FMSWire Edition 4

Supplier NewsletterThis article sits within the Supplier Newsletter section

Welcome to the fourth edition of the FMSWire, informing you of updates, developments and timelines of the DfE’s academies chart of accounts and automation.

This edition contains updates for the new test accounts, development guide and getting ready for the AR 23/24. We will also be sharing some feedback from the latest Academies chart of accounts & automation survey which 209 trusts completed to date.

The accounts return form will be live by 5th November 2024, with a submission deadline of 28th January 2025. We may open the form slightly earlier for trusts to send their automated data to the accounts return so they can use the draft financial statements functionality, and we will brief you if this becomes available.

Lastly, please take note of the points 'For action' throughout the newsletter.

 

Best wishes,

Academies Chart of Accounts and Automation Team

 

Test accounts update

We will soon be sending your new test account credentials via our helpdesk for you to test your automation functionality with the accounts return 2023/24 test environment.

This e-mail will show your test trust names, UPINs and user details, such as roles and permissions, it will also contain the URL to the test environment.

Each trust test account is now prefixed with 'AR TEST' so that they are easily identifiable and comply with DfE Sign In naming conventions.

As we mentioned in the previous newsletter, you will no longer be able to use the mailinator accounts and these details should be discarded.

For Action: Please test your automation functionality with these credentials as soon as you are able to, then contact us to arrange a demo to demonstrate you software's ability to send the automated data through to the DfE’s financial returns.

We know that this delay has been frustrating and we thank you for bearing with us.

If you have any questions once you receive your new credentials, please reach out via our helpdesk and we'll do our best to help.

 

Supplier product confidence demos

Following receiving your new test accounts and the test and production URL's, we will be contacting you to arrange a product demo on TEAMS.

To ensure that academy trusts have the best chance of automating this year, if possible, we would ideally like to see:

• The movement of automated data between yourselves and a test trust
• How your product ensures the trust type (MAT/SAT) is correct before data is sent 
• How you manage error reporting

Improving the user experience for trusts who will be using automation for 2023/24

• As part of the ‘Care package’ of support we will be offering to trusts we would like to be able to provide a direct contact for automation support, therefore we would be grateful if you could provide this to us for trusts use only
• The DfE will be sending out a checklist and references to all trusts so that they are automation ready, this was the suggestion from one of the suppliers at our retro’s last year
• We will also let you know the name of those trusts who we know intend to automate so that you can reach out to them also if you wish
• We would also like to know what support is in place between yourselves and your clients for the 2023/24 automation process 

 

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• We really want to see more trusts using automation this year, and as always, can only do this with your ongoing help.

  For action - Please provide us with a direct contact name and e-mail of the person we can contact in the event that a trust is having a technical issues with sending their automated data, so we can raise and progress with incidents in a timely manner.

   

  Once testing is complete, other actions of note are:

  • To get all trusts thinking about automation, we will be sending all trusts an automation checklist, which can be found on our helpdesk knowledge base. We have had feedback from trusts, that it may be more appropriate if FMS providers would include this checklist in their automation information pack.
  • Once the AAR is live, we would like a TEAMS meeting with you and a trust of your choosing to show the full data transfer process so that we are giving trusts the best chance to automate
  • We want to join you for some joint webinars. We recently had a series of sessions with two providers that helped demonstrate how and why automation would benefit their trust clients
  • Following the trust survey, we want to work with you on assisting specific trusts that said they were will be automating this year. More details to follow on an individual basis.
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• Updated developers guide
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• We have published the new developers guide, version 6.0, on our supplier helpdesk knowledge base.

