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# Codes

Income and expenditure items are usually coded so that they can be found and analysed later. The complete list of codes is sometimes called a 'Chart of Accounts'.

Income

Each source of funding (for example each donor, the organisation's own emergency fund and income that will be generated by the project) usually has its own code. If not, keep each source separate and ask your accounts department how to code this.

Expenditure

Two codes are often used, to show the:

- Type of expenditure - They show the headings and sub-headings in the budget. For example 'Staff' might be 'A' while 'International staff salaries' may be 'A1'.
- Programme or project for which the expenditure was made - In the case of staff, this could be the project in which the relevant staff were working. Project codes might identify the country, region and type of project.

The same codes are used to classify each individual payment made during the programme. This makes it possible to compare actual expenditure (for each code) to budgeted expenditure (for each code). This is essential for financial management and donor reporting in both manual and computerised systems.