Benefits

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is a Chart of Accounts (CoA)?
  The Chart of Accounts, or CoA, is the basic structure used to record the financial effects of transactions in Oracle Cloud (Financial Transformation).
• Will Stony Brook Medicine be using the new CoA?

  No. Stony Brook Medicine will remain in Lawson for the Hospital's accounting/ERP system, so the CoA will remain the same as in the current state for operational purposes.

• How will we arrive at the CoA structure?

  The CoA structure will be developed through a review of the current requirements and structure, a review of leading practices in industry and with Oracle, and a strong collaboration with various stakeholder groups who will have insight and be impacted by changes.

• What are the key objectives of the CoA work?
  • • Create a systematic integration of all financial data
    • Provide a framework for monthly financial reports
    • Provide full GAAP financial statements
    • Encompass and involve all related entities and stakeholders
    • Provide a shared chart of accounts structure so campus users can continue to see all fund reporting
    • Translate the “new” chart of accounts into the SUNY specific reporting format
    • Provide upload capabilities to SUNY
• How will the new Stony Brook University CoA compare to the current PeopleSoft chart?

  The new CoA structure was developed through a review of the current requirements and structure, a review of leading practices in the industry and with Oracle, and a strong collaboration with various stakeholder groups who provided insights and expertise. 
  
  The new Chart structure is comprised of 9 segments (one of which is not currently in use and allows for future growth) and 15 attributes, compared to 8 segments and 59 attributes in PeopleSoft in the current state.
  
  The new structure is more flexible, utilizes each segment for a unique and well defined purpose, and gives us the ability to leverage hierarchies to the fullest extent.
  
  The new CoA segments can be combined to create queries, and facilitate the external financial reporting that is one of our goals for this project, in terms of auditable financial statements, and accrued financial statements.

• Who is affected by the CoA change?

  Anyone who enters or manages transactions across a number of systems that will integrate with WolfieONE (Oracle Fusion Cloud) will be impacted to some degree, as well as anyone who uses reporting tools (financial, budgeting, or HR reports).

• Is there a feature in WolfieONE that helps to eliminate duplicate CoA entries?

  Yes. We will be building certain controls/rules in the system to avoid duplicate entries as those could result in errors.

• Will there be multiple "future" segments (i.e. future-1, future-2) in the new chart?

  We have explored the idea of one vs. two future fields, but we do not believe there are enough use cases to warrant more than one at this point. Also, our implementation partner Deloitte has provided insight to Stony Brook that most institutions of our size have never used the future segment or have found that one was sufficient.

• Will the new chart allow for 'correction' in naming parent accounts? In our current chart, when a school changes name, the parent account name cannot be updated because of the structure dependency.

  We plan to clean up our existing chart prior to going live. In the new chart, we will look to name accounts to be more aligned with our schools. 

  The new chart will cleanup any PeopleSoft description issues, by aligning them with current naming. If the SUNY Account descriptions remain an issue, we plan to discuss this with SUNY to determine if they will allow for description changes. 

  One important item to note is that we will have the capability to change a description in Oracle, however if an item is moved to some other node in the hierarchy, the value (typically the numeric value) will not change so that it retains history.

• Will we be eliminating 'effective dates', and if so, how will this impact things done retroactively?

  The inherent Oracle platform (cloud system) that Stony Brook is implementing is tracking those effective dates around the CoA comparable to the effective dates in our current chart of accounts already.

  If we are interested in the effective dates of when value can start being used, Oracle takes care of that inherently within the system. For transactions posted, the budget year segment will come into play if carryover funds are utilized, as part of the process in determing when those funds are used. 

• Where does the concept of APT (Award, Project, Task) appear in the new chart?

  This will be a funding source (this pertains to PATEO codes for grant-funded activity and we will crosswalk those to the new funding source segment).

• Will the new chart have user defined fields that can be pulled into a report which doesn't necessarly need to be in the CoA?

  We are currently holding design sessions, and topics like this are being discussed, along with items such as how journal entries are made, how boundary systems might feed in information, and so on. In these sessions, our functional leads are determining what should be know as descriptive flex fields, which primarily allow users to tag transactions and tag information beyond even what the CoA provides.

• Are there accounts we can sync with the State's CoA to make uploading easier (i.e. the payroll area)?

  The combination of fund type, fund source and organization would create that syncing with the State from the CoA standpoint. We can also consider making that State account a fund source, whichever is easiest for our users, but that connection will be established.

• Will there be changes to external systems to facilitate reconciling SBU's systems with these other systems? For example, with the exception of FSA and SBF, our systems are not the system of record. State HR and payroll are the system of record.

  It's important to note that today, Stony Brook does not create our own set of financial statements. We rely on consolidated financial statements from SUNY. One of our project goals is to begin using our own system, and make WolfieONE the system of record to the greatest extent possible. 

  In the example given, payroll is a challenge, as we do not process our own payroll. However, we are exploring all avenues for our future state, and how we might be able to create our own data sets. Doing so would free us from having to rely on 'after-the-fact' reports, SUNY BI connections, or delays that we currently experience.

  WolfieONE will become the system of record for RF and State employee data. Other employee populations may have access to WolfieONE, but will continue to use their boundary systems for some processes, and as such, should leverage certain reports from those systems, or the future state data warehouse (FDI), which is also a part of WolfieONE, rather than from the General Ledger (ERP) or HCM. Training will be provided closer to go-live on the data source for specific types of financial, HR and budget transactions.

• Will we need account type as a segment in the new CoA, similar to fund type?

  No. In the new chart, we will be utilizing a heirarchy where assets and liabilities will roll up into a summary heirarchy. 
  
  This is different from fund type in that oftentimes users will have a single source of funds that could have both a restricted and unrestricted portion (they conflict with one another, if you're attempting to put them into one segment with one value). By having two separate segments, users will be able to simply have restricted or unrestricted as the fund type and designate one source as the fund source for the account. This predicament will be eliminated. 

• Will RF award numbers will be replaced? Is Report Center going away? Will SBF account numbers go away, too?

  The RF numbers and Report Center are not going away. SBF will be on Oracle. Processes, mapping, and build out may cause some of those account numbers to experience change as we work through the Chart of Accounts, but the RF components will not be changing.