CLASSIFICATION STRUCTURE
OVERVIEW
The Statewide Accounting and Reporting System (STARS) accumulates financial data through a formal classification structure. The objective of STARS is to provide for the centralized accounting and reporting of financial data in accordance with the Statewide program budget structure mandated by the State Legislature. STARS was designed to meet the following objectives:
In STARS, revenue and expenditure data are classified in a variety of ways to provide the ability to analyze the information from different perspectives. STARS has five major methods of classifying financial data. Each component in the structure provides a unique and essential method of classifying financial data. The categories of information are:
ORGANIZATION
The administrative unit responsible for the transaction
PROGRAM
The purpose for which an expenditure was made
FUND
The basic fiscal entity within government
OBJECT CODE
The commodity or service obtained from an expenditure, or the
source of revenue
PROJECT
Any special component not covered by the other classifications.
Primarily used for Federal Grants and Capital Projects
Each major component in the classification structure contains coding elements. The use of these detail elements is vital for many of the STARS reports.
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a concise description of the classification components and codes utilized by the system in order that the user may gain a working knowledge of the classification structure. Each component of information in the structure is defined, levels of detail needed within each component are identified, and the relationships among the components are discussed to provide a clear picture of how the components are used. Finally, a discussion of auxiliary codes (transactions codes, subsidiary codes, etc.) that enhance the capabilities of the basic classification structure is presented.