Accounting Terminology

Personnel Area

A value that represents an organizational entity or location within Duke for HR and Payroll purposes, such as 1000 for Duke University, 1100 for the School of Medicine, 2000 for Duke Hospital, etc.

Plant

A Plant is an organizational unit within Duke where either materials are purchased or goods and services are provided. A key attribute in MM and AM modules, a four-digit Plant code corresponds to a Company Code (0010, 0020, 0030, etc.).

Some Plants include:

Posting Date

The Posting Date determines the posting period and defines in which fiscal period a document will post (regardless of the Document or Entry date). The periods that are permitted for posting are determined by Accounting Services. This is the date that G/L Account Balances are updated. The Posting Date will override the Fiscal Period entered on a document if they are different.

Note: It is possible that an invoice was issued with a Document Date of 6/15/98, entered into SAP on 7/15/98 (Entry Date) with a Posting Date of 6/30/98 (to post the Document in the previous fiscal year). Many times, all three of these dates are the same.

Posting Key

A two-digit numeric key that controls the entry of document line items. The key specifies the following for example: account type, debit or credit posting, or layout of entry screens.

The most common examples are:

40 = Debit
50 = Credit

Posting Period

The posting period is a period of time within a fiscal year during which transactions can be posted and transaction figures can be updated. Duke's posting periods are based on the Fiscal month periods per the Fiscal Calendar distributed by the Financial Services division.

Project

A Project outlines all the pieces or steps of a project, including the Project Definition and the WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) in both a graphic and spreadsheet type format. At Duke, a Project is defined as any "fund code" with a beginning and ending date. Therefore, all fund codes beginning with 3xx and 7xx are managed as Projects in the PS module. These include the restricted funds, clinical trials (Duke Clinical Research Institute - DCRI), construction funds, and capital acquisitions (mainly for the Health system Company Codes 0020-0060).

Project Costs

All allowable costs, as set forth in the applicable sponsors cost principles, incurred by a recipient and the value of the contributions made by third parties in accomplishing the objectives of the award during the project period.

Project Definition

The framework laid down for all of the objects created within a project. The Project Definition contains dates and other organizational information that is binding for the entire project.

Purchasing Group

A Purchasing Group is a grouping of departments or areas that purchase in SAP used for assigning Purchase Requisition approval rules. The Purchasing Group field is a required field on a Purchase Requisition and is assigned to each authorized SAP user that is part of that Purchasing Group. For example, several users from the same department or area may use the same Purchasing Group.