This table is taken from this public document.
| Column | Field name | What is required | Reason for inclusion | Additional information | Inclusion status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Department family | Name of department or parent department. | To identify spend to each deaprtment area. | Consistent naming conventions must be used. Departments need to issue naming conventions. | Mandatory inclusion |
| 2 | Entity | Name of individual entity | To identify spend of individual bodies within the departmental family | Where a core department is completing the return, the entry in the department “family field” should be repeated here. Consistent naming conventions must be used. | Mandatory inclusion |
| 3 | Date | The payment date as recorded in department's purchase or general ledger. | To identify the date that the transaction took place. | Invoice input date or invoice date may be used if it is not possible to source data using the payment date. The Treasury must be notified if you are not using payment date. The UK date format (DD/MM/YYYY) should be used. Leading zeros should be used where necessary so that the string is precisely 10 characters (e.g. 01/09/2010) | Mandatory inclusion |
| 4 | Expense type | The description of the type of expenditure | To identify the general nature of the spend | The description of expenditure used against account codes held on departments' own finance systems should be suitable for this purpose e.g. consultancy, stationery. Descriptions should be suitable for the public domain, and properly inform what the money has been spent on. Account numbers should not be used. Jargon must be replaced. What the money has been spent on must be clear to users of the data. | Mandatory inclusion |
| 5 | Expense area | The name of the area within the entity that has spent the money | To identify the area within the entity that has spent the money. | The description needs to be meaningful and may possibly relate to the department‟s organisational structure. This may be at directorate level or relate to the cost centre structure. To aid transparency there may be benefits in selecting a structure that is capable of being mapped onto a published organisational structure. | Mandatory inclusion |
| 6 | Supplier | The full name of the supplier | To identify the recipient of the spend | The name of the supplier named on departments' own vendor record can be used. Where the same supplier has been recorded using different naming conventions, there is no need to aggregate. However these multiple versions will appear in the published record. The address of the supplier should not be included. | Mandatory inclusion |
| 7 | Transaction number | A reference number for each individual expenditure transaction | To act as a reference number when dealing with enquiries or FOI requests. | The transaction number used in departments' own systems may be used. This does not need to be the supplier's invoice number. | Mandatory inclusion |
| 8 | Amount | The actual value of the transaction | To identify the full cost of the transaction. | Amounts should be in sterling and inclusive of irrecoverable VAT. Values should be in pounds and pence. Each entry should include a decimal point and exactly two digits for pence. Pound or other currency signs must not be included. Income or other negative spend (eg corrections) should be show with a leading minus sign. Leading zeros should not be used. Commas should not be used to separate thousands of pounds. So, for instance, a payment of £25,123 should be shown as 25123.00 and a credit of £26,123.45 should be shown as -26123.45. If possible recoverable VAT should not be included and does not need to be shown separately. Expenditure needs to be published gross of any income. Where an invoice crosses multiple expense codes, the separate payment lines should be published even where they are individually worth less than £25,000. The amount should represent expenditure for an individual transaction and should not be cumulative. | Mandatory inclusion |
| 9 | Description | Additional narrative to explain the expenditure | To enable users to understand what the money has been spent on | You should link the description directly from your purchase order system where available. If these are not meaningful then you should include a brief description of the expenditure instead. Jargon must be replaced and any abbreviations explained. Descriptions that contravene national security or create legal challenge must be removed. | Mandatory inclusion |
| 10 | Supplier postcode | Postcode of supplier | To identify common suppliers | The postcode recorded on the departments own systems can be used, where this is readily available | Voluntary inclusion |
| 11 | Supplier type | The sector type of the supplier | To identify and aggregate supplier information by sector | You should categorise by either: - Large - SME (small, medium enterprise) - VCS (voluntary and community sector) - Public Sector | Voluntary inclusion |
| 12 | Contract number | The unique contract number | To enable aggregation and comparison with data published on contract finder | You should use the same contract number as published on contract finder. If the relevant contract is not published you should leave this field blank. | Voluntary inclusion |
| 13 | Project code | A reference number used to identify individual projects | To enable aggregation across different projects within a departmental family. | Where project codes are used by a department to categorise spending then these should be published. You should also separately publish a list of project codes and a brief description of each project. | Voluntary inclusion |
| 14 | Expenditure type | The budget category of the expenditure | To distinguish between payments made to other bodies and the money spent running the organisation. | You should choose from administration, programme or grant payments. This should be categorised using the account code or expense type to reduce the level of manual input required. | Voluntary inclusion |
| 15 | VAT Registration number | The supplier's VAT registration number | To identify and agreggate supplier information even if the supplier descriptions are not consistent. | Not to be published until requested by the Treasury |