The account structure is the most basic element of USAS. Most governmental entities, such as schools, use Fund Accounting as opposed to an accrual system of accounting based on GAAP. The Auditor of State's Office (AOS) has established a chart of accounts that consist of 4 types which track cash balances, expenditures and revenues. Account codes are made up of 30 digits grouped by 9 dimensions. 2 dimensions are alpha numeric, Special Cost Center and Subject.  Account dimensions are assigned by AOS or Ohio Department of Education (ODE) with the exception of 2 dimensions, Special Cost Center and Operational Unit which are defined at the district level. 

The Account interface is displayed in a tabbed format. There is a tab for each type of account.

• Cash accounts are established to track the actual amount of cash that the district has in the bank. As expenditures are made, the cash is decreased and as receipts are posted, the cash increases.
• Appropriation accounts are used to track the estimated and actual expenses incurred by the school district. Each appropriation account is tied to a cash account
• Expenditure accounts provide a further breakdown of estimated and actual expenditures than what the appropriation accounts provide. Auditors are interested in the expenditures at the appropriation levels, but the school administration might want to track the expenditures at a more detailed level than the appropriation level. Each expenditure account is tied to a particular appropriation and cash account.
• Revenue accounts are established to track the estimated and actual receipts by the district. Each revenue account is tied to a cash account.
• Also included is a tab for the Fund Level that is primarily used with the Certificate reports located on the Periodic menu.  They include the Appropriation Resolution and Certification/Appropriation reports.

Cash Account

As expenditures are made, the cash is decreased and as receipts are posted, the cash increases.

Create Cash Account

1. From the Core Menu select 'Accounts'
2. Click on the Cash Tab
   

3. Click on

   Info
   and options work with the option. If is checked before clicking , it will save the new account and leave the window open to create another account. Ifis checked before clicking , it will close you out of the account window.

   
   

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More information - Cash Account

Cash Account dimensions

Transaction Indicator (TI): A two digit number assigned by the Auditor of State to indicate the type of account. A cash account will always have a TI of 00.

Fund:  A three digit number assigned by the Auditor of State to ensure that the money of a district is spent for purposes identified in the appropriations. The fund numbers identify whether it is the general fund, or a federal or state fund. The funds help categorize your expenses and revenues, such as general fund, or federal and state funds. The valid fund numbers are identified in the Auditor of State manual titled "Uniform School Accounting System.item".

Special Cost Center (SCC): A four character code which is defined by the individual school districts. The SCC is used to further divide money in the various funds. Some districts use the fiscal year as part of the SCC.  The first three characters must be digits, while the fourth character may be either a digit or an alphabetic character.

Cash Balance Account

 A cash balance account tracks the expenditures and receipts for a particular fund. The Special Cost Center (SCC) for a cash balance account is 0000. If budget/expenditure and revenue accounts are allocated SCC's between 0000 and 8999, inclusive, then expenditures and receipts with these special cost centers are posted against the cash balance account of all zeros. The cash account of 00 001 0000 is a cash balance account.

Cash Control Account

 A cash control account means that the user wants to establish an account to track the cash of a particular fund separate from the other SCC's in that fund. In order to accomplish this, the user must establish a cash account that has a SCC of 9000 or greater. The cash account of  00 514 9096 is considered a cash control account because the SCC is 9000 or greater.

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The Cash Adjustment option is not accessible for users with SSDT's USAS_MANAGER or USAS_STANDARD role.  The Cash Adjustment option allows initial cash amounts/adjustments to be entered in the initial cash field.  Restricting the access to the initial cash field is intentional and consistent with Classic's identifiers which did not allow the ability to edit initial cash amounts either.  The reason for creating a cash adjustment is very rare and requires Auditor requires Auditor written approval stating initial cash figures be adjusted (usually due to the result of a recent audit).  If changes are warranted, they are to be handled by an ITC staff member and well documented (attaching the Auditor's written approval).  Another reason for creating initial cash figures is if a district is starting on new on Redesign USAS and who has not migrated over from Classic.  Again, the initial cash figures must be entered by ITC staff as part of the district setup.  Please refer to the 'New District Setup - No Classic Data to Migrate' procedure for further details. 

Appropriation Account

Appropriation accounts are the expenditure accounts used when the school district is audited. An appropriation account is used to track the estimated and actual expenses incurred by the school district.

Create an Appropriation Account

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1. From the Core Menu select 'Accounts'
2. Click on the Appropriation Tab
    
   
   
3. Click on
4. Enter desired information into the appropriation account
5. Click on to post the appropriation account to the system, click on to not post the appropriation account and return to the appropriation grid.

 Search/View Appropriation Accounts

The Appropriation Account grid allows the user to search for appropriation accounts that currently exist on the system. Click on  to view a particular appropriation account. The user may click on a grid row to display a summary view the of the account on the right-and side of the grid.

