Examples|DUO Codes Change to Sub-Accounts|Sub-Accounts with Contracts and Grants|Key Points|Sub-Account Attributes
A new tool Cornell will have in the KFS Chart of Accounts is the sub-account. This is an optional part of the accounting string that allows departments and units to track financial activity within a particular account at a finer level of detail. Sub-accounts can be used to help track expenses when several different activities may be funded by the same account. Budgets, actual activity, and encumbrances can be associated with a sub-account within an account.
Departments and units will create and maintain their own sub-accounts, which can have up to five alphanumeric characters that are meaningful to them. Sub-accounts take on most of the attributes of the account to which it reports, including fiscal officer, account supervisor, account manager, sub-fund group, and higher ed function code.
Sub-accounts allow you to take advantage of the Financial Reporting Code. This is an optional sub-account attribute that can be defined by a particular organization and retrieved using decision support queries.
Activity in sub-accounts can be reported on separately or combined under the main account. They’re designed to meet the individual reporting needs of departments and units.
Examples
- A course, like Psychology 101, is the main account. Spring and fall semester classes would be sub-accounts.
- An organization has funds in a general account that is used by several different areas. The organization might segregate budgets for each of the areas into sub-accounts such as Marketing, Research, and Recruitment.
- A unit has a main grant account of $21,000, and these funds are distributed to four different departments, treated as sub-accounts.
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DUO Codes Change to Sub-Accounts
In the existing financial system, project and DUO (department use only) codes are used to track activity across accounts; for example, faculty activity, course budgets, special projects, facilities reporting, and the like.
In KFS, sub-accounts will provide this functionality. The examples below compare the legacy practice of using DUO codes with the new KFS sub-account model to track individual faculty activity expenses.
| In the Current Financial System | In KFS |
|---|---|
| Expenses associated with Professor Smith are recorded as DUO 123 and used across multiple accounts. Expenses associated with Professor Jones are recorded as DUO 150 and used across multiple accounts. | Expenses associated with Professor Smith are recorded as sub-account 12300 and used across multiple accounts. Expenses associated with Professor Jones are recorded as sub-account 15000 and used across multiple accounts. |
| Split Expenses Between Accounts – Travel Example | |
| Professor Smith’s travel expenses are split between two accounts using his DUO code of 123. | Professor Smith's travel expenses are split between two accounts using sub-account 12300. |
Transaction Processed for Professor Smith Travel Expense: | Transaction Processed for Professor Smith Travel Expense: |
| Split Expenses Between Accounts – Salary Example | |
| Professors Smith and Jones hire a research technician, whose salary is split between their two research projects. | |
Research technician salary split between Professor Smith (DUO 123) and Professor Jones (DUO 150) Technician Salary Expense: | Research technician salary split between Professor Smith (12300) and Professor Jones (15000) Technician Salary Expense: |
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Sub-Accounts with Contracts and Grants
KFS also has a system that uses special sub-accounts to help track cost-share associated with Contracts and Grants accounts. This works by establishing specially coded sub-accounts as part of a Contract or Grant account. These sub-accounts also have a designated Cost Share account, which is the account providing the funds. Expenses applied to the cost-share (funding) sub-account are automatically reimbursed by the cost-share account via an automatic transfer of funds generated by the KFS Cost Share batch process, run nightly. This allows you to track what has been cost-shared for a particular contract or grant account, while still appropriately applying the expense to a different account.
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Key Points
- Sub-accounts are optional.
- Sub-accounts allow departments and units to track financial activity within a particular account at a finer level of detail.
- Departments and units will create and maintain their own sub-accounts, using a code meaningful to them, up to five alphanumeric characters.
- Sub-accounts take on most of the attributes of the account to which it reports, including fiscal officer, account supervisor, fund group, and higher ed function code.
- Sub-account activity can be reported on separately or combined under the main account.
- In KFS, sub-accounts keep track of contract and grant cost-share activity. Only the KFS Contracts and Grants processor can modify the expense type on a sub-account to “CS” (Cost Share). The implementation team is continuing to explore the full functionality of this feature.
