Agency Descriptor Tables are those that affect only your agency. These tables include agency structure as well as Grant/Project titles, etc. Descriptor Tables contain titles and other descriptive information of fiscal coding. When you enter a fiscal code, STARS automatically checks that the code is present in the Descriptor Tables. If a code is not found, an error message will be displayed.

Please refer to the individual Descriptor Table documents for more information regarding the table you are interested in. Agency Descriptor Tables are:

D03 – DIVISION

D04 – BUREAU

D05 – SECTION

D06 – UNIT

D11 – EXPENDITURE DETAIL

D15 – FUNCTION

D16 – ACTIVITY0

​D19 – PCA LEVEL 1

D26 – FACILITY

D27 – TASK

D35 – REVENUE DETAIL

D36 – LOCATION

D42 – PROJECT

D47 – GRANT

Security Requirements

Your agency can update all agency Descriptor Tables except for the Division (D03), the Bureau (D04), the Function (D15), and the Activity (D16). Those require approval from your agency's Division of Financial Management (DFM) analyst.. To update those tables, send an ORG-23 Organization Structure Maintenance form or PGM-23 Program Structure Maintenance form to your agency's Division of Financial Management (DFM) analyst for approval, and then to the State Controller's Office (SCO), Bureaus of Accounting Operations.

If needed, SCO personnel can add, change, and delete Agency Descriptor tables.

STARS Descriptor Table Maintenance screen (S023)

To maintain the Descriptor Tables, use the STARS Descriptor Table Maintenance screen (S023).

On the STARS Main menu:

1. Enter T in the FUNCTION field and press ENTER
2. Enter 23 in the FUNCTION field and press ENTER.

In the STARS- Descriptor Table Maintenance S023 screen, you can view the Descriptor Tables by doing the following:

1. Enter R (Recall) in the FUNCTION field.
2. Enter the two-digit Descriptor Table number in the TABLE-ID-NUMBER field.
3. Enter any other data you want to search for. For example, enter a sepecific expenditure subobject code in the KEY DATA.
4. Press ENTER.

Please refer to the individual Descriptor Table documents for more information regarding the table you are interested in.

Figure 1 - Descriptor table example

Start and End Dates

Start and end dates on agency Descriptor Tables are for informational purposes, in most situations. Once the record is added to the table, you can begin to use it, regardless of the date. Start and end dates will not stop you from entering other Descriptor Tables that rely on each other, such as with the organization and program structure elements.

Exception: If there is an end date on Descriptor Tables 11 and 35 (revenue and expenditure subobject details) daily transactions will not process.

Deletion Requests

If you update a table incorrectly, enter an end date on the table or send a DESCR-23 Descriptor Table form to SCO to request its deletion. However, these tables should not be deleted if there is still agency structure attached. See the Organization and Program structure reports (DAFR6640 and DAFR6660) for verification.

NOTE: Before SCO deletes any agency Descriptor Tables, they will ensure that the record has not been used on the Operating File.

Agency Descriptor Table Report

The following report can be obtained in Online Reporting on the SCO Web site.