UW-Madison Funding Strings

A funding string identifies both a specific source of funding as well as the type of expense for an individual transaction. This allows us to allocate expenses to various types of funding and to track and budget spending in various categories.

Workday calls this structure the Foundation Data Model (FDM). Each field starts with a 2-letter identifier, followed by a specific number of digits.

Driver Worktag

This field identifies a specific source of funding and replaces the project number. It also ‘drives’ financial workflows and approvals. There are 4 types of driver worktags, each formatted with 11 alphanumeric characters:

• Grant GR123456789
• Gift GF123456789 and TF1123456789 (Trust funds)
• Program PG123456789
• Project PJ123456789

Each Driver Worktag has default Related Worktags assigned to it that automatically populate these fields: Cost Center, Fund, and Function. Additional ‘allowable’ related worktags can be assigned to a driver worktag that you can edit for a specific transaction.

Cost Center

Format: 8 alphanumeric characters CC123456
This field identifies the department/division and replaces Dept ID.

Fund

Format: 6 alphanumeric characters FD1234
This field identifies the type of funds. There are several new funds, but many follow the same numbering as before: 101 is now FD0101. Common funds:

Function

Format: 6 alphanumeric characters FN1234
This field identifies the mission the expense most closely aligns with: clinical, research, education, public service, or general administration.

Operational Worktag

This field identifies the type of expense or transaction and replaces the account code. Format: 7 alphanumeric characters

• Spend Category SC12345
• Revenue Category RC12345

Optional Worktags

This field allows for additional details to be added to identify the transaction. 

• Activity (Format: 8 alphanumeric characters AC123456) – not currently used
• Expenditure Treatment (Format: 6 alphanumeric characters ET1234) – provides a second-level detail for specific spend categories – travel expenses, for example:

The below Expenditure Treatments all correspond with Spend Category SC00012 - Conference Registration Fees.

Additional Worktag Values

• Company – will always be UWMSN – identifies the university and replaces business unit
• Location – we do not currently use this field

Anatomy of a Funding String

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The pieces of the funding string can be arranged in any order.

Department ID

This 6-digit number indicates the school, department, and sub-department (DOM divisions):

• First 2 digits = division or major school/college (53 = School of Medicine and Public Health)
• Middle 2 digits = department (42 = Department of Medicine)
• Last 2 digits = sub-department, or "00" if none (20 = Allergy)

In some cases, the letter ‘A’ precedes the 6 digits. This letter identifies the UW System Campus, and A = Madison. You will also hear the Dept ID referred to as the UDDS code, which was a previous name that signifies University (A), Division (53), Department (42), Subdepartment (20) = A534220.

Program Code/Mission Code

This 1-digit number indicates which mission the expense most closely aligns with: clinical, research, education, public service, or general administration. DOM uses a combo of Dept ID + Program Code to indicate the mission. Contact your divisional accountant for questions on which mission code to use for specific projects or transactions. In DOM, we only use codes 2, 4, and 5.

Fund

This 3-digit number indicates the general source of funding, or type of money being spent. Each funding source has different requirements/restrictions on how it is spent, or what it is spent on. Though there are a number of funds, these are the fund numbers you will see most often:

101 – State funds – General Purpose Revenue (state taxes) and Student Tuition
133 – Non-federal grants - research grants, sponsored by companies such as Merck or Pfizer
136 – Revenue producing activity - revenue from patents, services (DOM IT Helpdesk), or if a department puts on a conference and collects registration fees
144 – Federal grants - research grants - for DOM, this is mostly from National Institutes of Health
233 – Gifts – donations, often through the UW Foundation or UW Medical Foundation

Project Number/Project ID

This 7-character alpha-numeric “number” indicates a very specific source of funds. It can be tied to a specific principal investigator (PI), or be generally tied to a department or division. Some are open indefinitely, while others have specific start and end dates. You may see project numbers in several formats:

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**All 133, 144, and 233 projects will have a fund+project number as part of the complete funding string. However, most 101 funds will not use a project number, and 136 projects may or may not have a project number. In this case, the project number would be left blank.

Account Code

This 4-digit number identifies the type of transaction (travel, lab supplies, computer purchases, meals, etc). Visit UW's complete list of searchable account codes.

Fiscal Year

UW runs a fiscal year from July 1 through June 30, to match the academic year. For example, Fiscal Year 2023 runs from July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2023.

For more information. visit Using Funding Codes and Strings at UW-Madison Division of Business Services