OLE Consolidation, Level, and Object Codes Lehigh University - 7/23/2014 (Original Presentation)...

By Daniel L. Huang - Lehigh University

OLE Consolidation, Level, and Object Codes

Lehigh University - 7/23/2014 (Original Presentation)

Lehigh University – 11/4/2014(Post-Implementation Update)


Library Chart of AccountsFund Code Subaccount #

ACT 213100-507

ART 213100-5040

AV 213100-504

CEM 213100-5040

EBK 213100-705040

HUM 213100-705040

PHY 213100-5040

What do our accounts payable staff and what do our librarians need to know about how we are spending money within our chart of accounts?


What does Accounts Payable need?

• To know which receipts and invoices were billed against a university subaccount (“University Account Number” in OLE)

• All spending must be submitted and accounted for

• For the purposes of Accounts Payable, they have no necessity for the granularity of knowing the fund codes or internal OLE Purchase Order information


What do our librarians need?

• However, librarians need far more granularity in the spending data for effective decision making.

• For example: How many electronic vs. print items did I purchase? And in what dollar amounts?

• Under what method of purchasing did I acquire these items? Approvals? Firm orders? Slips?

• In short, we need more details to identify the trends, while still fulfilling our obligations to Accounts Payable


What do Consolidation, Level, and Object Codes do in OLE?

• Consolidation, Level, and Object Codes allow us to add descriptive meaning to our accounts in OLE and group them together meaningfully

• These codes exist independently of the university account structure. The codes are descriptive, they do not change the structure of the accounts.


How would this work?

• To avoid confusion let us use a non library example

• For example, an organization might have an office supplies budget as part of their total operations budget

• Total Operations Budget: $20,000Purchases = $10000 (Acct# 3000)Other = $1000 (Acct#5000)Office Supplies Budget = $9,000 (Acct# 4000)


What details are important?

• In our hypothetical example, the supervisor needs to know what the funds are spent on between all the offices and breakdown the spending so each spending type is assigned a descriptive tag

• Office Supplies Budget = $9,000 (Acct# 4000)Pens (PENS): $3,000Staplers (STAPLE): $3,000Office Paper (PAPER): $3,000


The Accounts• The Accounts Payable office accepts invoices for each office based on their

subaccount. The tags don’t affect how invoices are processed since the AP office only sees the invoices and subaccount number

Office 1: $2,000 (Account# 4000-01)Staplers (Code STAPLE)Pens (Code PENS)Paper (Code PAPER)




• So from top to bottom, the organization’s funding looks like this. Each office that is spending money receives their own account (a subaccount of the original main budget for office supplies).


How would this organization create reports on what they spent?

• The total money spent by the organization on operations is CONSOLIDATED by the main budget line for Operations ($20,000).

• That office supplies budget ($9,000) is divided between various purposes on the LEVEL below the CONSOLIDATION level. This differentiates the purchases for office supplies from everything else.

• Below that, there is additional specificity regarding which subaccount was used (which office spent the money).

• However, our office (purely for statistics, not accounting purposes) also wants to know what was the breakdown of what was spent by each office, so the OBJECT (Staplers, Paper, Pens) that money was spent on is important to our boss.


Assume: All billing occurs at the subaccount level, which feed into the main account. The tags (Object Codes) are not actually a place where billing occurs. They are purely for statistical purposes internally. All billing occurs against the subaccount number. Regardless of which office spent the money on office supplies or what office supplies were ordered, each of the three offices spends money against their #4000-X subaccount. Office 1: $2,000 (Account# 4000-01)

Staplers (Code STAPLE)Pens (Code PENS)Paper (Code PAPER)


Office 3: $3,000 (Account# 4000-03)

Staplers (Code STAPLE)Pens (Code PENS)Paper (Code PAPER)


The beauty of this is that you can also set budgets for each subaccount by assigning an object code to the funds in each account. Again, the AP office doesn’t see this since it is all internal. Office 1: $2,000 (Account# 4000-01)

Staplers (Code STAPLE) $500Pens (Code PENS) $1750Paper (Code PAPER) $250

Office 2: $4,000 (Account# 4000-02)Staplers (Code STAPLE) $1900Pens (Code PENS) $50Paper (Code PAPER) $50

Office 3: $3,000 (Account# 4000-03)

Staplers (Code STAPLE) $200Pens (Code PENS) $800Paper (Code PAPER) $1000


• When running a report, the boss can query on each level of this organization. • How much did we spend on pens overall?

