Financial Accounting & Reporting

Home > Project Accounting System

The Project Accounting System is a subsidiary accounting system used by departments to account for transactions within an account by cost centers. The system allows you to sub-divide your 7-digit account number into sub-accounts (called projects) consisting of an additional 6 digits.

The Financial Accounting & Reporting (FAR) staff is available to answer any questions you may have and to assist you in reconciling your records and processing your transactions. We hope that the following frequently asked questions will answer many of your questions regarding the Project Accounting System. If you have any further questions, please contact us.

How do I place an account on Projects?

How do I get access to or training on the Project Accounting System?

How do I assign Project Numbers and Titles?

What is a Miscode Statement?

How do I correct a miscode or move transactions between Projects?

What kind of statements will I receive?

What is the Salary Breakdown for Projects System?

Who do I contact with questions?

What is my Project Accounting Department Code?

How to Place an Account on projects?

When a request is made to the Financial Accounting & Reporting (FAR) Office to place an account on projects, a 2-letter project department code is assigned to the account. This code identifies the departmental contact person and the mailing address for the monthly project statements, and weekly miscode reports. The project department address (not the Account Title or departmental statement address) controls the delivery of the project statements.

How to Get Access to or Training on the Project Accounting System

Data entry access is available, giving users the ability to set up, change or delete project titles, to move accounting transactions between projects, and to enter salary breakdowns for projects. There is one-on-one training available for new users or those who would just like a refresher course. Please contact the FAR staff for access and/or training.

Project Numbers and Titles

Project numbers and titles are assigned by the department. In addition to the user assigned numbers, project 99-9999, entitled Project Suspense, is automatically created. Any accounting transaction processed with an invalid or missing section-project number defaults to 99-9999.

You may add or delete project title and make changes to existing project title records.

1. From the System Selection Menu screen type in "AT" (Account Title System)

2. Enter "UP" (Update Project Title) as the FUNC. Enter your fund account number and project number.

3. Enter the project title and your print option. Print options include "A", print a project statement if activity was processed during the month, and "N", never print a project statement.

4. To delete a project, enter "Y" under the "DEL" column and a "A" under the "PRT" column.

For an electronic version of the Project Titles form, click HERE.

Miscode Statements

Each Monday, project users receive a "Project Statement Miscodes" report that identifies the previous week's transactions that were processed with an invalid or missing project number. The user should identify the correct project number for the transactions and enter the corrections in the project data-entry system. The miscode statement groups transactions into three categories (allocations, receipts and expenditures) to facilitate data entry. Allocations, receipts, and expenditures may also be moved from one project to another via the use of project adjustment forms. For electronic versions of the Project Allocation Adjustment, Project Expenditure Adjustment or Project Receipt Adjustment forms, click HERE.

Correcting miscodes and moving transactions between projects

Project users may process corrections via ADIN's Data Entry system as follows:

Enter BH for FUNC and the selected transaction type. This can also help find a batch number if you did not write it down.

Separate transactions by batch type and calculate batch totals:

PEC (Project Expenditure Correction) - All transactions which affect your account's expenditures.

PRC (Project Receipt Correction) - All transactions which affect your account's receipts.

PAC (Project Allocation Correction) - All transactions which affect your account's allocations.

Miscode Statement transactions are separated by batch type with respective totals.

When calculating batch totals, negative transaction amounts will decrease your batch total.

From the ADIN System Selection Menu, select DE (Data Entry). Enter.

Start Batch:

Enter SB for FUNC and the appropriate batch type (PEC, PRC, PAC). Press Enter.

The computer will prompt you for the batch total (calculated in 1). Type in amount. Enter.

The computer will display a 6-digit batch number. Be sure to record this number; you may need it for reference.

Begin Data Entry:

Enter AMOUNT, DESCRIPTION, FND-ACCT, "TO" SC-PROJ, "FR" SC-PROJ, CLASS (no offsets), REF #, P.O. NUMBER (if applicable) and SOC SEC NO (if applicable).

