Land, Buildings & Real Estate

From time to time, the University enters into agreements with various independent entities that may result in an ongoing business or academic relationship with the University. For example, entities with current relationships include Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford Bookstore, Inc., and Stanford Federal Credit Union.

Although these types of entities remain independent from the University, nonetheless, the nature of the relationships makes it desirable to outline how the relationships might be structured. This Guide Memo also provides guidance to University officers, faculty and staff concerning issues that might arise and that need to be addressed prior to entering into such third party agreements.

Proposals for new programs, projects, or activities should take into account the feasibility of obtaining required funding as well as the budgetary and other impacts the proposals may have on Stanford University. This Guide Memo is intended to provide a checklist that may be useful to faculty members and others in developing such proposals.

This Guide Memo describes mail services provided to the University by both the U.S. Post Office and internal interdepartmental mail services.

This Guide Memo describes policies and responsibilities for the University's telecommunication systems. They apply only to relations among University departments and are inapplicable to transactions with outside communications suppliers and other entities and persons outside the University. The services described are available to all University and Hospital buildings on the campus, but exclude SLAC.

This Guide Memo describes arrangements by which the University advances loans that are repaid over time to schools and departments to finance capital projects, programs or purchase equipment.

This Guide Memo discusses the administrative procedures for acquisition, ownership and disposition of University vehicles. Additional information is available at vehicles.stanford.edu.

This Guide Memo describes the organization of the Procurement Department and its relationships with other administrative departments, both within and external to Stanford.

This Guide Memo outlines the roles and responsibilities of various University officers and organizations in managing the University's financial assets.

This Guide Memo describes the University's property and liability insurance coverage.

For information on other insurance coverage, see:

• Business travel accident insurance: Guide Memo 2.3.1: Survivor Benefit Plans.
• University, government, and personal vehicle collision insurance: Guide Memo 8.4.2: Vehicle Use.
• Rental vehicle collision insurance: Guide Memo 5.4.2: Travel Expenses.

The University's Oracle Financial system has two core accounting applications: Grants Accounting (GA) and General Ledger (GL). The GA subledger records all detailed expenditure transactions and then summarizes them in the GL. The GA module has five segments: Project (P), Task (T), Award (A), Expenditure types (E) and Organization. A Project (P) is an activity or event with a single purpose. A Task (T) is a further breakdown of the project; every project has at least one task. An Award (A) is a funding source for a particular project or task. Find further information on the University's Chart of Accounts at Stanford's Gateway to Financial Activities.  This Guide Memo describes the various kinds of expenditure accounts or PTAs (the intersection of Project, Task, and Award) within the University's accounting system.