Generally speaking, a general ledger is an organization’s complete running list of financial balances. Sometimes you’ll overhear accountants referring to the general ledger as “the books” because, before computers, general ledgers were massive paper records.
Prince George’s Parks and Recreation’s (P&R) organizes the general ledger into three categories.
-
Cost center: Where money is coming and going. Cost Centers have five-digit numbers.
- There are cost centers for entities like the help desk: 12175.
- A facility can have more than one cost center. For example, Fairland Sports and Aquatics Complex has cost centers for its aquatics, sports, and gymnastics.
- GL code: What money is spent on and where it comes from. For example, GL codes would record the revenue brought in from a ticket purchase and who, or what, paid for the ticket. GL codes encompass more than Finance activity codes, which are more nuanced.
- Finance activity code: What money is spent on and sorted by an offering's parameters like age. Finance activity codes arrange the revenue streams from P&R offerings.
Recreation programmers must enter the correct cost center, GL code, and finance activity when creating a section. Doing this allows for accurate accountbook keeping.
For more on M-NCPPC's accounting units and finance activity codes, go to this webpage and find the QUICK LINKS heading.
View cost centers and GL codes
1. Log in to PARKS DIRECT, and on the sidebar menu, go to Management > Activity Management > Activity Section Management. PARKS DIRECT will open a new window.
2. Use the filters on the Activity Sections datagrid and double-click the section you want to view. Or, instead of double-clicking, highlight the section and select Change. PARKS DIRECT will open an Activity Section Update window.
3. Select the Fees tab on the upper-left corner of the screen.
4. The Fees tab contains two of the general ledger categories - cost center and GL code.
Cost centers are located in the WildCard Cost Center box near the upper-right side of the screen.
Select the picklist icon to the right of the box for the list of every cost center. PARKS DIRECT will open the Cost Center Management pop-up (close the pop-up when you're finished with viewing the list).
Select the Edit Row (pencil) icon to the left of Section on the fees datagrid. Depending on your program's section this might not be available.
Next, scroll to the right and select the picklist icon on under the Rev GL Code column. PARKS DIRECT will open a pop-up with available GL codes.
Close the picklist when your finished.
Select the Edit Row icon to exit edit mode.
