Guideline on Departmental Chart of Accounts Line Object Codes
The purpose of this guideline is to support the objectives of the Policy on the Stewardship of Financial Management Systems, the Directive on the Recording of Financial Transactions in the Accounts of Canada and specifically the Standard on Recording Financial Transactions in the Departmental Chart of Accounts by providing recommendations that will assist chief financial officers in fulfilling the requirements of the Standard on Recording Financial Transactions in the Departmental Chart of Accounts, and thereby increase the consistency of financial information government-wide.
Date modified: 2012-04-26
Hierarchy
Long description for image: Figure 1: Relationship between departmental chart of accounts elements and government-wide chart of accounts classifications
The figure reflects the elements of a departmental chart of accounts, in relation to the classification structures of the government-wide chart of accounts. The departmental chart of accounts includes six elements: Responsibility / Organization, Financial Reporting Account, Authority, Program Activity, Line Objects, and Internal / External. Each of these elements corresponds to an equivalent government-wide classification, and together the elements form a financial coding block used for recording financial transactions in a departmental chart of accounts.
At the Departmental level (departmental chart of accounts):
- Responsibility / Organization identifies the organizational unit, for which a position has delegated authority that is responsible and accountable for the financial transaction. It aggregates to the government-wide responsibility classification.
- Financial Reporting Account enables the classification of financial transactions into accounting categories as the basis for departmental financial statements. It must correlate to the line object element, and aggregates to the government-wide financial reporting classification.
- Authority identifies the authority (vote, statute, or other legislative authority) under which the financial transaction is authorized. It aggregates to the government-wide authority classification.
- Program identifies the program within the department's program alignment architecture to which the financial transaction is associated. It aggregates to the government-wide program classification.
- Line Object provides information about the type of goods or services acquired, the transfer payments made, the source of receipts or the cause of increases and decreases in assets and liabilities. It aggregates to the government-wide object classification.
- Internal / External identifies whether the transaction is internal or external to the GC. It aggregates to the government-wide transaction type classification.