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Edit Sub-Account Code tab|Edit Financial Reporting Code tab|Edit CG Cost Sharing tab|Edit CG ICR tab
The following attributes are accessed through the Sub-Account maintenance e-doc, which is used to create, edit, and copy sub-accounts. There are four sections (tabs) in the e-doc. Required attributes are noted with an asterisk (*). When a magnifying glass icon
appears in the e-doc, you can click it to look up information from a list.
Edit Sub-Account Code tab
Unless you are establishing a Cost Share sub-account or using the Financial Reporting Code, the Edit Sub-Account Code and the Document Overview tabs are the only required tabs.
| Attribute | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| *Chart Code | Chart code associated with the account associated with the sub-account | IT |
| *Account Number | Account number under which the sub-account will be created To use the same sub-account code on several accounts, you must process an additional document for each additional account on which the sub-account will be used. | 4321210 |
| *Sub-Account Number | Code to be entered in the sub-account field of the Accounting Lines tab of financial documents | F2010 |
| *Sub-Account Name | Enter the long descriptive name. This name appears on the Accounting Linestab in financial documents as well as in searches and reports. | Fall 2010 |
| Active Indicator | Select this option if the sub-account is active | n/a |
| Sub-Account Type Code | Code to indicate the type of activity on the sub-account. The field is editable only for the members of the KFS-SYS Contracts & Grants Processor role. It defaults to “EX” for others. Options: “EX” indicates the sub-account is used to segregate budget and actuals on an account. | EX |
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Edit Financial Reporting Code tab
This tab is optional but can be used to associate a sub-account with a Financial Reporting Code. The associated reporting code could then be retrieved via decision support tools.
| Attribute | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Financial Reporting Chart Code | Chart code associated with the organization that owns the assigned Financial Reporting Code | IT |
| Financial Reporting Org Code | Code for the organization that owns the assigned Financial Reporting Code | 0001 |
| Financial Reporting Code | Code used to define this optional attribute of sub-account that can be used for reporting. Financial reporting codes can roll up to other financial reporting codes creating a hierarchy, similar to the way that organizations can map to other organizations. Decision support queries can be written to leverage information by financial reporting code hierarchy. | This is as yet undefined. |
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Edit CG Cost Sharing tab
This tab is required only if the sub-account type code value has been set to CS. Fields in this tab are available only to members of the KFS SYS Contracts & Grants Processor role.
| Attribute | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Cost Sharing Chart of Accounts Code | Chart associated with the Cost Share account assigned to the sub-account | IT |
| Cost Sharing Account Number | Account number that bears the cost share expenses applied to the Cost Share sub-account | 4321210 |
| Cost Sharing Sub-Account Number | Sub-account number on the Cost Share account to which the cost share expenses should be applied If this check box is not selected, cost share expenses are applied directly to the Cost Share account with no sub-account assigned. | 56723 |
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Edit CG ICR tab
This tab must be completed if this is an expense sub-account associated with a Contracts and Grants account.
This information determines how indirect cost should be calculated for expenses applied to this sub-account. It may be the same as the ICR information for the parent account or may be different. For example, a sub-account might be used to track expenses that record indirect costs at a greater or lesser percentage of direct costs than the rest of the account.
| Attribute | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Indirect Cost Rate ID | Required if the fund group code or sub-fund group code identifies the account as a Contracts and Grants account; otherwise not allowed. Identifies a specific Indirect Cost Rate applicable to contract and grant activity. | 10: 0% Indirect Cost Rate |
| ICR Chart of Accounts Code | Chart associated with the account to which the indirect cost recovery revenue is applied | IT |
| ICR Account Number | Account to which indirect cost revenue should be applied | 4321210 |
| ICR Type Code | Type code that defines what kind of direct costs generate indirect costs on the sub-account | n/a |
| Off Campus Indicator | Select this option if the indirect cost recovery associated with the account reflects an off-campus rate (off-campus rates often differ from regular on-campus rates) | n/a |
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