ctcLink Accounting Manual | 10.30.65 State Purpose - Information Technology Costs

The State IT Purpose field (PeopleSoft field name = Chartfield 3) is a 1-digit field managed by the State Board.  The field allows colleges to select one of 3 values: 
X – IT Acquisition/New Development
Y – IT Maintenance and Operations
N – Not reported

RCW 43.105.020 requires all agencies to track both the acquisition or development of new information technology projects and the maintenance and operations costs of information technology. The Community and Technical College system obtained a waiver from the reporting requirements since our Legacy system was sunsetting.  The requirements are included in the ctcLink in a field called ‘State IT Purpose’. See SAAM 75.65 for the state mandate.

IT costs include the electronic capture, collection, storage, manipulation, transmission, calculation, retrieval, and presentation of information. IT expenditures generally follow an IT employee in these functional areas of IT service delivery:

• Customer service (help desk, personal computer support, and portable device support);
• Infrastructure service (database administration, security, server and network administration, data center operations, and network communication services);
• Application service (packaged and custom application support);
• IT planning (research and development, strategic and disaster planning);
• IT administration (asset management, IT procurement, project management, and training); and
• IT application development projects.

IT Costs do not include non-IT indirect administrative costs such as facilities, utilities, indirect administrative costs, supplies costs or debt service related to IT purchased with debt proceeds.

IT costs are usually found in the following account codes:

Salaries, Wages and Employee Benefits
5000010-5000190
5010010-5010180
IT costs include salaries and wages and employee benefits for both IT and non-IT staff doing IT work. Non-IT staff includes those assigned permanently to an IT function, and those assigned to an IT special project for an extended period.

• Unless required to maintain timesheets, colleges may use an accounting estimate of the percentage of time spent on acquisition/new development projects or maintenance and operations activities. The estimated percentages should be reviewed periodically and changed if necessary.
• For non-IT staff, consider the following questions to determine if and how much staff costs should be attributed to IT:
  • What is the impact on the work unit of having non-IT resources assigned to an IT project?
  • How long will the project need the non-IT staff?
  • If the non-IT staff left the agency, would IT skills be a required skill set in the recruitment process?

Professional Service Contracts
5050040-5050165

IT costs include professional services contracts for development of new IT applications, ongoing consulting, and employee training.

Goods and Services
5030010-5030060
5050030-5050090
5060010-5060060
5081090-5081260

Includes items in the goods and services categories. Include software maintenance contracts, software not useful for more than one year, and training expenses such as those for new applications. Include costs such as tuition/fees, travel, per diem, and related materials for classes, seminars, conferences, and online courses.

Also considered IT are equipment repairs and maintenance, and rental/lease of IT equipment from external vendors.

For purposes of IT coding, include telecommunications costs related to data transmission (exclude costs related to public safety).

Do not include non-IT general administrative costs (such as facilities, utilities, indirect administrative costs, supplies costs).

Travel
5080010-5080070

IT costs include various travel expenses for IT and non-IT staff working in the functional areas of IT service delivery. (Refer to Salary, Wages and Benefits to determination of staff travel to include.)

Capital Outlays
5030070-5030110
5040010-5040120
5040140-5040670

IT costs include hardware and software purchased from outside vendors and, when ownership transfers, purchased from another state agency. Hardware and software that provide increased capacity or expanded functionality should be coded as an acquisition; replacement purchases are coded as maintenance and operations. Capital outlays for software are coded to the following account codes: 5030080, 5030100 (Non-Capitalized Software) and 5040090, 5040250, 5040650 (Capitalized Software).

Capital outlays for hardware are coded to 5030070, 5030090, 5030110 (Non-Capitalized Assets) and 5040010, 5040120, 5040140 5040540 (Furnishings and Equipment). For definitions of the account codes, refer to CLAM 10.30.45.

For guidance on capitalization of software as an intangible asset, refer to SAAM Section 30.20.  Capitalized software costs include purchase costs, internal development costs, or a combination of both.

Colleges should generally record transactions as IT costs only those items where payment was made to an external entity. The only exception for a purchase from another agency occurs if the brokering agency does not record the purchase as an IT Cost. You should check with the brokering agency to verify how they recorded these items.

The following expenditure accounts must be coded with either X or Y in the State IT Purpose field.

