US moves to Germany, Italy, Belgium to submit documents to military electronically upon arrival

The United States moving to Germany, Italy, or Belgium, soon will have to submit several documents to the military electronically upon arrival or risk not getting paid.

Troops assigned a permanent change of station & PCS, to Europe have for several years completed a travel voucher with their finance department following their arrival.

But starting June 1, they will be asked to submit those claims themselves through the Defense Finance and Accounting Service’s online system, SmartVoucher.

It is part of a push by the Army to have more paperwork tasks completed virtually when possible.

SmartVoucher is already operating in the United States and will be familiar to some troops moving overseas. Its rollout in Europe is part of a scheduled system expansion, said Kimberly Jordan, a director at the 266th Finance Support Center, part of the Kaiserslautern-based 21st Theater Sustainment Command.

Jordan said, “It’s kind of like a TurboTax system, where it asks questions, and then the responses to those questions are what build the PCS voucher.”

Once completed, the voucher is sent to the soldier’s finance office for final review before submission to the Defense Financing and Accounting Service.

Soldiers are being advised to complete the voucher the day they arrive in Europe to help ensure that they get paid correctly and that their salary is not frozen.

Jordan said, “Their pay record just won’t be right if they don’t submit the voucher, adding that salaries would be frozen only in extreme cases that are not rectified within four months.