Overview
The Chart of Accounts (COA) represents the structure through which financial transaction data is organized and reported through UC San Diego financial systems.
Essential Information
- New requests will not be processed for certain Chart of Accounts (COA) segments.
- The segments listed in Steps to Take, represent the segments that may be requested by departments.
- Requests for new or changes to General Ledger COA segments will require VC approval, an attachment of an approval email with the justification is required to process new/change segment requests.
- ICA will provide final review and approval via the Services & Support ticket.
- You may request/attach more than one COA segment to a case i.e., request a Fund and Financial Unit within the same Services & Support ticket.
- After an update is completed in Oracle, updates to associated systems may take 2 days/nights to transfer.
- Submit Chart of Accounts requests as a Services & Support ticket with the following parameters:
About: Financial Accounting
Related To: Chart of Accounts
More Specifically: Chart of Accounts Inquiries
Next Steps
Be aware of special characters in COA names, values, or descriptions. Refer to the table at end for further guidance.
Account
A new form is in the process of being created. Please create a ticket with the above parameters and request for an interim form.
- An Account is an Asset, Liability, Revenue, Expense, or Fund Balance
- Account requests include:
- New Accounts
- Closing an Account
- New General Ledger Accounts will be limited because the use of expenditure types is encouraged for reporting details.
Financial Unit
A new form is in the process of being created. Please create a ticket with the above parameters and request for an interim form.
- A Financial Unit:
- Represents a FinUnit with an ongoing business objective
- Responsible individual with fiscal authority over budget and costs
- Identifiable group of employees, and generally a physical space
- Every FinUnit must submit its own budget.
- FinUnit are also used for approvals, routing, and authorizations.
- A Financial Unit is NOT:
- a subunit or team within a Financial Unit
- a Capital Project
- tied to a Function
- a Recharge operation within a department
- a physical location, such as a building or facility
After the Financial Unit is approved and created, submit Oracle and Concur Role Request
-
- Roles and approvers need to be assigned to the Financial Unit in order to transact with the Financial Unit.
- In order for transactions to be approved for the Financial Unit, workflow approver roles must be assigned.
Fund
Activity
- Submit a request for new, change, or closure of an Activity using Activity Updates Form
- An Activity is used for Merchant Accounts and internal loan tracking only
- Activity requests are when:
- The new Merchant Account needs posting to the Credit Card Clearing Merchant Account (Oracle account 101030)
- A change or close to a Merchant Account
- An Internal Loan is used for Debt, Treasury, or Equipment
Location
Guidelines for COA Values and Descriptions
| Special Characters in COA | Description | Guidance |
| . | Period | Do not use |
| _ | Underscore | Do not use |
| () | Parentheses | Do not use |
| ' | Single Quotation | Do not use |
| | | Vertical Bar | Do not use |
| @ | at sign | Do not use |
| + | Plus sign | Do not use |
| \ | Backslash | Do not use |
| , | Comma | Do not use, replace with a forward slash / |
| & | Ampersand | Do not use, replace with the word "and" |
| = < > | Equal, less than, greater than | Do not use, replace with words |
| - | Hyphen | Try not to use |
Additional Formatting Tips:
- Check for spelling
- Abbreviations should be consistent and understood by general campus
- Click here for common Acronyms and Abbreviations at UCSD
- Capitalize the first letter of most words, e.g. Materials Science Program, Center for Extreme Events