[Ucwsfiscal] Function Code 78 for Federal Work-Study Payroll Transactions

Thu Mar 12 10:43:10 PDT 2026

Hi All,

Thank you again for all of the feedback. We were able to successfully convince our Accounting office to revert to using the dept function (we leave the  func in Pool ID table blank) instead of defaulting to 78.

This was our Controller's response/decision:

"We had discussed this topic at the controller’s meeting a while back, but I brought it back up this afternoon as I don’t recall getting a final determination from them. FWS (both the allocation and the match portion) should be aligned with the nature of work being performed by the students (clarify, not function 78). I believe that this initially popped up because we had an error toss up on the log related to the FWS fund + function 76, UCOP has agreed to lift that restriction, so it will not be an issue any longer.
 To summarize, FWS should not be coded to Function 78, but it is not a one-size fits all situation either, the function tied to each student must align with the actual work being performed."

Again, thank you for your assistance on this matter. Much appreciated.

Arvin

________________________________
From: Jose Aguilar <jose.aguilar at ucr.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2026 10:22:07 AM
To: UC WS and Fiscal Workgroup <ucwsfiscal at lists.ucmerced.edu>
Subject: Re: [Ucwsfiscal] Function Code 78 for Federal Work-Study Payroll Transactions

Riverside uses function 68 for work-study earnings hitting the federal share.

Jose

On Tue, Feb 10, 2026 at 4:17 PM Julie Portillo <julie.portillo at sa.ucsb.edu<mailto:julie.portillo at sa.ucsb.edu>> wrote:
Hi All,
At UCSB the only ones that we have in use are 68 and 62. I will check with our accounting folks as well and share back when I hear more.
Best,
Julie

Julie Portillo (she, her, hers, ella)
Associate Director/Fiscal Manager
Office of Financial Aid & Scholarships
Office: (805) 893-4828
Email: Julie.Portillo at sa.ucsb.edu<mailto:Julie.Portillo at sa.ucsb.edu>
[UC Santa Barbara]

On Tue, Feb 10, 2026 at 12:33 PM Catherine Yu Li <ycli at ucdavis.edu<mailto:ycli at ucdavis.edu>> wrote:
Theoretically Purpose Code 78 (equivalent to HEFC FINA pre-common chart of accounts) should not include salary or wage expenses Chart of Accounts: Purpose | Finance & Business<https://financeandbusiness.ucdavis.edu/finance/chart-of-accounts/redesign/purpose#CoA_Purpose_FinAid>, and our long standing practice is to use 68 (HEFC – STAC) - but is there any recent change on accounting side that relaxed rules? Arvin, can you please ask your accounting folks?

Catherine

From: Steven McCabe <smccabe at berkeley.edu<mailto:smccabe at berkeley.edu>>
Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2026 9:29 AM
To: UC WS and Fiscal Workgroup <ucwsfiscal at lists.ucmerced.edu<mailto:ucwsfiscal at lists.ucmerced.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Ucwsfiscal] Function Code 78 for Federal Work-Study Payroll Transactions

Hi Arvin,

A few years ago we had a similar issue where Housing and Dining started using FC 76 (aka Program Code), which is not appropriate for non-auxiallary funds (or so I've been told).  So, we started updating all 'W' rows to FC 72 via the WS Split config:

[cid:ii_19c4a0cde594cff311]

On Mon, Feb 9, 2026 at 4:46 PM Arvin Tumonong <atumonong at ucmerced.edu<mailto:atumonong at ucmerced.edu>> wrote:
Hi All,

We just found out that our Accounting office changed the default function code for all our Federal Work-study payroll activity to function 78 recently. Before this change, all FWS transactions would default to the department's payroll function code (never a 78) for both the federal and dept match.

Does your campus use function 78 financial aid for federal work-study student earnings transactions? We had never classified FWS earnings as financial aid in our payroll accounting or tracking before. We are currently assessing about possible issues or impacts of this change.

If you have any information about this, do let us know.

Appreciate  your insight as always.

Thanks.

Arvin

[cid:ii_19c4a0cde595b16b22]

ARVIN TUMONONG
he/him/his

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF FISCAL MANAGEMENT AND SCHOLARSHIPS
OFFICE OF FINANCIAL AID AND SCHOLARSHIPS

5200 Lake Road | Merced, California 95343
http://financialaid.ucmerced.edu | 209.228.4679

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--
Steve McCabe
Business Systems Analyst
University of California Berkeley
Financial Aid and Scholarships Office
smccabe at berkeley.edu<mailto:smccabe at berkeley.edu>
financialaid.berkeley.edu/<http://financialaid.berkeley.edu/>

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