Understanding the New Chart of Accounts

Those who use financial systems or work with budget information will be familiar with the previous structure of department and account codes, minor and sub-minor accounts. Now, all financial transactions such as cheque requisitions, travel expenses and purchase orders are coded with a "chartfield" - a string of coding (described below) that indicates key information about the transaction.

New Chartfields

The new codes improve consistency and access to information across the University. With more information, they are also longer than the codes used in the past. Each chartfield was a minimum of 16 digits (and may, for tracking purposes, have as many as 32 digits in five or six-digit groups).

The five-digit Fund Code identifies specific operating and research funds, trusts, endowments and other funds.

The five-digit Department Code is now the same for Finance, Human Resources, Payroll and Student systems. For example, various Arts & Science department and business centre codes range from 11000 to 11999.

The six-digit Account ID Code comes from a significantly expanded list of Account ID codes that are used consistently across departments to record revenues and expenses, as minors and sub-minors were used in the past. (As an example, copier expenses in one department has the same Account ID number as the coding used for the same type of expense in other departments, allowing local analysis of copier expense, or departmental/institutional summarization against the same expense account.) Please visit the page on Account ID Codes for more information.

Codes for Programs and Classes are used to help departments and units monitor transactions and track types of revenues and expenses -- from conferences and service charge-backs to particular academic programs. Codes for Projects are used to track research project expenses. Research project numbers are the same as in the previous system.

Although there have been challenges during the transition to the new Chart of Accounts, it will result in many enhancements for how the University manages its finances.