Chart of Accounts
The planning and attention to detail that is going into creating a new Chart of Accounts (COA) for the University of Minnesota reflects the importance of its role as the backbone of the financial system. Work on the new chart has occurred in three stages: COA Design, COA Values, and COA Validation. The first two stages are complete, and the COA Validation team is currently hard at work on the mapping of the new system.
COA Design
In 2004 the EFS COA Design team was formed to evaluate the COA structure as delivered by PeopleSoft, and to confirm and document the University’s financial reporting requirements. Among the team’s many assignments, members explored various options for COA ChartFields, determined COA definitions, created procedures for maintaining the COA, and prepared documentation for the implementation phase. In its final report, the COA Design team recommended that a team be formed to establish the new COA values.
COA Values
In 2005 the EFS COA Values team was created to evaluate and define values for each of the ChartFields recommended by the Design team. The Values team worked to ensure that the values assigned to the account structure supported both internal management needs and external financial reporting requirements and that the approach was flexible enough to meet current and identified future regulations and standards. The team created values and definitions for all ChartFields except DeptID, Program, ProjectID, ProductID, and user-defined ChartFields. A COA manual and maintenance procedures were also prepared by the Values team.
COA Validation
The current work on COA, which began in May 2006, involves verifying that the concepts, definitions, and values developed for the COA will work appropriately when the new financial system is launched. The COA Validation team has identified pilot units from throughout the University to participate in data testing. These sample units broadly represent the business and organization of the University, varying in size and type of unit. The Validation team is working with these units to develop values for department-specific ChartFields such as DeptID.
The Validation team is creating a conversion table that will map CUFS values and ChartField strings to the proposed new values. The mapping is scheduled to be done by midsummer 2007. The team will then translate old fiscal-year financial transactions from the selected pilot units into the new PeopleSoft ChartField strings to determine how well the new COA will perform. Adjustments will then be made as needed.
Click to review COA FAQs.
As illustrated below, we now have an identified set of PeopleSoft General Ledger ChartFields, some of which are required and some of which are optional or conditional. Click here to download a pdf of this illustration that includes the ChartField descriptions.
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