“I’ll query the OBJECT code PENS so that I know how much was spent on writing implements.”

• How much did Office #2 spend total?

“Oh, I can query on the Office #2 account.” • How much was budgeted for operations overall?

“Aha, I can just look at the code that CONSOLIDATES all the spending for operations.”

• How much was spent on office supplies?“I’ll query the level code for office supplies.”

The codes let an organization set up budgets and organize their spending!

Why is this helpful?


What might this look like for OLE?

• The same structure happens as it does with office supplies, but let us replace the values with library terminology.

• None of this is DEFINITIVE. We can customize these to suit our needs in any meaningful way before we implement.


EBKS = “eBooks” PRBK = “Print Books”

APEB = “Approval eBooks” FIEB = “Firm eBooks”FIPB = “Firm Print” APPB = “Approval Print”


Why does this help our statistics?• Let us assume that under LTS subaccount 213100-5040 (ART, CEM, CUR) we budget $3,000

for the purchase of books as part of the larger $100,000 book budget. Instead of “People” doing the purchasing we are dividing the purchasing between library fund codes (ART, CEM, CUR).

• What would this look like? Just as in the office supplies budget…

• … There is an upper level CONSOLIDATION code that tracks (but remember, all billing occurs at the subaccount level) all of the spending under BOOKS.

• For purposes of tracking what was spent on BOOKS, there is a LEVEL code underneath it

that divides up the total book spending in a meaningful way. For example, between eBooks and Print books. Remember, tracking the STATISTICS of what we spent is separate from the actual billing on the subaccount level.

• The Object Codes under each Level Code further helps us describe what we purchased in a way that is meaningful to library statistics.


EBKS = “eBooks” PRBK = “Print Books”

APEB = “Approval eBooks” FIEB = “Firm eBooks”FIPB = “Firm Print” APPB = “Approval Print”


Questions Librarians Ask• Remember the supervisor asking questions about the breakdown of what office supplies were

purchased and by which department? Let us apply that to the library example.

• How much did we spend on Firm Print Books? “I’ll query the OBJECT code FIPB so that I know how much was spent on actual physical books.”

• How much did we spend on eBooks total?

“Oh, I can query on the LEVEL code, EBKS.” • How much was budgeted for BOOKS (both electronic or print) total?

“Aha, I can just look at the CONSOLIDATION code for BOOKS!” • Hmm, can I find out how much was spent by the ART fund on Approval eBooks?

“I’ll run a report based on the ART fund and what was spent under the Object code APEB!” • Do my totals match what was supposed to be spent under 213100-5040?

Well, I can run a report on the relevant object codes for any fund code with the 213100-5040 university account number and I’ll get my answer!”


Why does this help our budgeting?• So assume we have $3,000 under the 213100-5040 subaccount. No matter

how we set up the structure of our Consolidation, Level, and Object codes, we will only be spending $3,000 from 213100-5040.

• The codes are purely for informative purposes for the librarians. The money from 213100-5040 is budgeted INTERNALLY by the librarians amongst the various fund codes under that subaccount.

• The benefit now is that we can assign Object Codes to describe what was spent within each individual fund code. The dollars in each Object Code can be shuffled at will within the library fund code (so you can shift money from APEP in ART to FIPB in ART, for example).

• This is also tracked in OLE and leaves an audit trail and gives us a road map for trends in how our spending changes through the year.


