My husband is trying to track down his 2010 W-2, and since our household goods are in storage, he's trying to get a copy from the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS.) Attempts to telephone have been met with frustration, so he said he was going to spend some time at the website trying to find an alternate method of finding it. (Online access only includes the last five years.) While we were discussing his options, I recommended that he check out the askDFAS portion of the website.
askDFAS is like a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page, but it is set up more like a database and it is allegedly searchable. I like and dislike the askDFAS page. It's search function is awkward, and stuff isn't tagged with keywords that make sense to me. On the other hand, there are definitive answers to questions that I can't find written anywhere else, like who can get once a month pay and who can't.
The link to askDFAS is located at the bottom of the www.dfas.mil homepage, on the left side within the blue box.
Once you click on that link, it will take you to a page that lists the different sub-sections, including:
- Ask Military Pay
- Ask myPay
- Ask Retired Pay
- Ask Travel Pay
- Ask DFAS
If you are looking for answers to questions about your pay account, DFAS, or myPay, this might be a good place to start. As I said earlier, sometimes you have to use some creative thinking to figure out how to find the answers. For example, to find about the once-a-month pay option, you have to search "payroll frequency."
Unfortunately, you might still need to call and talk to an actual person, but perhaps the askDFAS section of the website will save you the pain. It certainly can't hurt to try, and it might make your life a lot easier!
