All capital projects will be accounted for in the Projects module of Oracle. The Business Office accounting staff will continue to be your resource should you have questions. Please note that you will need prior approval of Capital Budget funding or funding from another source such as a restricted fund.
Capital Projects Procedures
As of January 1, 2024, all capital projects will be assigned a new project number (in the form of C-xxxxx). The accounting office will request various information about the project in the early stages of the project, so that we have the appropriate information when it is time to capitalize the asset. The capital project number for each project will accumulate all of the capital charges until the project is completed. At that time, we will capitalize the asset, a new Fixed Asset number will be assigned, and we will begin depreciating the asset over its useful life.
Oracle Coding of Capital Purchases
As part of the transition to Oracle, a new account coding string was created. Capital projects will be accounted for in a separate module of Oracle and the coding of invoices and expense reports will be substantially different. The following link will provide a mapping of the old Lawson coding to the new Oracle Projects coding: Lawson to Oracle Mapping for Capital Projects. Please email accounting@stolaf.edu with any questions on how to code your charges. As an overview, all capital transactions will require BOTH a distribution combination (will always be the same for capital project coding) and a PTEO code. The P is the project, T is the task, E is the expenditure type, and O is the expenditure organization. The appropriate PTEO coding is provide in the link above.
Restricted Funds used to fund Capital Purchases
All capital charges, whether funded by the St. Olaf Capital Budget or by donor restricted funds, should be coded as illustrated in the Lawson to Oracle Mapping for Capital Projects. All costs should be charged directly to the Oracle capital project so that we can properly capitalize the charges to Fixed Assets and depreciate the assets over their useful lives. If you are using a Restricted Fund to fund a portion of a capital project, please email accounting@stolaf.edu and we will do the appropriate Oracle journal entries to relieve the restricted fund of the portion being used towards the capital project. In your email, let us know the capital project number and the restricted fund and amount you are using to fund all or a portion of the capital project.
New Capital Project Request Form
Once you have secured the appropriate funding for a capital purchase, please complete the Capital Project Request Form to request a new capital project number to charge to. The request will be routed to accounting for setup in Oracle. Once the capital project number is setup, the accounting staff will provide details on how to code new charges that are deemed part of the capital project. For projects that are requested as a large group as part of the annual capital budget process, the Assistant VP for Budget and Auxiliary Operations will request the new capital projects. As part of that request, we request that an Excel version of the Capital Project Request form information be provided.