Finance is Fun

A few years ago when we PCSed to Germany, our flight was scheduled for the first of the month.  As we were preparing to leave, we decided to print out our LES since we didn't know when we'd have computer access once we arrived in Germany.  We logged in to MyPay and pulled up the last LES before we were moving to a different country.

It was straight zeroes across the page.

Apparently there's this thing in Finance called T-status, or "falling out of the system."  It is not a fun thing.  My husband was recruiting for six months, TDY for six months and then took 30 days of leave before moving to Germany, and apparently the military can stop your pay in those circumstances to make sure you actually sign in at your next duty station.  It's something of a safety feature to prevent AWOL people from still getting paid, but it can also happen to regular folks who haven't inprocessed into to a "real" unit in a while.  Straight zeroes.  No pay.

Which turned into no pay for two and a half months.

You know how they say that you should have money saved for emergencies?  This was one of those good times to have emergency funds.  We also learned about Casual Pay, an advance that Finance can give you on your next paycheck.  And we learned the hard way how Army Emergency Relief works.  It's a great service that can give you an interest-free loan, but the loan has to be for something specific.  You see, after we made three car payments, three insurance payments, three student loan payments, and all our other moving expenses, things were looking grim for buying groceries.  And remember, we just moved there; we didn't have a single thing in the fridge yet.  Sadly, we learned that AER would've paid our car payment or any other bill if we took the bill to them, but they couldn't just give us money for groceries.  Ouch, hard lesson.

In the end, Finance got their act together and finally submitted the paperwork correctly.  There's nothing that soothes the soul like seeing all your back pay, six months of BAH, and that mysterious "Advance Debt" (you know, the money the military overpays you for some reason, knowing full well they'll just take it back later) added up in the Entitlements column.  An $11,000 LES is a sight to behold.

In case you ever find yourself in this situation, here's my advice: 

--> Settle your travel as quickly as possible: inprocessing at the next duty station is the only thing that can "find you in the system" again.  And be the Squeaky Wheel in the Finance office, or else you're never going to get the grease.  (My husband worked in Finance, so I'm not just ripping on them here.  All they deal with all day long is problems and people screaming in their face, and they grow immune to it.  Be polite but insistant, and make sure that you're keeping track of what's happening with your pay.  The second they file your paperwork, they're on to the next soldier's problem, and they don't always remember to follow up and make sure everything went through for you; consider that your job, and you'll avoid sitting around for weeks and weeks with no change to your status.)

--> And have money saved up for emergencies, just in case.  I also know people who PCSed and got entered into the system as the wrong rank, which can mean a substantial difference in what you're expecting to get. 

--> Also it helps to have your emergency money readily accessible: ours was in a brand new stateside account for which we hadn't yet gotten an ATM card, so we stupidly had to pay for a wire transfer. 

--> I also think it can't hurt to know how your Army Emergency Relief system works (I'm sure the other branches have something similar with a different name.)  If we had known they'd pay our bills but not our groceries, we would've made different financial decisions those three months.  We thought we were being responsible by continuing to pay for major things that would affect our credit score, but those are the things we could've gotten help with.

Finance headaches can be major woes, but a little bit of knowledge helps.  We had no idea there was such a thing as "falling out of the system," and I hope none of you ever have to deal with this.  But if you do, maybe my experience can help you be more prepared.

Now go hug your local Finance people and let them know that we understand they do things right 99 times out of a hundred.  They only ever hear about the one time they don't...

Comments

[airforcewife]

Oh my goodness, yours was worse than ours! We had two months of no pay just after leaving ROTC and entering active duty,but we were moving to recruiting duty just outside Hanscom AFB. And there was no base housing, so we had to find a way to pay for our first/last/deposit on our own. Thank goodness for Mom and Dad and their credit card!

It does happen, though. And we should all print out your check list

[Sarah]

Ha, airforcewife, we had that TOO. Husband's was the first year group to be affected by 9/11, so he was told he couldn't start active duty until 11 months after his commission. Not good. Luckily they moved it up, but we still had four months between graduation and active duty and neither of us had a job!

