General Finance
Wabash College’s Chart of Accounts Coding System
A Chart of Accounts (CoA) is a list of all the financial accounts that Wabash uses to record transactions. This structure helps the institution track financial performance, comply with regulations, and make informed decisions.
When completing requests to spend, these numbers are needed to ensure the expense posts to the correct account. Budget Managers and their designees are responsible for approving the accounts for their respective areas and departments. If you do not know what accounts to use, please contact your Budget Managers (or their designees).
| Fund | Department | Object | Course |
|---|---|---|---|
| XX | XXXXX | XXXX | XX |
| 11 | 01110 | 5320 | 00 |
Fund – is an accounting entity that separates transactions based on required sources or uses of the funds. Each fund is a complete, self-balancing set of accounts containing assets, liabilities, fund balance, revenues, and expenses. Funds most used by departments include:
- 11-Unrestricted
- 12-Gifts and Grants
- 13-Endowed Gift Distribution
- 15-Auxiliary
- 18-Institute of Public Policy
Department – is an organizational unit of the college. This can be a division, department, or subunit within a department. The Biology department is 01110.
Object – designates and describes the transaction. If it begins with a 5, it is an expense. If it begins with a 4, it is a revenue. 5320 is Office Supplies.
Course –refers to a project or sub account. This field designates a grant or any other departmental special reporting need for cost monitoring. For example, a course # could be assigned to a faculty member to easily filter to that faculty’s transactions. Departments are responsible for designating which course number to use for their projects. 00 is the default and typically means transaction is NOT for a special project or grant. (Data Entry Note: Ellucian Colleague’s field is labeled “course” while J.P. Morgan’s Chase Smart-Data’s field is labeled “project” for this two-character field.)
To request a new account number, please email accountspayable@wabash.edu. Typically, the setup of new accounts takes two business days to propagate to all systems.