Overview

Cost Center

A cost center is an account in PeopleSoft that is set up in Finance by the UHD Budget Office.  A cost center houses financial activity and balances for budgets, revenues, expenditures, assets, liabilities and fund equity.

A cost center is composed of four chartfield values: Fund, Department, Program and Project.

Chartfield Value	Example Value
Fund	1041
Department	D0041
Program	F0970
Project	NA

 

Fund

The fund code is a chartfield values that represents the source of the money used to fund a cost center. Fund codes also come with specific rules on how the money can be used.

Department

The department code is a chartfield value that represents the university unit, or department. Department codes are organized into the university’s department tree structure that displays how departments roll up into larger groups like colleges and divisions.

UHD department codes begin with “D” to represent ‘Downtown’, followed by four numeric characters.

Program

The program code is a chartfield value that represents the title of non-ledger 5 or non-ledger 7 cost center. The first character is always a letter, which represents the expense classification as categorized by the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO). The letter character value is the main purpose of a cost center’s expenses (NACUBO function). The letter of the program code is followed by four numeric characters unique to each campus.

Project

The project ID is a chartfield value that represents the title of a ledger 5 (grant) or ledger 7 (project) cost center.  Non-grant and non-project cost centers have a project ID of “NA” to show they are not tied to a specific project and instead operate on a fiscal year basis. Project IDs are used to track and group related activities, for example, linking multiple funding sources for one project or identifying separate research awards. This helps organize and manage project-based work more clearly.