[LAW]

7 weeks was ours... AGR. the Col just farted off the concerns (he wasn't too worried about his troops, his clerk (who was the problem, not only finance) was too busy, getting coffee, doughnuts, wings, the 1st Sgt was tired of beating his head against the wall of the Col. .... so, after going through all channels, I'm afraid we went to the IG. amazing how fast that works. I wasn't working at the time, and he had been out of work for 7 months before that! so the 3 months expenses etc... gone bye bye. I figure when we go Active, we are going to have another month or two or three without pay, so socking enough by for that time period. and civilians never believe us, do they? they cannot imagine that they can just not pay us and our troops just keep doing their jobs.

LAW

[US Navy Wife]

In my case, he's been away from home since October, and in Iraq since November. His pay reflects hazardous duty and his tax-free status, but doesn't show Family Separation Allowance.

One would think that if he's getting paid "with dependents", and he's clearly overseas, that FSA would be a no-brainer.

I hightailed it to the pay folks, with my deployment-required and military-prepared Power of Attorney and was told that I couldn't solve the problem - they don't recognize the PoA.

So, I went to my husband's boss, who told me she'd take care of it for me. She called and told me that the next LES should show the FSA allotment.

It didn't.

Husband will return this summer and will fix it himself. I'll enjoy the $2k+ bonus, but surely could have used the cash now... while I'm sending care packages overseas and paying for phone cards, and hiring for yard service, and and and....

*sigh*

[SigGal]

Sarah, all I can say is "wow!" That was a tough one. Good advice about AER in your situation. Most people never have to use AER, thank God, so when they do, they don't always now the way it works. I probably knew what you just told us here at one time, but I have surely forgotten.

US NAvy Wife - how frustrating! Geeze... surely the admin folks in his unit can fix his entitlements. Oh, you are going to have such a great tax return as well with the Earned Income Tax Credit.

This was a very eye opening post. Out of your sharing comes knowledge that will help others should the same thing occur to them.

[Butterfly Wife]

Talk about horror stories! Husband might be going AGR when he returns from Iraq. I will definitely be keeping all of this in mind. Yikes!

[LAW]

butterfly: Just be a nag... nag every damned day. NO, not the DH, finance!!

LAW

[Jennifer]

I had the same problem with the Family Separation Pay last time Hubby went to Iraq. We were in Germany, too. I went to finance and at first she actually asked me if my soldier had dependants. Umm...excuse me? What do you think I am, the maid?? Then they told me that the paperwork hadn't been submitted, but I could submit it with a POA. So I did that, and waited a month, still no pay. I went back, they tell me the same thing, the paperwork hasn't been submitted. I said, yes it has, because I SUBMITTED IT!! They tell me that I can't submit it, it has to come from my hubby. WHAT?? HE'S IN IRAQ!!

Well, the Battalion Rear Detachment Commander happened to be a friend of mine, so he went back with me to the finance office. Needless to say, within 72 hours, I had my money. Sometimes, you just have to bring out the big guns!!

[kyra Kerler]

I can completely sympathize with your situation. Over the last four months the navy hasn’t paid us close to the $8000.00 they owe us. This amount builds monthly since they have lost his advancement paper work and claim he needs to find it at his last command. He is home right now and goes to psd daily so I can’t imagine what it must be like to deal with this while he is not here. You are not the only one with navy pay problems. Two other guys in his unit are having a hard time getting all of their pay as well. I handle all the bank matters in our family so if my husband wasn’t home I would treat the navy as if they are any other institution who did not pay us money they owe. My advice to you is to go back and if the person at the counter can’t help you , speak with the LPO, if he feels he can’t help you , speak with the OIC, and so on to you reach the CO. I know they don’t like when wives do this sort of thing but you shouldn’t have to borrow money from navy relief or have your family suffer due to their incompetence.