Account Data

Account Data tracks the "payout" to recipients. This is where money leaves the Federal Account and changes hands. It is an accounting of the balances of accounts that fund contracts/assistance, and to which awards/programs/"things" that money was disbursed.

DABS Data

The DATA Act Broker is a private system Government agencies use to report agency spending in accordance with the DATA Act. The DATA Act Broker ingests agency flat files in CSV format and validates them against the DAIMS data standards. Collectively, the reporting of these files are known as a DATA Act Broker Submission (DABS), which is required to be published regularly by agencies according to the law, and subsequent guidance of DAIMS.

This DABS data is a comprehensive look at account balances for Federal Accounts that an Agency has at their disposal, in the context of that agency's total Budget Authority, which is determined each year by Congress through the Appropriation process. In addition to account balances, it includes an accounting of money paid out (aka an "outlay") from those accounts to fund contracts or financial assistance that was previously agreed on (aka "obligated"). That agreement is called an Award, and a DABS File C accounts for money obligated and outlaid at an award level. In addition to indicating what award the money was paid out for, File C records may also indicate the Object Class, Program Activity, Treasury Account Symbol, and Disaster and Emergency Fund Code that the money was used for, and whether it was a direct or reimbursable payment.

Collectively, this DABS data coming from broker is referred to in the USAspending application as "account data", and distinguished from but related to "award data".

DABS Ingest Process

USAspending runs an automated process referred to as "the submission loader" on a daily basis to acquire any new DABS data that Broker users have published. The submissions on the Broker side must be in a "published" state in order for USAspending to consume them.

The USAspending.gov website does not display a published submission's data however until that submissions reporting window has closed. Those DATA Act Reporting Dates are published on the Data Transparency "Resources" page

Each new submission ingested gives USAspending new data points on agency-specific balances and spending, which contributes to the overall picture of government spending. This data is used to power visualizations like the Spending Explorer to follow spending allocation as well as give insights into Agency-specific spending and the flow of money out of Federal Accounts.

Furthermore, during the ingestion, the submission loader attempts to link DABS File C records to an Award record in the USAspending award data, according to the C-to-D Linkage. This allows displays or queries of information about account data or award data to benefit from further information provided in its linked domain area.