Organization codes (org codes) are a way of defining Stanford's multilevel organizational structure and are used to identify organizational responsibility for financial activity. Org codes support consistent processing, reporting, and stewardship of funds across the university.
This page provides an overview of the purpose and use of org codes and resources to find and interpret them.
Stanford University is composed of a hierarchy of many organizations working together in fulfillment of the university’s mission of research, education, and service. The university’s organization code hierarchy identifies each organization by a four-character alphabetical org code, which includes a set of descriptions that define its identity. The basic function of the organization code hierarchy is to define parent-child organizational relationships and group related information, such as employees and financial data. (Note: The organization code hierarchy is different from Stanford University organizational charts, which show the officers reporting to Stanford’s president and provost.)
The primary purpose of an org code is to identify a specific organization and its place within the organization code hierarchy. Systems throughout the university (such as Oracle Financials, the human resources management system, and Cardinal Planning & Budgeting) use org codes to organize their information.
Org codes are used to:
- Prepare detailed business unit budgets.
- Assign staff or accounts (also known as PTAs) to an organization.
- Report on receipts, transfers, expenses, and fund balances for an organization.
- Consolidate and report university financial statements.
- Manage the scope of granted authorities in Authority Manager.
All financial activity is posted to PTAs, and each PTA segment (the project, task, and award) needs to be assigned to a leaf org (i.e, an org code that has no children), otherwise Oracle Financials and Sequoia transactions will not work properly and downstream systems will be impacted.
There are several thousand org codes in the organization code hierarchy. The following resources can help the Stanford community (including financial staff, system administrators, and budget officers) find and interpret them.
If current org codes do not meet the needs of a business unit, the unit may request new or updated org codes. Only authorized budget officers may submit org code change requests, as these changes impact many aspects of financial reporting and management and must be carefully planned and implemented.
Organization Code Hierarchy Tool
The Organization Code Hierarchy Tool (active SUnet ID required) provides an interactive “tree view” of the organization code hierarchy along with org code attributes and change history. The tool also allows the download of three export files: Organization Code Hierarchy (contains all active and inactive org codes with up-to-date attributes for a selected hierarchy), Change Request Details, and Summary of Changes.
Authority Manager
Authority Manager has a “View Organization Hierarchy” tile that provides an interactive “tree view” for browsing and viewing privileges granted at the org level. It also supports searching by org code or org name with results shown in expanded tree view for the results returned.
OBI Org Inquiry
The OBI Reference Data and Inquiry Dashboard’s Org Inquiry report (OBI Financial Reporting access required) allows users to search for org codes by entering or selecting values for school/VP budget unit, org code, and/or org name. Clicking an org code in the query results provides additional information such as org code lineage (parents, siblings, and children) and a list of personnel who may grant OBI Financial Reporting authority for that org code.