Oracle Chart of Accounts

The role of the Oracle Financials system is to facilitate management of the University's financial resources and to provide information to stakeholders, The Board of Trustees, Government, Partners, Granting bodies, Divisions, Schools, Units, Centres, a discipline or even a single project.

The Chart of Accounts plays a vital role in the management of data so that it can be summarised at the highest level of an information pyramid and also provides sufficient detail at the lower levels. The Chart of Accounts is the system used to code all income and expenditure transactions within the University's ledger. The Chart of Accounts is used in all General Ledger transactions and interfaces with many subsidiary financial systems such as Alesco and the Student Record System.

At its simplest level a Chart of Accounts need have only two code groups: one for Expenses and one for Income. However, the University needs to dissect expenses and income according to various types both for internal and external reporting purposes. We need to gather data in a manner that allows internal trend analysis, comparison to Budgets and provides meaningful management information.

External reporting requirements including annual financial statements which must comply with Australian Accounting Standards, reporting to DIISRTE, reporting to other Granting Authorities (particularly Research Grants) and reporting to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. All reporting requirements impact upon the design of the Chart of Accounts. Each report format requires different presentation of information and the Chart of Accounts is the tool used to gather the necessary data for manipulation via Report Generators.

The key to the success of Oracle Financials is the quality of information that is entered into it. Consistency in the application of the Chart of Accounts is critical. Correct use of the account codes is essential to the production of meaningful reports.

The Chart of Accounts has been designed to allow accurate coding and hence reporting of expenditure and income both at a Centre/Division level and over the entire University. The Centre codes are designed to allow hierarchical reporting levels with drill down capacity to the lowest reporting level ie. individual projects.

The Accounting Flexfield is the cornerstone of the recording of financial data within Oracle Financial General Ledger. The Accounting Flexfield consists of 20 characters contained within six segments. The six segments are:

• Centre
• Project
• Account
• Campus
• Entity
• Type

Centre

This segment consists of 5 characters and is used to identify the business or organisational unit where transactions are controlled. (Also known as cost centre, responsibility centre, operating centre, profit centre).

• Centre 09999 can be used for Balance Sheet accounts only (0000-1999).
• Centre 09999 cannot have income & expense accounts (2000-9999).
• Centres other than 09999 cannot have Balance Sheet accounts other than those relating to fixed assets.

Project

This segment consists of 5 characters and is an optional subset of the Centre segment. It is used to record transactions for formal projects such as research, capital works, consulting and initiatives where separate recording of income and/or expenditure is required.

Range:

• 01000 - 09999: General operating functions and includes such projects as Regional and Community Grants; Systems projects; Academic Service Learning Grants; Corporate projects, etc.
• 10000 - 19999: Entrepreneurial Activities including Consultancy projects.
• 20000 - 29999: External Trust and Tied Grants where funds have been received from external sources for a specific purpose.
• 50000 - 89999: Research Grants which include National Competitive Research grants, Industry and Other Research Funding, RTS, RIBG and RTS grants and Internal grants.

Account

This segment consists of 4 characters and allows transactions to be grouped into categories to describe the nature of the expenditure, income, assets or liabilities.

Campus

This segment consists of 2 characters and is used to record expenses as they relate to campuses of the University.

• Campus 99 applies to all balance sheet accounts (0000-9999).
• Campus 29 applies to all income accounts (20000-4999).
• The relevant code relating to the physical campus location is used for all expense accounts (5000-9999) i.e. codes 29 & 99 cannot be used for expenses.
• Campus 20 is to be used for Library centres only (22200- 22299).

Entity

This segment consists of 2 characters and is used to identify separate legal entities within the University.

Type

This segment consists of 2 characters and is used to distinguish trading between entities of the University (as this activity must be eliminated from the annual consolidated accounts).

• Use type 08 when there is a debit to an expense account in one entity and a credit to income in another - both sides of the transactions must be 08.
• Type 00 is used in all other circumstances.
• Type 08 is only used in manual and ADI journals - never in Payments, AR, AP, MatMan, etc.
• Balance sheet accounts (0000-1999) must always be type 00.