Understanding cost codes in iTrent

Chart of accounts

The DCC chart of accounts is made up of three hierarchical structures, known as manage, activity and item. Any cost code must be a combination of one element from each of these three structures.

For maintained schools:

• the manage code denotes the type of school (split between their relevant funding streams)
• the activity code denotes either the individual school or hub school in the case of federations
• the item code denotes the type of expenditure such as stationary, training or catering staff pay

Maintained schools code combinations

In iTrent, manage and activity codes are automatically allocated either at school level (known as a unit in iTrent) or at position (contract) level. Item codes are allocated at post level. In short, this means you will never need to enter a code combination for your contracted roles.

Below is the combination of codes that should be allocated to contracted schools’ staff. If you believe your position has incorrect cost codes allocated to it, please email finance.financeschools-mailbox@devon.gov.uk in the first instance.

Manage

A school may use different manage codes to reflect the different parts of their establishment (most likely in a primary school where you have after-school clubs).

Activity

* If the school is part of a single budget federation then the activity code will be that of the hub school DfE number rather than the individual school DfE number.

Item

Government reporting requirements mean that schools must comply with Consistent Financial Reporting (CFR) guidance which is updated periodically. Find the latest list of ledger items codes to be used by schools.

As an example, if you were to employ someone and put them into a catering assistant post on iTrent the item codes would be as follows:

However, if you were to employ someone in a teaching post on iTrent the codes would be:

So, what is a job code?

You may have heard of a fourth element in the structure called a job or project code. These eight-digit codes are used where required to monitor costs of smaller projects or schemes which sit within existing activity codes. At present schools may use project codes internally, but these do not feed DCC accounts.

How do I enter my code combination on iTrent when making a claim?

Contracted staff

Travel, expenses and overtime forms will, as standard, pick up the cost code assigned to your role or position. If for any reason the costs need to be charged to a different establishment or school, then you will have the opportunity to manually overwrite the manage and activity code in the 17-digit cost code field. Please note that you cannot change the item code as this is automatically generated depending on what expense type you choose. If you do not need to change the manage or activity code from that of your contracted role then you should leave the cost code field blank.

Should you need to enter a different cost code, the format consists of 17 digits (without spaces) as follows:

• 4 digits (manage code)
• 5 digits (activity code)
• 8 digits (project or job code)

If you don’t have or need a project code then just enter 8 zeros or if the project code was G2023 then it should be entered as 000G2023.

Therefore the 17-digit code for XX Primary School would be G120G202300000000.