Use the tab key to move between fields if needed.

Do not override the date in the DOC-DATE field.

If entering a negative amount, place the minus sign ( - ) in front of the number.

When you have finished entering your transactions, please check to see if your accumulated total equals your batch total. If not, review your batch total calculation and detail entries for errors (BD). Use DU with sequence number of the wrong amount or HU if header total is incorrect (see 5) to make corrections.

Other Data Entry Functions:

BD (Browse Detail): To browse detail for entered batches. Enter BD for FUNC, the appropriate batch type (PEC, PRC,PAC) for TRAN and batch number (recorded in 2b) for BATCH #. You will be able to view batches which have been entered but not posted. Once the batch has been posted, you cannot view the batch detail or make changes.

BH (Browse Header): To browse header data of selected transaction types for the current account period.

DU (Detail Update): To update a data entry record for a selected batch and item. Enter DU for FUNC, the appropriate transaction type for TRAN, the batch number and the sequence number of the item. You will be able to update any of the data you have previously entered.

HU (Header Update): To update header data of a selected batch. Enter HU for FUNC, the appropriate batch type for TRAN and the batch number. You will be able to update the amount you entered for the batch total.

RB (Restart Batch): To restart a batch for continued data entry. Enter RB for FUNC, the appropriate transaction type and the batch number.

Project Statements

Project statements are essentially identical to departmental statements with the exception that they will also show project adjustments (movement of transactions from one project to another within a fund-account). Project adjustments are prefaced with PAC, PRC, or PEC indicating internal project allocation, receipt or expenditure adjustments. There are two project statement print options available to the user. They are:

A = Print a monthly project statement when transaction have posted in the accounting system during the month.

N = Never print a project statement.

In addition to monthly project statements, a monthly project summary entitled Fund Account Summary Report - Project Statement System is sent to project departments. This report summarizes for each account all project numbers, titles, receipt totals, allocation totals, expenditure totals, encumbrance totals, and month-end project balances. The monthly project statements and summary reports are sent to the project department's address.

Salary Breakdown for Projects

The Payroll system is not capable of processing salaries at the project level. Therefore, the Salary Breakdown for Projects form was created to facilitate the automatic distribution of salaried personnel payroll to projects within a fund account. You must enter the project number(s) via the Section Project Breakdown function within the Payroll Commitments System to allow Payroll to distribute salaries to specific projects within a fund account.

All salaries charged to a fund-account on the project system must be identified with a project number. The user may charge a salary to up to six projects within a fund-account. In order for the project breakdown to be effective for the current month, the data must be entered into the system by the following deadlines for the current fiscal year:

The Payroll System will continue to recognize the most current section project breakdown entered. This saves effort for the many users whose project salary distribution changes little from month to month.

The following steps should lead you through the procedure to add, delete, and change projects for salaried personnel.

From the ADIN System Selection Menu, enter PC (Payroll Commitments).
Enter PR (Section Project Breakdown) after FUNC. Enter the Social Security number of the salaried employee after SSNO and the Fund Account the employee is being paid from after FUND ACCT. Press Enter on the keyboard. The system will display the employee's name, title and the date the record was last changed The cursor will locate directly below SECTION PROJECT.
Type in the first section project (six digit) number to which the employee's salary should be charged. Type in the percentage of the salary to be charged to the respective section project. To enter more than one project/percentage, tab to the next line and continue typing in any remaining projects that the salary should be charged. Up to six projects may be identified for each fund account. The total of the percentages charged to the projects for the fund account must equal 100 percent.
To delete the salaried employee from projects within a fund account, tab down to the delete section of the screen. Enter a D after the DELETE. Press "ENTER" on your keyboard.

Who to Contact

The FAR staff is available to answer any questions you may have and to assist you in reconciling your project records and processing your transactions. For assistance in the Project Accounting System, please refer to the following chart to determine your FAR contact person. If your contact person is unavailable, feel free to contact any other FAR staff person for immediate assistance.