  Things of note are:

  Sections added

  • 2 sections relating to Budget Forecast Returns
  • The importance of trust status and data types
  • Test accounts

  Section removed

  • UAT environment sections and links removed

  Other changes

  • Updates to environment links in ‘Appendix’ > ‘API Details’ section. See full section extract below.
  • Updated links in ‘Supplier test (STE)’ section
  • API base URL for STE
  • Front end on-line collections STE URLNew link to our supplier helpdesk for developer hub changed to ‘Find and Use an API’ 
  • Update to DfE temporary account codes
  • Wording change from ‘CoA’ to ACoA’ throughout. (Academies chart of accounts to differentiate from further education CoA) 
  • Name changed from ‘Developer hub’ to ‘Find & Use an API’
  • Link for developer hub changed to ‘Find and Use an API’

  API Details

  STE Environment:

  • STE Application Link (front end) : https://onlinecollections-ste.education.gov.uk
  • STE API Submission Link:  https://oat-api-customerengagement.platform.education.gov.uk/fmssuptest/api/submissions
  • STE Token End Point : https://dfeb2cprod.b2clogin.com/dfeb2cprod.onmicrosoft.com/oauth2/v2.0/token?p=B2C_1A_consent_dfe_ste

  Prod Environment:

  • Prod Application Link (front end) : https://onlinecollections.education.gov.uk/
  • Prod Submission Link: https://education-financial-reporting.api.gov.uk/fmsprod/api/submissions
  • Prod Token End Point: https://dfeb2cprod.b2clogin.com/customeridentity.education.gov.uk/oauth2/v2.0/token?p=B2C_1A_consent_dfe
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Updated account code for new grant 'Core schools budget grant'

Following the teacher pay-award settlement, a new grant named ‘Core schools budget grant’ will be distributed to all schools for the period September 2024 to March 2025.

As this grant is material in value, trusts will need to report this income separately to the DfE and therefore will need a new account code to allocate this grant to.

 

For Action: Account code 510970 for 2024/25:

1.       Change account code description from ‘Temporary DfE / ESFA revenue grants 1 (for DfE use)’ to ‘Core schools budget grant’

2.       Activate the account code on your trusts GL so that trusts can post income against the account code. If you have not added this account code to your GL structure, then please add and activate for 2024/25.

3.       Let trusts know that you have updated their GL for 510970; to change the description and activate the account code. We will be updating the academies CoA information on our webpages as soon as possible.

4.       Note AR mapping - currently no change, but this will be updated in due course once we know how this is to be reported to the DfE.

5.       Note BFR mapping – changed from field 135 ‘Other DfE/ESFA revenue grants’ to 102 ‘General Academy Grant (GAG) (excluding Student Service Grant)’

 

ACoA & automation trust survey results

We have collected 209 responses from trusts from the 2024 DfE Academies chart of accounts and automation survey.

We will send each supplier the feedback relevant to them but would like to highlight some general points that you may find useful when thinking about communicating with clients or potential clients.

Has your trust adopted the AcoA?

• 53% adopted by the end of 2023/24 and a further 3% can map to it
• 14% will adopt during 2024/25
• 15% are planning to adopt it within the next 2 to 5 years

Therefore this only leaves 15% of academy trusts who are unsure about adoption or do not have plans for adoption.

 

Will you be using automation to complete the Accounts Return for 2023/24?

• Yes - 9%
• No, but plan to use for 2024/24 - 18%
• No, but plan to use in next 2-5 years - 32%

This leaves 40% of academy trusts who are currently undecided or do not plan to use automation in the future.

 

Is your FMS software upgraded and ready to use automation?

• Yes - 33%
• No - 28%
• Unsure - 39%

Together, we need to let individual trusts know if they can automate or not.

 

Are you planning to change your FMS software?

29% said yes

71% said no

 

Finally, have you used the Financial Management System (FMS) comparison matrix?

• 5% said they had used it to switch provider
• 11% used it but along with other information to switch provider
• 49% knew about it but had not used it and 36% had not heard of it, therefore we will start to run short webinars specifically focusing on the FMS matrix to increase awareness usage

 

DfE chart of accounts and automation Supplier helpdesk

To finish, we would like to thank all of you that have used our new helpdesk.

The helpdesk is now our preferred primary contact route over email.

It's working well so far with some useful insights into what articles are doing well and how the helpbot is performing.

We'll continue to make improvements but your feedback is always welcome, it is your helpdesk, so please do let us know how we can make it even better.

 

You can use the feedback section at the bottom of this newsletter or raise a ticket under the 'Other' category.

 

How to contact us

All correspondence should now come via our Zendesk helpdesk.

 

 

Your feedback

Please take a minute to leave some comments about this newsletter here

 

 

 

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Last updated on 11 October 2024 10:35