Overview of the Account Structure

The University is required by its enabling Act to keep proper accounts and financial records. The Chart of Accounts must be designed to allow accurate coding and reporting of income, expenditure and the financial position. The primary objective of accurate coding and reporting is to allow for efficient management of the University's funds both at Budget Unit and University Executive levels. The University is also required to comply with accounting standards, to report in accordance with governmental guidelines, and to satisfy audit obligations.

It is essential therefore that all financial transactions be recorded in a comprehensive set of properly classified accounts. These accounts cover the University's income, expenditure, assets and liabilities. Expenditure accounts, for example, include salaries, materials, publications, travel, maintenance, fuel, advertising and so on. Accordingly an account must have the same meaning across the whole of the ESP System to facilitate the consolidation of activity across the ledger.

Each accounting transaction bears an account code indicating type of funding, responsibility centre details, and type of transaction. The overall form of this code is:

A   DDDDD   SD   SD   GG   AAAA     SA

All fields in the code are alphanumeric.

A - Ledger Segment. This is a required single alpha character that represents the segment of the ledger.

D - Department ID. Five required digits representing a sub-set of the school level such as a academic Department or other responsibility centre. The first two digits represent the Business Unit level.

A - Natural Account. A required four digit code indicating type of transaction.

SA - Sub Account. An optional field of one digit to provide lower order reporting within a natural account. One set applies to the entire ledger.

When all the required fields of a funding/department/account combination are correctly entered, a valid account code is formed. For example, R43020 5208R43020----5208-

R - Recurrent43020 - Research School of Physical Sciences, Department of Nuclear Physics (Dept ID)5208 - Electronic and electrical materials

Natural Accounts

Natural Accounts represent the type of asset, liability, income and expenditure. The Natural Accounts are four numeric characters in length and have been allocated in ranges to assist in identifying the type of Natural Account.

The broad ranges are:

Any amendments to the listing of Natural Accounts will be published indicating the Natural Account number, the nature of the change and the date of change.