Understanding Your Banner Number
Once an official, signed Notice of Award is received by ORSP, the business office assigns a unique series of numbers to the grant -- your Banner Number -- that you should commit to memory. YOUR BANNER NUMBER MUST APPEAR on all Business Office and Human Resources paperwork, as it is the number that allows them to track your expenses.
Banner Number:
Your Banner Number is composed of several parts, and these parts are often referred to by the acronym FOAPAL. Your primary concern will be with the first four of these letters:
Fund, Organization, Account and Program.
It his helpful to think of FOAPAL as a “tree” or “pyramid,” with the Fund at the top, the Organization in the middle, followed by the Account and Program at the bottom. The bottom “rolls” up into the top so that you can track the source of your funds.
FUND
Org Org Org Org
Account Account Account
Program Program Program Program
FUND: A self-balancing set of accounts. Your Fund is composed of the six-digits at the start of your Banner Number. All departmental expenditures at CSC eventually fall under the President’s operating budget; therefore, all departments share the same Fund: 100110.
HOWEVER, grants have their own operating budgets and each grant has its own, unique Fund number. A good metaphor is to think of the Fund as a bucket which holds your money. If you have multiple grants from multiple funding sources, your funds will come out of different buckets.
ORGANIZATION: The Organization is composed of the six-digits that come after the Fund. The organization designates the specific area of budget responsibility. For departments, this is the most important number, since your Organization is the number that is unique to your department.
HOWEVER, all grants overseen by the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP) have the same Organization: 212508.
Grants are distinguished by their Fund, rather than their Organization. All other college departments are distinguished by their Organization.
ACCOUNT: Designates a specific kind of expense, e.g., salary, supplies, travel, or books. The Account is composed of the five-digits following the Organization. You may want to keep a list of
Commonly Used Accounts at hand.
PROGRAM: Defines the overall functional area where work is being done.
Grants will have a program code of 60 and instruction will have a program code of 10. This allows for greater reporting functionality for audits and other large-scale budget conversations.
Examples:
(numbers have been changed for security)
Department:
100110-123456-75101-10
Grant:
123456-212508-75101-60