• 5030080 - Non-Capitalized Software (Y)
• 5030100 - COP Non-Capitalized Software (Y)
• 5040012 - Capitalized IT Equipment (X)
• 5040090 - Capitalized Software (X)
• 5040250 - COP Capitalized Software (X)
• 5040650 - Proprietary Adjustment - Capitalized Software (X)
• 5050100 - Computer and Information Services (X)
• 5081230 - Software Licenses, Maintenance, and Subscription-Based Computing Services (Y)

The following expenditure accounts must be coded with either X in the State IT Purpose field.

5040012 – IT Equipment

5040013 – IT Telecommunications Equipment

Costs associated with the purchase of capitalized IT equipment. Includes mainframes, personal computers, servers, printers, copiers, plotters, and other devices.

5040090 – Capitalized Software

5040250 – COP Capitalized Software

5040650 – Proprietary Adjustment- Capitalized Software

The amounts expended for purchased software or licenses of commercially available software, types of intangible assets, with a useful life of greater than one year and considered a capital asset in accordance with the state's capitalization policy.

5050100 – Computer and Information Services

The amounts expended for design, development, and/or implementation of agency information technology (IT) systems; project management for systems; quality assurance on, or evaluation of IT systems; development of significant IT strategic plans; and business analysis related to the IT needs of an agency. Also includes services to analyze, enhance, modify or implement computer systems or telecommunications systems; IT security analysis and security vulnerability assessments; business analysis of agency IT system; disaster recovery planning services; and IT systems analysis.

5081117 – Multi-Function Device Lease LT

Costs associated with rent/lease of copiers that provide printing, reproduction, scanning, facsimile and other functions. For a period of time one year or greater. This does not include equipment/service part of managed print service contracts.

The following expenditure accounts must be coded with either Y in the State IT Purpose field.

Recommend new account for these:

5030019 – IT Supplies

Costs associated with purchase of IT supplies.

5030074 – IT Equipment (Non-Capitalized)

Costs associated with non-capitalized IT equipment with a useful life more than one year. Includes mainframes, personal computers, servers, printers, copiers, plotters, and other devices.

5030075 – Telecommunication Equipment (Non-Capitalized)

Costs associated with non-capitalized telecommunications equipment that meets the criteria in SAAM 75.65.20 (see EA/JA Flowchart on COA Reference Page).

5050032 – IT Services

Costs associated with providing various routine IT Services (e.g., coding, adjustments, etc.), generally very prescriptively documented via contractual language (clear deliverables, SLAs, etc.) executed at the direction of state-employees.

5081115 – Computer Rental/Leases ST

Costs associated with rent/lease of computers and other information technology (IT) hardware such as servers.

5081118 – Multi Function Device Lease ST

Costs associated with rent/lease of copiers that provide printing, reproduction, scanning, facsimile and other functions. This does not include equipment/service that is part of managed print service contracts. For a period of time less than one year.

5081119 – Multi-Function Device – Overages

Costs for overages associated with managed function device leases. This includes charges for copies above the maximum allowed in the lease and any other extra costs not included in the lease rate.

5081252 – IT Equipment – Repairs and Maintenance

Costs associated with installation, repairs and maintenance of information technology (IT) equipment such as computers, servers, other IT hardware, copiers, printers, phone equipment, voice and data lines, and (non-leased) multi-function devices. Does not include maintenance agreements on IT equipment.

5081254 – IT Equipment – Maintenance Agreements

Costs associated with maintenance agreements on IT equipment.

5081262 – Legal Domain Name Registration

5081264 – Internet Service

Costs associated with modems, routers, circuits, gateways, Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL), internet access and other bundled service costs designed to transmit data. Does not include website hosting services. Excludes charges from Consolidated Technology Services (WaTech).

5081266 – Mobile Phone Service

Costs associated with the use of mobile phones and hotspot devices; includes all one-time and recurring charges; roaming and additional call and data charges should be coded here as well. Does not include the actual mobile device itself (see account 5030075).

These don't need new account:

5030080 – Software (Non-Capitalized)

5030100 – COP Software (Non-Capitalized)

The amounts expended for purchased software or licenses of commercially available software, types of intangible assets, with a useful life of greater than one year and not considered a capital asset in accordance with the state’s capitalization policy in SAAM 30.20.20.

5081230 – Software Licenses, Maintenance, and Subscription-Based Computing Services

Amounts expended for purchased software or licenses of commercially available software with a useful life of one year or less, including upgrades and/or maintenance agreements. Software licensing includes, but is not limited to, the right to use the software, support for the software, and upgrades.