Schools Financial Management Service
Managing finances is an integral part of running a school but it can also be time-consuming and complex to carry out. The Lambeth Schools Finance team can relieve this and support your school with operational school finances through our bespoke and affordable service. The Lambeth Schools Finance team has accounting qualified, highly skilled and experienced staff, who have thorough knowledge of school's finance requirements and legislation.
Our Schools Financial Management Service can offer the following:
Financial consultancy services
Activities undertaken under the Financial Consultancy Service are not bursarial in nature but cover compliance, checking transactions have been correctly processed, ensuring VAT items are correctly treated and accounting records are properly maintained. However we also able to offer a Bursarial service for short-term cover for the absence of key finance staff within a school.
- Support in training school staff school to carry out day-to-day finance tasks - undertaking reconciliations, in-putting information directly on to the accounting system, running reports and so on
- Advising and supporting Heads and Governors in strategic financial management, budget setting, and budget monitoring
- Governor financial awareness training
- Support on the preparation of detailed budgets, budget monitoring working papers and quarterly expenditure forecast and cash flow forecasts
- Financial closure of year-end accounts
- Financial health checks
- Support in establishing a financial management function and maintaining governance and external accountability requirements for bodies
- Technical support on software installations or upgrades
- Support with meeting the Standard Financial Value Standard or Young Peoples Learning Agency (YPLA) standard
- Advice and support in addressing audit recommendations
Academy Specific Service (new)
- Preparation of the Year-end Statutory Accounts, assistance in drafting Trustees' Annual Report and dealing with all aspects of accounts submission to YPLA, Charity Commission and Companies House
- Preparation of Financial Statements, Cash flow Statements, Statement of Financial Activities (SOFA), Income and Expenditure account
- Completion and Certification of TR17a
- Financial Health Analysis and Key Financial Ratios
- Preparation of Academy Finance Procedures, including Depreciation Policy
- Completion of Corporation Tax (CT600) and general advice on Taxation and VAT
- Filing of accounts at Companies House, Charity Commission and the Department for Education
- Responsible Officer Provision
- Advice on registering as a Limited Company
Our speciality is support with SIMS FMS, however some of the additional benefits of using our Schools Financial Management Service include:
- telephone support and On-line resource bank and finance bulletins for finance staff
- on the job training for school staff on various accounting packages
- attendance at Governing Body meetings to provide advice on any financial issue
- named officer support to ensure continuity of service
- qualified accountants with excellent knowledge of statutory reporting requirements
- migration of data from one accounting systems to another
- creation of Chart of accounts for school or an academies
- user friendly financial reporting for our clients.
For more information, please refer to pages 61-62 of the Lambeth Services to Schools and Academies booklet.