Background

The U.S. Postal Service uses the Time and Attendance Collection System (TACS) as the primary application to collect employee time and attendance data to capture the number of workhours employees spend working various Postal Service operations.

This was a follow-up to our Timecard Administration audit issued December 9, 2020. In the prior audit we identified issues with disallowed timecard adjustments, management oversight, time collection devices replacement strategies, and TACS control deficiencies. We recommended management reiterate disallowed time policy; establish a formal oversight process to ensure periodic reviews of supervisors’ documentation supporting disallowed timecard adjustments; resolve system deficiencies that allow supervisors to bypass completing the time disallowance record in TACS; and procure and test new, automated time collection devices.

What We Did

Our objective in this follow-up audit was to evaluate whether corrective actions the Postal Service took in response to recommendations in our December 2020 Timecard Administration report sufficiently addressed the issues identified.

What We Found

Opportunities exist for the Postal Service to further improve upon the corrective actions implemented in response to prior recommendations. While the Postal Service took corrective actions, we found repeat issues with disallowed timecard adjustments, management oversight of documentation supporting timecard adjustments, and system deficiencies in TACS. These issues occurred because not all employees responsible for making timecard adjustments in TACS received the disallowed time policy memo or took refresher TACS training. In addition, periodic reviews and oversight of disallowed timecard documentation were not conducted and TACS enhancements did not address system deficiencies that allow supervisors to bypass completing the time disallowance record.

Recommendations

We recommended management provide refresher TACS training to all Postal Service employees responsible for disallowing time and determine the frequency of refresher training and retention time for TACS training documents, develop a process to ensure management performs periodic reviews of disallowance documentation, and resolve system deficiencies and implement system controls to ensure all required fields are completed.

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Source: USPS Office of Inspector General