University at Buffalo (UB) 
Administrative Services Gateway
Administrative Services GatewayBuilding partnerships through collaboration
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.
- 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 — Activity is an entirely optional and alternative hierarchy allowing departments to budget and report on certain initiatives within their unit. Each account can be assigned to an activity, such as an event, startup or other initiative. Since this is an optional flag, all accounts will default to “No Activity” unless specified by the department.
If you are creating an account to collect revenue, ensure the account type is allowable and all necessary approvals have been followed.
To request a new Research Foundation account, submit an Account for Non-sponsored Research form.
The Master Awards are initially set up for a one-year period (in order to control any payroll encumbrances) and receive funding as they are established.
Functional projects are then established for each unit receiving RF funding from the university’s internal financial plan. Units may sub-allocate their funds by sending requests to the Non-Sponsored Group, requesting the establishment of additional projects to be funded by their approved allocation.
Subtasks
Subtasks allow units to group expenditures or similar activity and provide flexibility to add subtasks. All new RF accounts are established with one main default task — task 1 — where all activity is held. Funding may be moved to other subtasks if desired. Each sub-task may have a different entity code assigned.
Units may also authorize a specific task manager who isn’t the PI on the project or award, as well as establish additional signatories for each task.
Please note, tasks should only be created to sub out activity related to the main project, as all approval authority flows down from award, to project and then to task. If the functions or purpose aren’t directly related to the main project, a new project should be created instead.
It is important to identify the correct subtask when submitting transaction requests. It may be difficult to differentiate tasks on a project that has multiple tasks, we therefore discourage units from creating too many tasks on a project to avoid confusion and possible misappropriation of expenses.
All tasks should be fully funded at the initiation to accommodate expenditure activity unless otherwise clarified and noted at task creation.
The period for each project is determined at the discretion of the awarding unit. A project’s end date may be requested to run beyond the initial one-year period. However, since the initial award period is only one year, any payroll commitments beyond the initial period will not appear on the project during the first year. After the initial year, the Master Award will be extended and the future commitments will then appear against the project. Requests for project extensions beyond the initially designated funding period must be submitted by the awarding unit to the Non-Sponsored Group.
Contact an Expert
State
Hazel Pasco
State Accounting and Financial Reporting
Financial Management
Phone: 716-645-2645
Email: hjpasco@buffalo.edu
Research Foundation
Matthew Cannon
Accounting: Non-sponsored RF
Financial Management
Phone: 716-645-0165
