Policies & Procedures Manual - Elizabeth City State University

400.3.1.5Adopted: 06/14/05ELIZABETH CITY STATE UNIVERSITYAttributesl. Attribute is a term applied to a descriptive non-dollar characteristic for an account and ismaintained as an integral part of the system's database. The primary function of attributes isto support a wide variety of reporting techniques by removing the need to define descriptiveelements in the account number. Attributes, once entered, are stored along with the dollardata in the account master file.Attributes are applied to both subsidiary and general ledger accounts. Although accountsin the subsidiary and general ledgers may be related in an accounting sense, they may notnecessarily have the same attributes or the same values, for an attribute may not becommon to both ledgers. An account will only have those attributes which are pertinent toit and necessary to summarize its data for reporting.Attributes are not used on any input transactions for data manipulation or postingpurposes. They are used, without exception, to prepare all reports from the system. This isa very significant point. Reports may be changed or new reports added, attributes may bechanged or new attributes added, but input processing is unaffected.There are three basic types of attributes used by the system:• System processing indicators• Report selection criteria• Report "header" information2. Some of the attributes are used by the system to determine how the account and the dollarrecords are to be processed. Some examples follow:• Indicators of an account's fund type (i.e. State Fund vs. Contracts and Grants)• Directives on how to process the account from one fiscal year to the next• The general ledger account that a subsidiary ledger account will update when transactionsare posted to it