Account Balance Monitoring System
The Account Balance Monitoring System (ABMS) is the Federal Reserve computer system that allows Reserve Banks and institutions to obtain account balance information throughout the day. It also allows Reserve Bank staff to monitor an account on a real-time basis and establish certain controls over Fedwire activity. Institutions that are Fedline or computer interface customers may use ABMS to manage intraday and end-of-day account balances. ABMS is operational for institution inquiries from 12:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. eastern time.
ABMS information includes Fedwire funds and securities transfers as they occur, and aggregate information on all other transactions (commonly referred to as “non-Fedwire” activity) as they are posted to the Reserve Bank's integrated accounting system (IAS).
ABMS Usage by Account Holders
The Federal Reserve encourages institutions to periodically request ABMS reports, as a check on their own internal intraday position reports and projected end-of-day balance. Account holders can use ABMS to check that their balance can support outgoing Funds transfers without causing a cap breach. Additionally, early detection of a problem can help avoid an overnight overdraft, provides more research time, and possibly greater access to funds if needed.
After the account is settled for the day, the Federal Reserve recommends account holders continue to check ABMS, at least until the close of Fedwire. If an account holder receives an unanticipated entry, the institution has an opportunity to resolve it. For institutions that receive material entries in their master account after the close of Fedwire, such as cash charges or TTL entries, the account holder may wish to monitor the account after the close of Fedwire. Funding sources after the close of Fedwire are limited to the Discount window. For information on Discount Window hours, please contact your local Reserve Bank.
When more information is needed on the daylight overdraft position or the account is out of balance and requires resolution in order to avoid a potential overnight overdraft, there are tools that can be used to break down the information. If a master account has subaccounts, ABMS self balance type provides a report that reflects the subtotals of debits and credits for the subaccount or master account without the subaccount entries. If the error is not detected in the Fedwire Funds transactions, additional details may be obtained on the other activity from the Accounting Services Fedline inquiry reports and Cash Management reports. Additionally, account holders may contact their Administrative Reserve Bank if there is a discrepancy in between internal records and ABMS.
ABMS Reports
The ABMS Report presents three balances, the Daylight Overdraft Balance, the Account Balance, and the Available Funds Balance. Generally speaking, institutions use the Account Balance for overnight overdraft management, while the others for daylight overdraft management.
- Daylight Overdraft Balance, for a master balance type, is an approximation of the master account daylight overdraft balance as measured by the daylight overdraft posting rules. This balance is updated real-time for Funds, Book-Entry, and enhanced NSS transactions and every 15 minutes as data is passed to the integrated accounting system for other payment activity. You may use this balance for comparison with your institution's master account daylight overdraft balance before sending a Funds transfer. The data provided in a self-balance type represents subtotals of debit and credit activity and is a subset of the master account daylight overdraft balance. If an institution has subaccounts, this subtotal will identify daylight overdraft capacity used by its subaccount.
- Account Balance, when requested for a master balance type, is an approximation of the master account balance without respect to the daylight overdraft posting rules. This balance is calculated from the Daylight Overdraft balance plus any other activity transactions (NonAvl) submitted to the integrated accounting system but not yet available to the master account in accordance to the daylight overdraft posting rules. An institution may use this balance to estimate its end-of-day account balance. This balance may not be complete until all Reserve Bank operating areas have finished their accounting transactions for the day.
- Available Funds Balance is only displayed for a master balance type request and is calculated using one of the two balances above. Normally, this balance is calculated using the Daylight Overdraft balance. The balance used to calculate available funds is displayed in the status column as either DLOD (Daylight Overdraft Balance) or ACCT (Account Balance). The Available Funds Balance is calculated from the designated balance plus the net column total for memo post, single day net debit cap, funds collateral, and securities collateral. Institutions with the status at DLOD may use this balance to estimate their single day, daylight overdraft cap utilization. A negative balance indicates that a single-day cap breach may have occurred. Institutions with a self-assessed cap also need to recognize that this balance is based on the single-day cap capacity. Use of the full single-day capacity throughout the reserve maintenance period can result in a breach of the two-week average cap.