Fund ChartField

Design

Fund is used to segregate and capture specific activities or classify certain objectives in accordance with special regulations, restrictions, or limitations (e.g., restricted Fund). Fund values are five (5) characters in length and are based on values established by the Legislature. Fund is self-balancing, meaning that debit amounts must equal credit amounts to maintain a balanced set of accounts for that Fund. Balancing lines are automatically created by the system in all modules excluding the General Ledger.

Fund can be classified as one of the following types:

• Budgetary Funds – used on budgetary transactions only to store appropriations, releases, and reserves budgets
• Transactional Funds – used to record financial accounting entries or budget entries for allotments

The structure of the Florida PALM Budgetary Fund values begins with the one-character SF followed by the three-character Fund value, as established by the Legislature. Florida PALM adds a zero as the fifth character for consistent value length. Budgetary Fund values are configured for use on budgetary transactions (i.e., General Appropriations Act (GAA)/Adjusted Appropriations (GAA), budget amendments) and reporting to the Legislature and Executive Office of the Governor/Office of Policy and Budget (EOG/OPB).

The structure of the Florida PALM Transactional Fund values begins with the last three characters of the Fund value, as established by the Legislature. Florida PALM incrementally numbers the remaining two characters. The Transactional Fund values can be used to subdivide or segregate Funds to meet agency transactional or reporting needs. The SF value is captured as an Attribute on each Transactional Fund value.

The table shows an example mapping of the Legislative Appropriations System/Planning and Budgeting Subsystem (LAS/PBS) fund and the FLAIR fund to the Florida PALM fund codes:

The following design considerations are applied when defining a Fund in Florida PALM:

• Fund values are standardized statewide.
• Fund values are configured under the statewide TableSet Control.
• Fund values must be uniquely numbered.
• Fund is required on all transactions.
• Attributes are defined when Fund values are established to aid in reporting. 
• The Tree feature is used to create and maintain hierarchical relationships between appropriate Fund values. A listing of configured trees can be accessed via the Tree Viewer functionality in Florida PALM.

For the Fund ChartField, a Tree allows for roll-up reporting at summarized levels and the translation of budget from the Budgetary Fund values to the associated Transactional Fund values. A simplified example of a Fund Reporting Tree is shown in the Table below, which shows the relationship between Budgetary and Transactional Fund levels.

Attributes

A ChartField Attribute provides the ability to record additional characteristics about individual ChartField values for reference or reporting purposes. Only one attribute value can be selected for each Attribute associated with a ChartField value. Attributes are used on statewide ChartFields only and are established and maintained by DFS. The Attributes below may be updated when additional attributes are identified.

Assumptions

The following assumptions are considered when defining a Fund:

• Budgetary Funds are established by the Legislature and EOG/OPB.
• Transactional Funds, including local Funds and investment participants, are requested by agencies for approval through DFS.
• Agencies supply DFS Bureau of Financial Reporting (BFR) with additional information via the Fund Questionnaire form. A completed Fund Questionnaire is required to set up a Transactional Fund value in Florida PALM.

Maintenance

Fund values in Florida PALM are centrally maintained by DFS. Agencies are not able to add or modify Budgetary Fund values, however agencies can request new Transactional Fund values using the ChartField Structure Request and Fund Questionnaire form. As Fund values are added, or inactivated, the applicable Tree will be maintained to ensure accuracy of transactions and reporting.

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