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Edit Appropriation Accounts

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1. Using the filter row on the grid search for the desired appropriation account
2. Click on  to delete the account
3. Click on  to confirm the deletion

More Information

Most of the processing programs will prompt you for a budget account, not an appropriation account. The budget account is converted into an appropriation account internally by the programs. The appropriation accounts are practically invisible to the user in most circumstances. However, the user does have the ability to generate reports on appropriation accounts, and the user can also look at appropriation accounts through inquiry programs

Appropriation Account dimensions

The appropriation accounts, by system default, are composed of the below account dimensions. A rule may be created and enabled that changes the appropriation account dimensions depending on how the entity would like to budget (see sample rule org.ssdt_ohio.usas.model.budget.AppropMappingSample).  

Transaction Indicator (TI): A two digit number assigned by the Auditor of State to indicate the type of account. An appropriation account will always have a TI of 01.

Fund: A three digit number assigned by the Auditor of State. The fund number for an appropriation account should correspond to the fund number of the cash account.

Function: A four digit number assigned by the Auditor of State. The function code identifies the program or acitivities of the expenditure. The function code at the appropriation level carries two digits of significance.

Object: A three digit number assigned by the Auditor of State. The purpose of the object code is to identify the goods or services of the school district. The object code has one significant digit except for the case of function codes that are 61XX. In that particular case, the object code would have two significant digits.

Special Cost Center (SCC): A four character code which is defined by the individual school district. The SCC is used to further divide money within the fund number. The SCC on an appropriation account should match the SCC on the cash account.

Tracking requisitioned amounts

 If the pre-encumbrance module is installed, then total outstanding requisitioned amounts by account are tracked, and by default the dollar amounts associated with all open requisitions previously posted against the same account will be taken into consideration when doing the balance checking. This is desirable if you want a "first come, first served" scenario where users may not post any more requisitions once the balance is depleted. By default, the balance checks are warnings, but rules may be customized to change this to a fatal error, preventing the requisitions from being posted at all.

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SSDT's USAS_STANDARD and USAS_MANAGER roles grant full access to the USAS_APPROPRIATION permission.  Users with create access to this permission and no Account Filters associated with their user account will be able to create appropriation accounts from the Appropriation Account UI.  If the user has an associated account filter with the 'create' box unchecked, the user will be restricted from creating appropriation accounts.

Expenditure Account

The expenditure and appropriation accounts are "linked", meaning that the total dollar amount on the expenditure accounts equals the total dollar amount on an associated appropriation account. This is controlled by the way your district's expenditure's are mapped using Rules. You might have three, five, or many expenditure accounts associated with one appropriation account.

Create an Expenditure Account

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More Information - Expenditure Accounts

 Expenditure Account dimensions

Transaction Indicator (TI): A two digit number assigned by the Auditor of State to indicate the type of account. A expenditure account will always have a TI of 02.

Fund: A three digit number assigned by the Auditor of State. The fund number for a expenditure account should correspond to the fund number of the associated appropriation and cash accounts.

Function: A four digit number assigned by the Auditor of State. The function code identifies the program or acitivities of the expenditure. The function code at the expenditure level can carry three or four digits of significance.

Object: A three digit number assigned by the Auditor of State. The purpose of the object code is to identify the goods or services of the school district. The object code can have two or three significant digits.

Special Cost Center (SCC): A four character code which is defined by the individual school district.  The SCC is used to further divide money within the fund number. The SCC on a expenditure account should match the SCC on the associated appropriation and cash accounts. The exception to that rule is if the SCC on the expenditure account is between 0001 and 8999. In that case, the account would correspond to the SCC of all zeroes at the appropriation and cash level. 

Subject: A six character code assigned by the Auditor of State in conjunction with the Ohio Department of Education. Please refer to the EMIS User Manual distributed by the Ohio Department of Education for the most current list of valid subject codes. The subject codes are listed in Section 4.7 of the EMIS User Manual. Subject codes are used to specifically identify the costs involved with the various subjects offered at a school district. For example, the expenditures for English Education can be tracked separately from Health Occupations by utilizing subject codes. The first two characters of the subject code will always define the academic "area" while the last four characters define the specific subject. Districts can choose to use the first two characters of the subject or the entire code. Use of the first two characters only, provides for the ability to track expenditures by the subject area but eliminates the need to update accounts each time ODE may make modifications to the existing subject codes. However, use of the full six character subject code provides for a more detailed accounting structure.

Operational Unit (OPU): A three digit number assigned by individual school districts defining specific locations or buildings within the district. For instance, you can track expenditures of the high school separately from those of a middle school or elementary by implementing operational units.

Instructional Level (IL): A two digit number assigned by the Auditor of State. The instructional level identifies the grade level at which expenditures are being made.

Job Assignment: This three digit number is also assigned by the Auditor of State. The job assignment is used to track expenditures of various positions within the district. An example would be tracking the expenditures of the Superintendent, Treasurer, and the Librarian separately

Transaction Processing and how it affects expenditure

When an expenditure occurs in USAS, the cash, appropriation, and expenditure accounts will all be updated.

