Object class codes, prescribed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), are used uniformly through the Government in submitting budget estimates and budget reports to OMB and Congress. The major object class codes are further broken down into sub-object class codes by agencies for accounting purposes, because appropriate codes are essential to Central Accounting Systems and must be entered for every financial transaction.

The major object class codes are a numeric code structure and are extended by adding two digits, numeric/alpha, to further identify groups of objects and specific objects. Sub-object class codes permit more detailed review or analysis of common or special interest classes of object and insure uniform reporting of certain data. Additional object and sub-object class codes may be added and used when needed by agencies, as appropriate.

Contracting and Purchasing Officials should ensure accuracy of object class codes assigned.
For more information, visit http://datacenter.cit.nih.gov/interface/interface223/warehouse.html, and to access the NIH Object Class Code search engine, visit http://www-dw.cit.nih.gov/scripts/objclass/occ.cfm.