CDFI Fund’s updated guidance for 2020 AMIS reporting: Data field updates, new synchronization, and more

The Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund recently released updated guidance for Awards Management Information System (AMIS) Reports. Users will notice a slight change to the appearance to the overall system. These changes are effective immediately, and we believe they should help improve the reporting process. Read on for some select specific changes to be aware of. 

Transactional Level Reports (TLR)

New and deleted data fields

The NMTC TLR Project file has two new data fields: “Project results from Investment CDE” and “Associated Project.” These fields will capture information regarding NMTC Allocatees that invest in other Community Development Entities (CDEs). “These new data fields are intended to help the Fund differentiate between the initial CDE-to-CDE loan and the subsequent CDE-to-QALICB [qualified active low-income community business] loan,” the CDFI Fund writes in the relevant guidance file.

A few fields have also been deleted, including “Disbursement ID” and “Disbursement Amount,” both removed from the “Loan Source and Disbursements” related list.

New user features 

As described in the guidance, new features include:

• Generating NMTC Reports – “Users will now have the option of generating customized reports of TLR records in AMIS.” 
• CSV/XML File Upload Error Correction Process – “Users will now have to ability to make corrections to their TLR files as part of the upload process. A new Error Correction user interface assists users in resolving errors in their upload files.” 
• Address Look-up – “Address reporting in AMIS now includes an ESRI call-out feature that automatically verifies and geocodes addresses entered into the system.”

Multi-CDE reporting

“Once a TLR Project is linked to a Multi-CDE Project, AMIS will automatically synchronize all Key Outcome fields in the TLR Project to those in the Multi-CDE Project,” the CDFI Fund explains. “Previously, users were required to ensure that the Key Outcome fields in the TLR Project and the Multi-CDE Project were identical. This added step is no longer required from users.” Note that this synchronization does not apply to addresses, so users will need to ensure that information matches the multi-CDE project information.

Allocation-QEI tracking

The Allocation Usage Summary section now shows the required percent of QEIs to be issued and the deadline date, as specified in Section 3.2 (e) of the Allocation Agreement. “The required benchmark is typically set at 60% of allocation award amount,” the CDFI Fund writes.

For  full guidance and more information, see the CDFI fund site.