Chart of Accounts

Chart of Accounts (COA) 

Understanding the university’s six-segment, thirty-one digit Chart of Accounts (COA) and knowing how to code your expense or revenue is ‘key’ to initiating transactions and effectively analyzing and managing your accounting activity.  Choosing the correct COA is essential to accessing information across the university and ensuring data integrity.

ChartField String (sample)

Fund	Deptartment	Account	Program	Class	Project
(1)	(1)	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
30000	11460	640001	11603	1319	341688
Research	Geography	Travel	Work Study	Calgary	SSHRC #

(1) Required 
(2) Optional (required for CFI Research Projects)
(3) Optional
(4) Required (for Research and Capital funds)

ChartField Definitions

The Fund ID identifies the funds used to segregate, control, and monitor resources to help ensure and demonstrate compliance with legal/administrative requirements.  To view a table of the university’s fund structure, select the following PDF document. 

Fund Listing (178 KB)

The  Department ID identifies the divisional breakdown of an entity into operating units.  This identifier forms the basis for the university’s budgets and is used to grant system access to users. 

The Account ID identifies the nature of a transition and is used consistently across departments to record revenues and expenses. 

The Program ID identifies activities or events directed towards the accomplishment of a set of objectives (e.g. conference, workshop, event, program, etc.).  The identifier is used to track management information across all other boundaries, including department and fund. 

The Class ID identifies activities relating to people and locations (e.g. employee, faculty, student, team, visitor, city, etc.).  The identifier is used to track management information across all other boundaries, including department and fund. 

The Project ID identifies activity directed towards the accomplishment of a set of objectives that has a defined beginning and end.  This identifier is used to track research projects (IDs that begin with ‘3’) and/or capital projects (IDs that begin with ‘4’).  Research Project IDs are assigned by Financial Services at which time Principal Investigators are notified.  Capital Project IDs are assigned and administered by Physical Plant Services.