Chart of Accounts
The chart of accounts is the numbering system used by the University's Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, Banner, to record financial transactions. The chart of accounts consists of six components: Fund, Organization, Account, Program, Activity, and Location. These elements are commonly referred to as the FOAPAL string. Only the Fund, Organization or Org, Account and Program components are required for all transactions.
| Fund | Organization | Account | Program |
|---|---|---|---|
| The fund describes the funding source. The fund is a self balance set of accounts. Funds can be unrestricted or restricted (temporarily or permanently). | The Organization or Org represents a department within a school or college or administrative unit. | The account code is the method of grouping individual transactions into classes. These classes include: assets, liabilities, net assets, revenues, expenses, and transfers. | The program code identifies a function and enables the University to classify transactions across orgs and accounts. Financial statements for the university are required to be presented by function. |
| 6 digits in length | 4 digits in length | 4 digits in length for data enterable accounts; non data-enterable roll-ups can be 3 to 6 digits in length. | 3 digits in length |
Activity Codes
Activity codes are established to track specific reporting needs that are not captured as a part of the FOAP. The Comptroller's Office will consider requests for these types of codes to accommodate additional reporting needs. Banner does not require this component of the FOAPAL string for all transactions. However, these codes do not have automatic system validation and when established by a department are required to be monitored by that unit for accuracy.
Location Codes
Location codes are similar to activity codes in that they are not required by the Banner system. Mainly, these codes are required to track asset locations within the Banner Fixed Asset module. However, the Comptroller's Office does permit that these codes can be utilized to track financial data at a specific location. However, like activity codes, the proper utilization of these items must be validated by the department.