The appropriation and expenditure accounts are used to track the estimated and actual expenditures. A district treasurer goes through the process of estimating each year how much will be spent in the various areas of the district and these estimated amounts are appropriated. As the expenditures are actually made by issuing purchase orders, invoices, and checks, the actual amounts spent are tracked on the appropriation and expenditure accounts, as well as the cash account.

When a purchase order is created for a particular expenditure account in current posting period the Current Encumbered field is increased on expenditure and appropriation account reducing the FYTD Unencumbered balance field. As purchase orders are invoiced the Current Encumbered field on the expenditure and appropriation accounts may be increased or decreased based on how the invoice was filled. Then when a check is created (money is expended) the expenditure and appropriation account Current Encumbered field is decreased and YTD Actual Expended, Fiscal YTD Actual Expended, and Month To Date Expended are increased and the FYTD Unencumbered balance would be reduced. If the user were to generate a report of all the FYTD expenditures on all expenditure or appropriation accounts, they should agree with the total expenditures on appropriation accounts. This total should also agree with the FYTD expenditures on the corresponding cash account.

Revenue Account

Revenue accounts track the estimated and actual receipts for a school district.

Create a Revenue Account

1. From the Core Menu select 'Accounts'
2. Click on the Revenue Tab
    
3. Click on
4. Enter desired information into the revenue account
5. Click on to post the revenue account to the system, click on to not post the revenue account and return to the revenue grid.

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More Information - Revenue Accounts

Revenue Account dimensions:

Transaction Indicator (TI): A two digit number assigned by the Auditor of State to indicate the type of account. A revenue account will always have a TI of 03

Fund: A three digit number assigned by the Auditor of State. The fund number for a revenue account should correspond to the fund number of the cash account to be used for tracking the receipts.

Receipt: A four digit number assigned by the Auditor of State. The receipt code identifies the source of the receipt. For instance, is the money coming in from taxes, tuition, cafeteria money, or from fees?

Special Cost Center (SCC): A four digit number which is defined by the individual school district. The SCC is used to further divide money within the fund number. The SCC on an revenue account should match the SCC on the cash account. The exception to that rule is if the SCC is between 0001 and 8999. In that case, the account would correspond to the SCC of all zeroes at the cash level.

Subject: A six character code assigned by the Auditor of State in conjunction with the Ohio Department of Education. Please refer to the EMIS User Manual distributed by the Ohio Department of Education for the most current list of valid subject codes. The subject codes are listed in Section 4.7 of the EMIS User Manual. Subject codes are used to specifically identify the revenues involved with the various subjects offered at a school district. For example, the receipts for English Education can be tracked separately from Health Occupations by utilizing subject codes. The first two digits of the subject code will always define the academic "area" while the last four digits define the specific subject. Districts can choose to use the first two digits of the subject or the entire code. Use of the first two digits only, provides for the ability to track revenues by the subject area but eliminates the need to update accounts each time ODE may make modifications to the existing subject codes. However, use of the full six digit subject code provides for a more detailed accounting structure.

Operational Unit (OPU): A three digit number assigned by individual school districts defining specific locations or buildings within the district. For instance, you can track revenues of the high school separately from those of a middle school or elementary by using operational units.

Transaction Processing and how it affects revenue accounts. 

When a receipt is posted on the system, the revenue account and the cash account are both updated.

As a district processes receipts, the three Receipt fields (YTD Actual Receipts , Fiscal YTD Actual Receipts, and Month To Date Actual Receipts) are increased in the revenue account and the Fiscal YTD Balance Receivable would be reduced. 

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Default Descriptions

Cash

 By default, when a cash account is created and the description is left blank, a default description based on the fund code will be used.  The rule used to create the default description is org.ssdt_ohio.usas.module.usascodes.AccountDescriptionRule.  This rule is optional and can be disabled or customized to suit the district's needs.

Appropriation

 By default, when an appropriation account is created, a default description based on the fund, function and object code will be used.  The rule used to create the default description is org.ssdt_ohio.usas.module.usascodes.AccountDescriptionRule.  This rule is optional and can be disabled or customized to suit the district's needs. 

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If the pre-encumbrance module is installed, then total outstanding requisitioned amounts by account are tracked, and by default the dollar amounts associated with all open requisitions previously posted against the same account will be taken into consideration when doing the balance checking. This is desirable if you want a "first come, first served" scenario where users may not post any more requisitions once the balance is depleted. By default, the balance checks are warnings, but rules may be customized to change this to a fatal error, preventing the requisitions from being posted at all.

If the user would like to track the requisitioned amounts, but NOT take them into consideration when doing the balance checking, this is possible by installing the pre-encumbrance module and then adjusting the rules which are enabled in the ADMIN/Rules option. In this case you would want to disable the rule "DefaultBalanceCheckWarning" and enable the rule "ReqBalanceCheckWarningExcludesPreencumbrances

The pre-encumbrance module can be installed or uninstalled as desired via the Admin/Modules option.

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