citibank

representatives, but many were

co-presented with clients.

• Hands-on Training –– With twelve

hands-on training sessions,

including special sessions for the Department of

Navy and Veterans Affairs, and 80 computers ––

everyone had the chance to learn

more about the CitiDirect®

Card Management System,

ad hoc reporting tool and

Citibank® Electronic

Reporting System.

© 2003 Citicorp. All rights reserved.Commercial Cards GovernmentServices News is published by Citibank®

Commercial Cards, a business unit of Citibank, N.A. and is intended foruse by the clients of its card issuingaffiliates. This publication may not be reprinted without the expresswritten consent of Citibank, N.A.Citibank USA, N.A. issues commercialcards in the U.S. Citibank Canadaissues commercial cards in Canada.MASTERCARD is a registeredtrademark of MasterCard InternationalIncorporated. VISA is a registeredtrademark of Visa U.S.A. and VisaInternational. CITIBANK, CITIMANAGER,

CITIGROUP and the Umbrella Deviceare trademarks and service marks ofCiticorp or its affiliates and are usedand registered throughout the world.

Held during the week of August 18th at the Henry

B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio,

Texas--– the 5th Annual GSA SmartPay® Conference

was a great success! Citibank’s theme --– “Share

the Spirit of Success”--– was illustrated in each of our 23 sessions. And, as

always, the conference also provided clients with the opportunity to share their

experiences with others and learn some new “tricks of the trade.”

commercial cards

continued onpage 4

In today’s complex business environment, you need effective tools

that not only help you track spending and control expenses, but that

also give you the information you need to better manage your card

program. That’s why Citibank and Visa® are working together to deliver

public sector information management solutions designed specifically

to give you the most accurate information possible to help you manage

your supplier relationships and comply with the ever-changing

reporting requirements.

Visa InformationManagement Unique solutions for unique challenges

Visa Information ManagementA Web portal with a single sign-on, Visa

Information Management gives you access

to valuable information right from your

desktop, including the 1099 and Socioeconomic

Reporting Solutions and the Visa Supplier

Locator. These online solutions allow you to

search for Visa accepting merchants that

match your supplier requirements, and then

gather the information you need to meet

your organization’s Form 1099 tax reporting

and Form 1057 socioeconomic reporting

requirements, saving you time and money.

At the heart of these solutions functionality

is the Visa Merchant Profile Database (VMPD)

—— a data repository that contains the

information necessary to support your reporting

requirements and supplier diversity programs.

The VMPD is widely recognized as one of

the most complete and accurate collections

of supplier information available.

1099 and Socioeconomic

Reporting Solutions

With Visa’s new 1099 and Socioeconomic

Reporting Solutions, your Visa transactions

are matched to data contained in the VMPD

for a robust picture of your merchants.

What’s more, simple pull-down menus let

you easily create customized reports,

whatever your tax filing or other merchant

reporting needs.

You can even extract data by the following

important filters:

In addition to the ad hoc reporting functions,

there are summary and transaction detail

reports showing all relevant demographic

information about the merchant including

full address, incorporation status code and

tax ID number (TIN). Transaction data is

updated daily by Visa, with a rolling 25 months

of historical data maintained online. Reports

can be viewed online, downloaded in a

variety of formats for further analysis or

shared with others. Those reports too large

to run online are automatically delivered to

the application-provided mailbox.

Supplier Locator

The Visa Supplier Locator helps you identify

and locate suppliers that welcome Visa cards.

For instance, you can find merchants by

geographic location, merchant category group

or merchant status such as minority, woman-

owned, veteran-owned and small business.

Beyond this, the Supplier Locator can help

you identify merchants that provide enhanced

data —— especially useful for purchase card

AOPCs who need Level III data.

Visa and Citibank… helping you meet your goalsStudies show that administrators are always

looking for greater electronic access to

enhanced functionality, and that there is a

direct correlation between the performance

of a card program and the technology

available with it. Using the 1099 and

Socioeconomic Reporting Solutions in

combination with the Supplier Locator will

help you increase the performance of your

program significantly. Together, these tools

enable you to measure your progress

against your goals, while also helping you

identify the type merchants you need to do

business with to meet your objectives.

If you are interested in getting access to the

Visa Information Management system, contact

your Citibank Development Manager.

