Account Data

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.

The USAspending.gov website uses this DABS data in conjunction with other authoritative data sources on Government spending (budgeting, procurement, assistance, accounting, etc.) to construct meaningful visualizations, search features, and data sets for the American public.

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]"(https://www.usaspending.gov/#/?glossary=outlay)) from those accounts to fund contracts or financial assistance that was previously agreed on (aka "[obligated]"(https://www.usaspending.gov/#/?glossary=obligation)).

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 Federal Accounts.