Accounting at York
Information about accounting at the University, including some basic accounting principles (account codes and work orders), top tips and supporting resources.
Information about the University's investments and annual accounts are publically available.
The Accounting Basics
- We use Agresso (Unit4) as our primary accounting system. Supporting resources:
- The University financial year is 1 August-31 July.
- It is split into calendar months and after each month end, we aim to issue reports to budget holders on about 7th working day after month end.
- The monthly accounting timetable shows Agresso close dates, financial Report dates and committee meeting dates.
- Every transaction in Agresso has an account code and a work order. These are explained further below.
Account codes
Account codes are 4 digits (eg 1234) and are used to identify what you are spending money on, for example, computers. The main groups of account codes are:
| Account Code | Activity |
|---|---|
| 1000-1999 | Staff costs |
| 2000-2999 | Non staff costs/other operating expenditure |
| 4000-4999 | Income |
| 3000-3999 and 5000-5999 | Overheads |
| 9000-9999 | Balance sheet |
| 9805 | Budget transfers |
Work orders
Work orders (8 characters) are linked to activities, projects, departments and cost centres that incur University expenditure or income. Work orders are a key building block of the Agresso coding.
Contact us
Group Financial Accounts
finance-accounts@york.ac.uk
Group Financial Accounts, Heslington Hall
York has many departments, and research is a big part of University life. However, the University also:
- organises studentships (both centrally and departmentally)
- maintains buildings
- arranges workshops
- invests in the estates development
- collaborates with other international organisations
- is given funding for specific projects from councils, government departments, private companies and other universities
These activities all have their own income and expenditure.
Every department and cost centre within the University has to record these activities against a project code. Each project code has a budget and, depending on the source of funding, it may have several aspects to the award, fund or grant within the project. This then filters down to become work order(s).
Raising a new project code or work order
Guidance about raising project codes:
After reviewing the Project Code Type Guide you will need to contact your department’s Finance Business Partner if you want a new project or work order.
- Requesting new project codes - please submit a completed Project Code Form (non-research code request)
- Requesting new work orders - please submit a completed Work Order Form
Top tips when requesting new projects and work orders
- Complete the form in full
- Project managers must be Agresso users
- Start dates and end dates affect the posting of transactions - work orders are only active between start and end dates
How to correct spend or income that is wrongly coded
Journals are used to correct coding errors and input accruals and prepayments. Journals can be entered manually or from a spreadsheet (templates below). Please contact your departmental business partner to post correcting Journals.
Journal input - this is normally done by departmental business partners who should complete the BIF training course and who should use these templates:
, 39kb)Accruals and Prepayments
The University follows the normal UK accounting conventions for accruals and prepayments:
- Prepayments - Purchase Invoices are recorded on Agresso now, but goods/services are to be supplied at a later date
- Accruals - Purchase Invoices to be recorded on Agresso in the future but goods/services are supplied now. Accruals are only done where the goods or services have been delivered, ie they are not done if you have only raised a purchase order and have not received the goods/service.
Contact us
Group Financial Accounts
finance-accounts@york.ac.uk
Group Financial Accounts, Heslington Hall