Creating an Account

State, Research Foundation and UB Foundation have different procedures for opening accounts. Consider the funding source for the account to determine the type of account to request.

Unit Business Officer, Vice President or Dean approval is required for new accounts.

Important Items to Consider When Setting Up an Account

NACUBO Code — A NACUBO Code is assigned to all accounts and must be identified when requesting a new account. Ensure accounts have the correct NACUBO classification as this information drives financial reporting and is used for comparisons to peer institutions.

View a complete list of NACUBO classifications

Entities — Each account and subaccount is assigned to an entity. An entity is a 4-digit number assigned to all campus elements (departments, centers, offices). Entity numbers assigned to accounts should have a Financial Affiliation. A complete listing of all entities and whether they have a Financial Affiliation can be found in SIRI on the support tables dashboard.
Activity — The Activity field in the All Funds Chart of Accounts is optional and is used to group specific activities to aid in budget-to-actual reporting for select activities. Examples include events, startup costs, faculty and staff recruitment, and professional development. If no activity is specified when requesting new accounts, this field will default to “No Activity.”

If you are creating an account to collect revenue, ensure the account type is allowable and all necessary approvals have been followed.

State Research Foundation UB Foundation

To request a new State account, submit a Create, Change or Close State Account Request form.

Create, Change or Close State Account Request form

State Accounts (State Operating, IFR, SUTRA and DIFR)

All State accounts are now established with a master account, a subaccount and an undistributed account. Only subaccounts should be utilized for transactions. The account structure is included in the table below.

Historically not all accounts were subaccounted. We cannot subaccount a master account that has had any transactions historically.

U-Wide Accounts

U-Wide accounts are created by SUNY. Financial Management does not establish U-Wide accounts.

Subaccounts

Subaccounts allow units to group expenditures or similar activities and provide flexibility to add sub-accounts. Existing accounts without subaccounts cannot have subaccounts added. All new state accounts are now established with a subaccount noted as the seventh and eighth digits of an account.

Consider how subaccounts can assist with tracking revenue or expenditures. Some examples of how subs can be utilized include allocating startup costs to faculty, allocating scholarship funds to departments or grouping project costs.

Subaccounts can also function as individual accounts, independent of the other subaccounts associated with the master since they can each have a unique description and entity.

State Subaccount Entity Codes and Descriptions
Entity Code	Description	Example
00	Master account — Transactions cannot be processed against the master account. Functions as a rollup account	XXXXXX-0000
01	Default if only one account is requested and a subaccount is not specified.	XXXXXX-0100
02 - 98	Each subaccount can have a different entity code assigned.	XXXXXX-0200 - XXXXXX-9800
99	Undistributed account — Activity should not post to the undistributed account. Submit an expenditure transfer to move any transactions to the correct account.	XXXXXX-9900