• Minority Vendor

• Women-owned

• 8A Classified

• SBA Registered

• SmallDisadvantagedBusiness

• HUB Zone

• Disabled Veteran

• Vietnam EraVeteran

• Veteran

Citibank® Commercial Cards

welcomesThe Department of Homeland Security

DHS brings together more than 20 domestic agencies under

one comprehensive department focused on protecting

the U.S. against threats specific to the homeland. Previously

managed by various departments throughout the U.S.

government, these agencies have been aligned under

four separate areas including:

• Border and Transportation Security

• Emergency Preparedness and Response

• Science and Technology

• Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection

In addition to analyzing intelligence related to threats against

the U.S., these agencies will work as one to guard the

country’s borders and airports and protect communications

and other critical infrastructures, as well as coordinate

emergency response procedures and programs. Agencies

reporting into the newly formed department include U.S.

Customs, FEMA, Environmental Measurements Laboratory

and National Communications Systems, as well as the

Secret Service and Coast Guard, among others.

According to Patricia Walls, AVP and Commercial Cards

Client Development Manager, the DHS travel card program

is probably one of the most complex Citibank has ever

managed. “With so many existing agencies coming together

to form one entity, we were not simply dealing with a

conversion from one bank’s card program to Citibank…

we were dealing with converting several different programs

from a variety of banks, including Citibank, into one.”

The support team assigned to the DHS account, which meets

as much as three times each week to ensure that the

project is on track, started by converting legacy Citibank

accounts. This included agencies such as the U.S. Coast

Guard and the Transportation Security Administration,

which were both previously a part of the Department of

Transportation, as well as the Federal Law Enforcement

Training Center and others that were part of the U.S.

Department of Treasury. Using these existing client accounts

as the starting point for converting and redesigning the

necessary infrastructures, the team then began converting

over new agencies.

The challenges, of course, are not unique to this conversion.

DHS faces major challenges in bringing these once

independent agencies under a single umbrella, specifically

in regard to financial systems and accounting structures.

They are looking to the Citibank® Travel Card to help them

bridge the gap, taking the opportunity now to centralize

invoicing and payments and streamline reporting in

an effort to accurately capture travel spending at the

agency level.

Anna Dixon, who heads up the centralized Program

Management Office for DHS and is responsible for the

day-to-day administration of all the department’s card

programs, says she is pleased with how smoothly the

conversion is going. “Citibank meets with me and my

team on a weekly basis, and in just three short months

they have already converted about 80% of our travel

cardholders.” As of late October, Citibank had issued close

to 70,000 travel cards with plans to issue another 20,000

by the end of November. DHS anticipates this program

will grow significantly over the coming months as new

staff is added to complete the structure.

The idea behind forming the DHS is to help the men and

women who work within these related agencies to do

their jobs more efficiently with better overall communication

and coordination of resources. Citibank’s goal is to ultimately

help them achieve that objective with the most widely

accepted travel card program in the world.

This year, the newly created Department of

Homeland Security (DHS) chose Citibank to manage

its travel card program.

newsgovernment

Publisher:

Debbie Jarvis

Citigroup® Global

Transaction Services

773.380.5356

debra.k.jarvis

@citigroup.com

www.citimanager.com

commercial cards

TechnologyTips

Tracy Stover, Director, Client Development, commented that, “As always, it is

wonderful seeing our clients come together in one place. The hands-on training we

offered was particularly popular. Flat screen monitors combined with a jumbo

screen at the front of the room that was over 15 feet wide made it easy for everyone

to see and follow along.”

Plus, the Citibank Welcome Center and Technical Demo Room were back in full force

this year, giving participants the opportunity to meet with their Client Account

Managers or ask one of our Solution Engineers specific “how do you

do that…” questions.

Of course, as most of you know –– we are never all work and no fun! We closed the conference with the

“Citibank Fiesta.” With a few thousand attendees, we think it was a success!!

Be sure to mark your calendar for next year’s conference in New Orleans. Now that should be fun!

Report from San Antonio…

KNOW YOUR BROWSER CACHE SETTINGS

When we implement a new software version of CitiDirect® Card Management System it is necessary

for us to take the Web site application down and offline. Clients are notified in advance when the

application is unavailable to the user community and a site outage page is posted to inform the

user that the site is unavailable at this time. The next time the user attempts to access the URL,

the user may experience difficulty by continuing to see the outage page even when the CitiDirect®

Card Management System is no longer down. This is usually caused by the user's browser “saving”

a record of the page and being referred to during the next visit to the Web site. The CitiDirect

Help Desk advises all users to check the browser settings on their desktops to ensure that the

Temporary Internet Files setting is set to “Check for newer versions of stored pages every visit

to the page,” otherwise known as clearing your browser cache with each visit to the site. Some

agencies may require this browser setting to be changed by their Information Technology group.

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