AGA Today
Federal Accounting Corner
The New SGL Account Format
The Financial Systems Integration
Office (FSIO) has finalized its Common Governmentwide Accounting
Classification (CGAC) structure. FSIO believes that a coding structure
that is common to all federal agencies will allow for better integration
of systems, easier reconciliation and greater efficiency overall. The
U.S. Standard General Ledger (USSGL) account is one of the fields
addressed by CGAC.
Current Definition
When the USSGL was first introduced in
1986, it consisted of four digits. That format has been retained over
the decades, though there was talk of integrating a vendor type or
transaction partner code into the USSGL Account code. The first digit
indicates the type of account: 1 is for assets, 2 liabilities, 3 net
position (sometimes called equity), 4 budgetary, 5 financing sources
(revenue), 6 expenses, 7 gains and losses (and extraordinary items), 8
memorandum. Accounts beginning with 9 (and between 4520 and 4580) are
reserved for agency use, and are not to be reported to Treasury. No
accounts use alphabetic characters or begin with a zero.
New Definition
The new definition is only slightly
different from the old. The largest changes are that Treasury can now
use six digits (although they haven't yet used more than four), and the
agency can tack on an additional two. Agencies that want to comply with
the new format will need to adjust their account nomenclature as
follows:
|
Old |
New |
Comments |
|
6100 |
61000000 |
Even though Treasury has not
defined any six-digit codes and an agency may have no need to
use their two digits, they must zero fill the full eight digits.
The new Account Code is numeric, not alphanumeric. The new zeros
go at the end because no account may begin with zero. |
|
1021 |
10100021 |
Agencies may no longer use
their own four-digit code. The first four digits must be the
current USSGL Account number, the next two must be zeros until
Treasury defines them, and only the last two digits are
available for agency use. |
|
1310.12 |
13100012 |
No decimal points are allowed
in the new structure. The agency may choose to print the account
on reports as 131000.12 or 1310-0012 for ease of reading, but
they should be stored as eight digits with no punctuation to
facilitate interfaces. |
|
425A
|
42510001 |
Alphabetic characters are also
prohibited. With 100 values available for agency use for each
USSGL account, there should be no need to use alphabetic
characters. If an agency needs more than 100 values, then they
should look at using other CGAC fields to capture the
information. |
|
2120E |
21200030 |
|
acct 4610
sub 33 |
46100033 |
Subaccounts cannot be a
separate field. They must either be included with the new
general ledger account field, or subaccount must be mapped to
another standard code. |
Conclusion
Agencies should plan now for converting
their general ledger account structure to the new format, even if the
actual conversion may be a few years away. Agencies looking to upgrade
or purchase a new financial system should include the new general ledger
account format in their plans. Agencies that have already defined their
own general ledger accounts or subaccounts are encouraged to look
through the CGAC structure and determine if there is already a field
that captures the information currently in their general ledger account.
FSIO prefers that agencies remap their account to multiple, special-use
fields than continue to mix the information together in one
multi-purpose field. Agencies are free to reformat their reports to
combine data from multiple fields. — Simcha Kuritzky, CGFM, CPA
This column is provided as part of a
free exchange of ideas in federal accounting, and is not reviewed
substantively before publication. Please send all comments, queries or
corrections to
Simcha.Kuritzky@CGIFederal.com.