Full Accounting Unit (FAU)

Organizations use a tool called the general ledger to record and organize all financial transactions. The general ledger is made up of many different accounts corresponding to the purpose and type of individual transactions. Choosing the right FAU is critical to ensuring the accuracy of financial reporting.

The Full Accounting Unit (FAU)

At UCLA, the accounts that make up the general ledger are organized into Full Accounting Units or FAUs. Specifically, the FAU refers to a string of alpha-numeric characters that identifies the who, what, where, when, and how of a financial transaction. UCLA is an incredibly large and complex organization with many subsidiary units, schools, departments, activities, and funding sources, and the structure of the FAU reflects this complexity.

The FAU is made up of eight segments of varying character lengths for a total of 32 characters. The different segments make it possible to organize and report financial activity in different ways, according to external and internal reporting requirements and analytical needs. Each segment is separated by a hyphen to make the full FAU easier to read. The eight segments and their standard character lengths are indicated in the table below.

Location		Account		CC		Fund		Project ID		Sub		Object		Source
#	-	######	-	##	-	#####	-	######	-	##	-	####	-	######

For more in-depth information about the function/role of each of the eight segments of the FAU and how to select the appropriate values when assigning FAUs to financial transactions, refer to the Understanding the FAU module of the Extension Financial Literacy Training course in Canvas.

See also:

• Understanding the FAU course module (Canvas)
• Extension Financial Literacy Training (Canvas)
• Chart of Accounts (FY2022-23)

For additional information about this topic, please contact [e-mail] or your BFS support team.