Budgeting using Object Codes• ART (213100-5040) - $1000 Budgeted

APEB (Approval eBooks) $200FIEB (Firm eBooks) $300FIPB (Firm Print Books) $400APPB(Approval Print Books) $100

• CEM (213100-5040) - $1000 BudgetedAPEB (Approval eBooks) $300FIEB (Firm eBooks) $200FIPB (Firm Print Books) $100APPB(Approval Print Books) $400

• CUR (213100-5040) - $1000 BudgetedAPEB (Approval eBooks) $200FIEB (Firm eBooks) $200FIPB (Firm Print Books) $200APPB(Approval Print Books) $400

• Total Spending under 213100-5040 to Report to Accounts Payable = $3000


Future PlanningThis method of setting up the Consolidation, Level, and Object codes are also very EXTENSIBLE. It takes into account that there are the future possibilities of different formats. You can add anything under each of the three levels. For example, there might be a future Book format that requires you to plug your brain into a computer or Commander Spock.


OLE can be customized! Here is a possible way to do it based on WHO is buying, not WHAT is purchased.


Summary• A structure of these codes based on library terminology would not only organize

things, but also become a descriptive means of structuring our purchasing. It is also extensible enough for future plans

• This division of funds in an Account in OLE means that there is a means to report upon what was purchased within these categories INHERENT to the accounting structure of OLE that are descriptive and extensible, instead of relying on a report mechanism to do so. Furthermore this specifically leaves intact any Fund structures and university account numbers, applying OLE's strengths to create meaningful data.

• This is our chance to create a structure of codes that helps us understand our data and budget, without affecting the actual university subaccounts or any of that reporting. We would still send invoices and receipts to the SAME subaccounts we always had before. However, we could INTERNALLY track our data with greater clarity.


Three Months Later…


Okay, so now it’s November…

• How do we feel about this after three months?

• What does it look like now?• How do we feel about this structure?• Why has it helped us?• What problems did it solve?• What issues came up?


Fund Codes Organized by Subject and Book/Cons/Periodicals


Object Codes Defined by Purchase Method and Format


Level Codes Organize Object Codes into Groups by Format


Codes (with a picture!)


Allows for Efficient Reporting• Allows user to run a query such as “in all the book funds, how much did we spend on

approval books?”• Search based on PRAP (Print Approvals) object code and book funds


Data is Export-Ready• Available Balances lookup in OLE allows queries based on object code, thus

all funds are sorted by that parameter• Provides “global” view of expenditures, but can get even more granular• Export as spreadsheet, etc.


Positives! (first)

• We can make a report very easily that answers those global questions with parameters that are meaningful to librarians

• It’s easy to add and take away Object Codes. This method is extensible

• This let us keep our original Account structure with funds organized around subject area


Problems

• We made it far too granular. Had a couple codes we don’t use often, such as “Microfilm”

• Naming conventions could have been more unified or intuitive (PRAP sounds funny don’t it??)

• This let us keep our original Account structure with funds organized around subject area (but not every library does it that way)


Reminders

• Object Codes are unique to each Level Code• Object Codes are sorted by Level Codes, Level

Codes are sorted by Consolidation Codes• There is no limit on the number of

Consolidation, Level, or Object Codes. Or the number of hierarchies (create as many as you want)


Are we sticking with this? YES

• This method allows for us to report on acquisitions with the specific parameters we want

• This method is “future proof” in the sense that the Object Codes are independent of any changes to the Chart of Accounts

• This method is extensible so we can account for any changes in purchase methods or formats!


Thoughts on Consortiums

• Object Codes can be used on any fund/account, even across separate Chart of Accounts (useful for consortiums)

• So why not just let each institution use its own Chart of Accounts and just decide on a unified Object Code structure for global reporting?

• OR each institution can use its own Object Codes, but are similar enough to group “like things” together


Questions?

• Daniel Huang (Acquisitions) • [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

OLE Consolidation, Level, and Object Codes Lehigh University - 7/23/2014 (Original Presentation)...

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