Introducing a New Chart

of Accounts to your

Enterprise

Session #31599

March 18, 2013

4:30 – 5:30

Mark R. McCabe

Finance Manager, Indianapolis Department of

Public Works

Served as Finance Lead on City of

Indianapolis/Marion County ERP Project from

June 2010 to November 2012

As consultant worked on State of Indiana

PeopleSoft implementation in 2007/2008

City of Indianapolis/Marion County initiated

ERP Project in 2009

Selected PeopleSoft 9.1

Project initiated June, 2010

Necessarily required introducing a new Chart

of Accounts (COA) to the enterprise

Enterprise Background

Project Highlights

Chart of Accounts Background, Issues

Detail Chartfields

Lessons Learned/Recommendations

Municipal Corporation

Mayor is the Executive

Public Safety

Public Works

Metropolitan Development

Parks and Recreation

Executive/Legislative

18 Independent Agencies

Elected offices include Auditor, Sheriff,

Treasurer, Prosecutor, Public Defender,

Assessor, Clerk, Recorder, Surveyor, Coroner

Combined City/County effort, shared project

between Information Services Agency, City

Controller Office and County Auditor Office

RFP Initiated: Mid 2009

Project Initiated: June, 2010

Original Go-Live Target: July 2011

Actual Go-Live: January 2012

Phase I: (Jan 2012)

General Ledger

Purchasing

Accounts Payable

Budgeting

HR

Payroll

Time and Labor

Phase II: (in progress)

Project Costing

Grants Module

Asset Management

AR/Billing

Cash/Treasury Mgmt

Mainframe system COA was similar structure

However, City and County used COA differently

County Agencies did not enter their own

transactions to system

Mainframe system used an “index

code” that aggregated multiple other

chartfields into one

Index Code was effectively another chartfield that

we had to introduce to the mapping tables. We

had previously assumed that the code was the

“sum of its parts” as the original design intended.

Field Required? Definition / Description

Fund Yes Classification of revenues or expenditures based on source,

purpose, or activity associated with the funds.

Department Yes Classification of Agency structure.

Account Yes Account represents “what” you are buying in a transaction, or

for revenue, what type of revenue is being recorded.

Program Yes Function of government for Comprehensive Annual Financial

Report (CAFR). Can be defined at a lower level for programs.

Project /

Activity

No To record transaction associated with Grants or Projects.

Site No Geographic location associated with a transaction.

Business Unit Yes Business Unit identifies the organizational entity in a

transaction (distinct from Department code). Note that BU

differs between General Ledger and Accounts

Payable/Purchasing transactions.

Bud Ref Yes The year with which the transaction funds are associated. Bud

Ref will almost always be the current calendar year.

COA Project Team should have a balance of:

System programming/development knowledge

Accounting knowledge/expertise

Institutional financial operations/management knowledge, experience

Authority to make decisions and enforce them

COA Project Team should learn the structure of the new system (as best you can) before you start the chartfield translation process

Understand (as best you can) how budgetary control works relative to COA structure

How does security/access to data work relative to COA structure?

Adhere to the structure of your new system in your COA design.

Avoid customization outside the recommended structure as much as possible

Recognize the critical relationship between the COA and reporting

Gathering reports and desired reports early in the project should assist in COA design

Is Payroll part of your ERP project?

If so, and Payroll operations is under HR (not Finance), be sure that your finance team is part of the HR/Payroll setup

Will your users be able to understand the new COA structure and use it correctly?

Your ability to get good information from your system is contingent on your data entry staff / requisition writers / voucher writers.

Do they know the codes they are suppose to enter?

What if they (or, will they be able to) enter “any code that works?”

Be sure your project staff fully understand the new structure in order to provide support and training to users

Terminology is important; create a list of terms early in your project and keep it up to date

What Excel sheets, interfacing systems, external systems, etc. have your old COA codes?

What processes will “break” if the new codes are not updated in an external system?

Mark McCabe

Finance Manager,

Department of Public Works

City of Indianapolis

mark.mccabe@indy.gov

This presentation and all

Alliance 2013 presentations

are available for download

from the Conference site at

www. alliance-conference.com

Presentations from previous meetings are also available