FMSWire - Edition 1

Supplier NewsletterThis article sits within the Supplier Newsletter section

Foreword from the team

Welcome to the first edition of the FMSWire. The DfE's Chart of Accounts & Automation Team aim to send out these quarterly newsletters so that we can keep you all informed of updates, developments and timelines.

It was great to see some of you at the Schools and Academies Show on 22nd November.

It's always good when we can meet colleagues face to face to help foster growing relationships. Following this positive engagement, it is clear there is a genuine enthusiasm for the chart of accounts and automation across the sector.

Our recent 1-2-1 meetings with trusts and auditors who were starting out on their automation journey for AR22/23 have also been positive, we are hoping these trusts will spread the word about the benefits of using automation which we can capture in case studies.

We are working with the Schools Resource Management team and the ESFA, to realise the potential of the Chart of Accounts and Automation, enabling it to be the core principle of engaging with the sector, making the academy sector financial reporting more efficient and improving the data quality.

Please use the link at the end of this newsletter to provide feedback. If you wish to receive a response or request a meeting to discuss your comments, please leave your contact details.

Accounts Return and Automation

The Accounts Return 22/23 went live on the 12 September 2023 with a submission deadline of the 30 January 2024. The form went live earlier than in previous years to allow trusts to download their draft financial statements as of the year end.

Where a client has adopted the Academies Chart of Accounts and you have developed your technology, advise them that you have the ability to automate the Accounts Return and the benefits that would provide such as:

pre-population of a high percentage of the accounts return (AR) 2022/23
enable use of the draft financial statements for 2022/23
and for trusts who automate by 30/01/2024 we will partially populate the Budget Forecast Return (BFR) 2024

Budget Forecast Return 24 - pre-population

Following a request from many trusts to automate the BFR, we have looked at how we can start to develop this functionality to offer more benefits for trusts, alongside the automation functionality.

For those trusts who automate their FMS data into the AR 2022/23 by 30/01/24, we will populate part of their BFR 2024 with this data.

This data will complete the first three columns of the BFR and will include an FMS mapping report similar to the AR mapping report.

We are also aiming to make available a pre-populated template with trusts actual data, to help complete the remainder of the BFR form.

Budget Forecast Return 25 – 2nd data pull

To make the adoption of the academies CoA and automation a great offer to trusts, we want to work with our FMS providers to enable trusts to send through a second set of data within the financial year. This will populate their current year actuals to March.

Currently trusts send through one set of data after the year end. To support trusts to automate more of their BFR, we want them to have the ability to send a second data set after period 7 (March). Planning is underway for this to be available to the sector by BFR 2025, we'll start scoping in more detail in the new year and arrange meetings with you to discuss further in the spring.

FMS comparison matrix

For academy trusts to get the full benefits of using the Academies Chart of accounts (CoA) they must have a financial management system (FMS) that can automate a data upload to the DfE.

Feedback from Academy Trusts, shows that one of the barriers to adopting the Academies CoA and automating is that trusts do not know which FMS products are using this functionality.

Based on this feedback we have created an FMS Matrix

Trusts can use the matrix to compare FMS suppliers to see if their current supplier can automate. Alternatively, they can find out which suppliers currently support automation to help them find their best fit, should the trust decide to move suppliers.

We are working with suppliers to improve the information held within the matrix and will regularly release new updates.

Please let us know of any changes that affect FMS product(s) or service(s) you provide.

Zendesk for suppliers

We listened to your feedback and as such, we will shortly be launching our new Zendesk help centre which is specifically for FMS supplier’s use.

You can submit tickets directly to our team, contribute to conversations within the ticket and see information about known live incidents and downtime.

We will also create a knowledge base that will contain self-help and good practice articles to help resolve queries before they become a problem.

Once we are ready to go live, we will let you know more.

DFE Sign In

The department is in the process of moving all externally facing DfE services onto a new authentication system called DfE Sign In (DSI)

DfE Sign In (DSI) will ensure that users can access a wide variety of DfE externally facing systems using one set of log in detail.

It will also allow users to authenticate and access DfE services that they have been given permission to access, based on pre-existing rules relating to the type of organisation.

Additionally, there is user account management within the organisation – specific users will be assigned the role of ‘Approver (previously called Super User)’. The approver can create and maintain additional users within their organisation.

We will notify you in due course of the dates for migration.

New developer test accounts

Part of the above migration process will involve moving production accounts (real time users) along with test accounts to the new platform. In addition we will be looking to overhaul our test accounts.

We will reissue your test credentials with the new logins and passwords in due course but in the meantime, you can continue to use your mailinator logins.

It is important to note, that you must not try to reset any mailinator passwords, as this will result in your account being unusable.

If you have any problems with your test accounts before you receive your new details, please do get in touch with us.

EAPIM API rebranding

The name of the EAPIM has been changed to Find and use an API (FaUAPI).

Whilst you shouldn’t have to do anything different, you should be aware of the new name when using the developer hub and subscribing to the FMS submission API.

We will update the name in the 'Guide for software integration with automation API' shortly.