Effective July 1, 2023, all UC locations are expected to report financial data in the format of the new Common Chart of Accounts.

On July 1, 2020, the UC Office of the President implemented the Common Chart of Accounts as outlined in the University of California Common Chart of Accounts Final Report (March 2014), marking the beginning of systemwide implementation. All UC locations are required to report financial transactions to UCOP in the new Chart of Accounts format beginning July 1, 2023, and UC Davis will fully implement the new CoA on January 1, 2024, concurrent with the launch of the Aggie Enterprise system.

During the interim period from July 1, 2023, thru December 31, 2023, units will continue transacting in KFS with the existing FAU. To meet reporting requirements, the central offices will translate KFS FAU data to the new CoA. On January 1, 2024, KFS users will transition to the Aggie Enterprise system, and begin transacting with CoA values.

Project Goals and Objectives

The Chart of Accounts creates a common language for all financial transactions, which will lay the foundation for a new financial system, supported by Oracle Cloud Financials. With both the systemwide and campus needs in mind, the project team will strive to meet the following goals:

• Provide a consistent and standardized CoA, promoting financial accountability, transparency and collaborative financial management.
• Enable the UC Davis finance community to shift productivity from gathering data to analyzing data, shifting from reporting what is happening to why it is happening and ensuring financial activity is aligned with the university’s goals and strategic objectives.
• Ensure all financial transactions conform to legal requirements and administrative policies and are recorded in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) for colleges and universities. Compliance includes all university policies, external laws and regulations, funding source restrictions, and terms and conditions of agreements.
• Facilitate efficient reporting, including the production of GAAP-compliant financial statements for the university at the highest level and provide balanced trial balances for designated, underlying entities such as the UC Davis Foundation and ANR.
• Provide a structured foundation with robust analytics, reducing expensive and extensive data manipulation and reconciliation efforts.
• Define and provide a consistent use of chart segments with flexibility to address departments’ unique needs and improve capacity for tracking projects and fiscal activities.
• Develop a chart of accounts scaled to meet future campus strategic initiatives and growth.

The CoA project team will seek to accomplish these goals with the following objectives:

1. Engage department stakeholders in Discovery Sessions to gain an understanding of how the current financial system is used to support departmental operations.
2. Develop requirements for the CoA based on UC Office of the President requirements and departmental operations. In the event that the CoA is not suited to support operations and certain activities, alternative tools and functionality will be recommended (e.g., use of sub-ledgers, use of projects modules, change in current business processes).
3. Following industry best practices and lessons learned from other UC locations, design the CoA structure to meet the requirements of UC Office of the President and incorporate the flexibility to meet the needs of UC Davis stakeholders.
4. Validate Proof of Concept statements to ensure the CoA structure aligns with the needs of UC Davis.
5. Establish definitions and use cases for all CoA segments and develop a roadmap for implementing the new CoA.
6. Streamline and clean up accounts. Establish a systematic and transparent approach to developing a process for centrally maintaining the CoA.
7. Assist in mapping of legacy accounts to the new CoA and participate in the conversion validation of both account numbers and their respective balances when rolling forward into the new financial system.