Original Issuance Date: March 21, 2022
Last Revised: December 18, 2025
1. Purpose of Procedures
This procedure outlines the process through which budget amendments are to be processed, reviewed and reconciled within the systemwide financial system during the course of a fiscal year.
2. Responsible UW System Officer
Senior Associate Vice President for Finance
3. Definitions
Annual Operating Budget: The University of Wisconsin System budget is based upon the State’s biennial budget signed by the Governor and annually approved by the Board of Regents.
Block Grants: The consolidation of General Purpose Revenue (GPR) appropriations into one GPR “block grant” to fund general program operations and one GPR debt service appropriation.
Budget Amendment Types: Pre-defined descriptions as to the reason for the budget amendment.
Function Codes: University expenditures are recorded by functions established by the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) for higher education operating activity. The NACUBO function codes are Student Services, Institutional Support, Instruction, Hospital, Research, Public Service, Academic Support, Physical Plant, Auxiliary Enterprises and Financial Aid. UW System institutions use an additional function code, Farm Operations, that Is not defined by NACUBO.
Prior Year Encumbrances: The purchase order carryover encumbrance balance recorded in the systemwide financial system and certified by each institution as part of the prior year end closing.
Systemwide Financial System: Accounting system used by UW institutions to account for all transactions including assets, liabilities, fund equity, revenues, expenditures, and budget amendments.
4. Procedures
A. Frequency of Budget Amendments
Budget amendments may be made as necessary during the fiscal year.
Institutions are to monitor their ability to be in balance by the end of the fiscal year. Requests to UW System Administration (UWSA) for budget amendments should be made at the time an institution realizes it cannot achieve this objective.
B. Reporting Level of Amendments
The systemwide financial system is built to accept fund, cost center, driver worktag, ledger account, and budget amendment level data. The systemwide financial system also has validation edits requiring specific levels and types of entry data. Entries with errors will not post until the error has been corrected.
I. Department of Administration (DOA) Allotment Lines
UW budget activity should reconcile to DOA budget activity. DOA uses the following allotment lines:
| DOA Account | DOA Allotment Description |
| A000000 | Unallocated Reserve |
| A000001 | Permanent/Project Salaries |
| A000002 | LTE/Miscellaneous Salaries |
| A000003 | Fringe Benefits |
| A000004 | Supplies and Services/ Permanent Property |
| A000005 | Debt Service |
| A000006 | Local Assistance/Aids to Indiv and Org |
| A000007 | Special Purpose |
While the UW System no longer budgets by DOA budget category, all UW accounts used for budget amendments are mapped to one of the DOA allotment lines.
C. Budget Amendment Type
Budget Amendment Type, formerly known as Scenario Codes, are required on all budget amendments based on the Amendment Type Details.
D. Budget Entry of Annual Operating Budget and Prior Year Encumbrances
At the beginning of each fiscal year, the approved UW System Annual Operating budget is loaded into the systemwide financial system using the Original Entry Type.
UW System institutions are responsible for the entry of their approved Prior Year Encumbrances which must agree with the amount certified during the closing process at the end of the previous fiscal year for all non-grant funds. These amounts should be entered by fund and ledger account using the Prior Year Encumbrance amendment type.
UWSA will reconcile the budget amendments for these entries.
E. Budget Supplements and Reductions
The dollar amounts for budget amendments on amendment types Carryover, GPR Supplement, Lapse, and Systemwide Reallocation will be agreed upon between the institutions and UWSA. Once determined, UWSA will enter the data into the systemwide financial system, using the institutionally designated clearing account in the appropriation and ledger. Institutions may redistribute the amounts to departmental accounts via internal budget amendments with the same amendment type.
PR/SEG Budget increases/decreases may be entered by UW System institutions for PR-CONTINUING, SEG- CONTINUING and PR-FEDERAL-CONTINUING appropriations using the PR/SEG Amendment type.
Intra-institutional budget reallocations between cost centers, driver worktags, and accounts within the same business unit and fund should be entered using the Adjusted or Adjusted (One-Time) amendment type. These amendments should not increase/decrease the Annual Operating Budget; these amendments should equal zero. There should be no overall increase/decrease in revenue or expense as a result of the amendment.
F. Block Grant Amendments
Amendments between funds within a specific Block grant should be entered using the Block Grant amendment type.
The Block Grant budget amendment totals should equal zero. However, the total of the specific funds involved will increase or decrease accordingly.
Institutions may not process budget amendments from funds 101, 102, 103, and 104 to fund 131, as 131 funds are in a different block grant. If at any point an institution requires this type of shift, a request should be made to the UWSA Controller’s Office. There would also need to be a cash transfer in conjunction with this type of budget amendment.
G. Inter-institutional Budget Amendments
Inter-institutional budget amendment requests require UWSA approval, which can be obtained by completing the budget transfer request form.
H. Method for Processing Budget Amendments
Budget amendment data may be entered into the systemwide financial system as either a direct journal entry or via an EIB journal upload. See the Workday Job Aid Library and EIB library for resources on the process.
UWSA will complete budget amendments directly to the department receiving the funding if the entire funding string is known. If the funding string is unknown, and the receiving institution has not provided a funding string within five days, the budget amendment will post to the institution’s clearing account. All UW System institutions are required to have a designated Budget Ledger Clearing Account where budget amendments processed by UWSA will be entered when the funding string is unknown. This clearing account should be set up to accept all fund and accounts. Once data is entered, institutions will be notified of the budget amendment.
Budget amendments will include both revenue and expenditure for GPR funds.
I. Numbering of Budget Amendments
The systemwide financial system will automatically assign a number to the entry. UWSA will note in the memo field “SWxxx” to note Systemwide reallocation to be used for year-end reconciliation purposes.
5. Related Documents
Appropriation Structure
Amendment Type Details
Function Code and Definition Listing
UW System Annual Operating Budgets SYS 308, Budget Amendments
6. History
Revision 2: December 18, 2025
Revision 1: November 11, 2022
First approved: March 21, 2022
*Prior to this date, procedures related to budget transfers were included in SYS 308 (formerly F5).