SACS Account and Component Validation

With the advent of the Standardized Account Code Structure, (SACS), the California Department of Education supports financial reporting via electronic file. To insure that California K-12 school districts properly report account information, the State has included account validation as part of the reporting process.

To assist with validation, the C.D.E. distributes validation tables via their web site. Escape Finance includes a feature to validate accounts and component combinations. Escape converts the state validation tables to an "Escape-ready" format to allow K-12 districts to validate their accounts within Escape Finance.

State Validation Tables

The State frequently updates a set of tables containing valid component values and component combinations. These tables have been compressed into one downloadable file, VTABLE.EXE, available on the C.D.E.'s web site.

View the State's web page concerning validation tables.

Download the latest validation tables from the State's web site.

Escape Validation Tables

Escape uses the State's text files to create "Escape-ready" tables to validate accounts and components. These validation text files must reside in the \ESCAPE\CHART directory, and are used by a number of procedures within Escape:

Component Creation - When creating components in Escape, the program references the validation files to insure the component is valid.
Account Creation - When creating accounts in Escape, the program references the validation files to insure the accounts use valid component combinations.
Validation Report - This Escape report lists accounts not meeting SACS compliance.
Fundform File - This is the Escape procedure that produces the source file used by the State SACS software. It uses the validation files to insure that the data exported uses valid accounts.

The text files from the State are converted by Escape to "Escape-ready" tables using an 8.3 naming convention, commonly called "short" file names. These 12 text files and the three COMPXRE.* files must reside in the \ESCAPE\CHART directory. These are the file names we use, along with the State file equivalents:

Escape Validation File Name	State Validation File Name
FUNDS.TXT	FUND.TXT
FUNCTION.TXT	FUNCTION.TXT
GOALS.TXT	GOAL.TXT
OBJECTS.TXT	OBJECT.TXT
RESOURCE.TXT	RESOURCE.TXT
FUNDFUNC.TXT	FUNDXFUNCTION.TXT
FUNDGOAL.TXT	FUNDXGOAL.TXT
FUNDOBJ.TXT	FUNDXOBJECT.TXT
FUNDRES.TXT	FUNDXRESOURCE.TXT
FUNCOBJ.TXT	FUNCTIONXOBJECT.TXT
RESOBJ.TXT	RESOURCEXOBJECT.TXT
GOALFUNC.TXT	GOALXFUNCTION.TXT

We converted the State validation files and created a short file name that Escape uses:

ETVTABLE.ZIP - Contains District tables. Showing the combinations valid for a district to use.

Files last updated on March 6, 2012.

NOTE: If the above validation file is missing, Escape procedures that validate accounts will report an error condition.

Escape Account Validation

Account validation is controlled by a flag in the Account Structure Setup screen. This field is only available if the account structure is marked as SACS compliant. Three possible values may be entered:

Blank - no interactive validation will be done.
W - users will receive a warning for all component and combination errors but will be able to continue editing and can save the record.
R - requires the user to enter a valid account number before moving to the next field and will not allow a save of a record with an invalid account.

When adding accounts, account number validation is done when exiting the account number field. Other account validation, such as for duplicate accounts, has been changed to only be done when the user saves the record. When updating existing accounts, the SACS validation will only be done if the user changes the account number.

NOTE: Any error messages displayed are written to the standard log file.

Escape Account Rollup Values

Escape contains a feature called "account rollup" that allows you to create accounts that do not contain valid SACS components, but "roll up" to valid SACS accounts for reporting. The SACS rollup value for the non-SACS components is defined in the component record. When Escape does account validation, the SACS rollup values are considered. You can see the rollup values from within the component record. You can see the rollup account from within the account record.

Escape Validation Report

A procedure, #2010, was added to the Chart Module of Escape to validate the components for all the account numbers in a fiscal year. At run time, you can specify the sort order for the report by specifying the following:

P - sorts the errors by Problem. The accounts with invalid components are listed first, followed by the ones with invalid component combinations. The report shows both the component from the customer's account number and the SACS rollup value it was translated into.
A - sorts the report by Account. All of the problems for a single account are grouped together. This may be more useful for fixing actual combination problems once all the components have been set up properly.
B - for both, prints the report sorted each way, with a page break in between.

The validation report creates an \ESCAPE directory on the user's C: drive if it does not already exist and copies the component and component cross reference file to that directory in order to improve performance. These files are deleted when the program completes successfully but the \ESCAPE directory is left in place on the user's hard drive.

NOTE: The text files from the State must be in the \ESCAPE\CHART directory or error messages will be displayed when the report is run.