Dear County and District Chief Business Officials and Charter School Administrators:

2024 Standardized Account Code Structure Web-based Financial Reporting System (SACS Web System)—Budget Release

The 2024–25 budget updates to Standardized Account Code Structure Web-based Financial Reporting System (SACS Web System) are now available in the SACS Web System application at https://sacs-cde.org/security/login. These updates include the components necessary to complete the 2024–25 budget reports.

The 2023–24 unaudited actual reporting updates will be available in late June/early July 2024. The 2024–25 interim reporting period updates will be released in mid to late October 2024. The California Department of Education (CDE) will notify SACS Web System users as each of the reporting periods are available in the system.

This year the CDE’s efforts were primarily focused on required changes, and continued refinement of the new web-based system. For a detailed description of the associated changes, please refer to the SACS Web System “What’s New: 2024–25 Budget Reporting” document posted on the CDE Financial Reporting web page at https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/sf/fr/ , under “Web Application Resources.”

Preloaded Data

Prior year ending balances from 2022–23 unaudited actuals (including funds, assets, debt, and lottery), Gann data, Every Student Succeeds Act Maintenance of Effort, and first and second prior year indirect cost rate information have been preloaded into the system, most of which will be used for unaudited actual reporting.

In addition, to the extent possible, data from 2021–22 and 2022–23 Fund 01, Fund 10, Fund 17, and attendance unaudited actual data, as well as the California Basic Educational Data Systems (CBEDS) data, has been preloaded in the SACS Web System for use in the Criteria and Standards Review form.

Validation Tables

The 2024 SACS Web System budget update contains the most current validation tables, dated March 14, 2024.  The updated tables will be posted to the CDE SACS Valid Codes and Combinations web page at https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/ac/ac/validcodes.asp in the near future.

To receive an email notification each time the validation tables are updated, please send a blank email message to join-sacs-update@mlist.cde.ca.gov.

Charter School Beginning Balances

The prior year ending fund balances from the Charter School Alternative Form have been crosswalked to the equivalent SACS fund and object codes and included with the prior year ending fund balances from the SACS submissions, to ensure consistency of the data. This will only affect charter schools that reported 2022–23 unaudited actuals in the Charter School Alternative Form and that are preparing a 2024–25 budget or 2023–24 unaudited actuals report using the SACS format.

User Guide and Reporting Calendars

The SACS Web System User Guide 2024.0 is available on the Financial Reporting web page at https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/sf/fr/, under “Web Application Resources.” The user guide is also accessible in the SACS Web System by selecting the help icon (question mark) located next to a screen heading within most forms and processes.

A link to the financial reporting calendars is also available on the Financial Reporting web page under “Financial Reporting Resources” at https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/sf/fr/#financialreportingresources.

Preparation for Interim Criteria and Standards

The interim period Criteria and Standards Review form will extract applicable budget period data, if such data are available; otherwise, it will require manual input.

California School Accounting Manual

To assist local educational agencies (LEA) in using new SACS account codes added since the last system release, any new codes have been included in the SACS Web System “What’s New: 2024–25 Budget Reporting” document, available on the Financial Reporting web page under “Web Application Resources.”

Additional information and guidance on using SACS codes is available in the California School Accounting Manual (CSAM). The CSAM is available to be viewed, printed, or downloaded from the CDE Accounting Definitions, Instructions, & Procedures web page at https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/ac/sa/. In addition, descriptions and other relevant information on new resource codes can be obtained from the CDE Standardized Account Code Structure (SACS) web page at https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/ac under “Program Codes.”

Bugs and Fixes

SACS Web System known issues and available workarounds are posted in the Problems and Fixes section of News and Announcements, available on the user’s dashboard upon logging into the system. This section will be updated as additional issues arise.

Please distribute this information to the appropriate LEA staff. For assistance with the SACS Web System, please email sacsweb@cde.ca.gov. Accounting questions should be emailed to sacsinfo@cde.ca.gov.

Sincerely,

/s/

Christine Davis, Administrator
Financial Accountability and Information Services Office

CD:JV
2024-2101

cc:

County and District Superintendents
Charter School Authorizing Agencies