Budget Forecast Return 2016 to 2017 (to be completed by all academies)

For the Attention of the SIMS FMS6 Operator SIMS FMS6 Academies USER BULLETIN No.A28 2016/17 Budget Forecast Return ---------- Financial Services for Schools Helpline Tel: 01992 555753 Fax: 01992 555727 Email: fss.helpdesk@hertsforlearning.co.uk Budget Forecast Return 2016 to 2017 (to be completed by all academies) This bulletin provides guidance on completing the Budget Forecast Return 2016 to 2017 Financial Systems Helpline Tel. No.: 01992 555753 Email: fss.helpdesk@hertsforlearning.co.uk Herts for Learning 01438 845111 www.hertsforlearning.co.uk Herts for Learning 2016

The Academy Budget Forecast Return 2016/17 This report provides information to the EFA to inform the DfE s supplementary estimates that are submitted to HM Treasury. The EFA will review academy trusts budget projections along with actual results to assess financial health. The budget forecast return comprises three segments: Revenue Income and Expenditure Capital Income and Expenditure Other Items Cash, Depreciation, Investments, Provisions and Loans There is an additional section for MATs only: Reserves per Academy This year, the level of detail required has reduced with a number of expenditure rows being condensed into one line. The return requires financial information split across four columns: Actuals September 2015 March 2016 Forecast April 2016 August 2016 Forecast September 2016 March 2017 Forecast April 2017 August 2017 The EFA requires academy trusts to submit their budget forecasts on a new online form by 31 st July 2016. The EFA have stated that the return for this year will be open from June 2016. The EFA have published an Excel workbook and guidance to help you prepare for the new online form. The workbook allows you to see what information is required so you can prepare your forecast before you complete the form. Working through this document will provide you with a step by step guide on how to obtain the figures required for the return. Note that throughout the return all balances should be completed in round thousands ( 000 s) and not pounds and pence. 2

Guide to completing the Budget Forecast Return The budget forecast return workbook is available from the EFA website along with the guide to using the workbook at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/academies-budget-forecastform?utm_source=efa%20e-bulletin&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ebulletin&mxmroi=2305-26566-22419-0 The completion of the return will require reference to the appropriate chart of accounts, depending on when you converted. These are available on the Hertfordshire Grid for Learning. These will provide you with the relevant Budget Forecast Return line numbers for the ledger codes on your original academy database. Any additional ledger codes will need to be manually added to the list with reference to the EFA guidance as per the link above. Completion of the budget forecast return workbook will also require a working knowledge of Excel. We would recommend that academy trusts use the information obtained from FMS for the 2015-16 figures and information obtained from HCSS Budgeting for Academies for the 2016-17 figures as per the table below: Data Required Actuals September 2015 March 2016 Forecast April 2016 August 2016 Forecast September 2016 March 2017 Forecast April 2017 August 2017 Data Source Enter from FMS Summary Trial Balance by Ledger Code run as at P7 Follow guidance below HCSS Budgeting Academy Reports - Budget Forecast HCSS Budgeting Academy Reports - Budget Forecast Actuals September 2015 March 2016 This section of the return requires actual figures up to 31 st March 2016 to reflect the trust s financial position at that date. This will need to include all significant accruals including any sundry debtors, sundry creditors, prepayments and receipts in advance. These should be posted to FMS in P7 as reversing journals. If the trust has rolled into P8 without posting significant accruals, these can be added in manually on the working paper below. We recommend that you use the detailed SIMS FMS Trial Balance by I&E and Balance Sheet to collect your data to the end of March 2016: Reports / General Ledger / Trial Balance / Trial Balance By I&E and Balance Sheet / Detail / In Period enter 7 / OK Click on the xls button 3

Save to an appropriate area and open. The third column will show your year-to-date balance which can be used to populate the actuals column. We would recommend that the fourth column is deleted. The report will show ALL ledger code balances; however, only the income, expense, cash, loan, provision and investment ledger code balances will be required to populate the return. 4

Where any manual accruals need to be added to the P7 year to date actuals, add another column on the right hand side and call this accruals. Manually type in the accruals and total these to get your Actuals at 31 st March figures. The Total column should be edited to show figures in 000 as this is the format required by the return Add a new column on the right hand side and name it Budget Forecast Line No Using the appropriate Chart of Accounts for your Academy (depending on the date you converted to an Academy) enter the Budget Forecast Line No. against each row showing an income or expenditure ledger code and a cash, provision, investment or loan balance. Now sort the spreadsheet by the Budget Forecast Row numbers. Any gaps between lines will need to be removed so that all rows are picked up and all cells will need to be unmerged. Then sub-total each change in Budget Forecast line number. This will provide Actuals September 2015 to March 2016 figures required. Outturn 2015/2016 This section of the return requires the outturn figures for the financial year 2015/2016 There are several ways that these figures can be achieved: 1) If the Trust is happy that the profiled budget figures for periods 8 to 12 in FMS reflect the forecast income and expenditure for this period and take into account any revisions or virements to the budget then a User Defined Report (UDR) could be set up in FMS to show the actuals to period 7 plus the cumulative total of the profiled budget in periods 8 to 12, April to August. Guidance on creating this UDR is in appendix 1. 2) We would suggest that the most accurate method to calculate your projected outturn figures for 2015/2016 would be to take your actual figures to date for each individual ledger code and to add the additional amounts you anticipate spending or 5

receiving during this period. Academy Trusts should take as their actuals to date, the figures from the latest closed period. We would expect this to be P8 or P9. These figures can be obtained by running a Summary Trial Balance by Ledger Code for the latest complete period. Add another column to the Trial Balance I&E detail spreadsheet and name it Forecast to August 2016. Work through each line and enter the additional amount you expect to spend or receive on each ledger code as appropriate to 31 st August 2016 using the guidance above. Please ensure that you have made allowances for any significant accruals that have been manually included in the Actuals September 2015 to March 2016 section above and that these balances are not double counted. Add a further column to this spreadsheet and name it Outturn 2015/16. Use this column to add the actuals to date figure to the Forecast to August 2016 figure. The Outturn 2015/16 column should be edited to show figures in 000 as this is the format required by the return. Now sort the spreadsheet by the Budget Forecast Row numbers. Any gaps between lines will need to be removed so that all rows are picked up. Then sub-total each change in Budget Forecast line number. This will provide Outturn 2015/16 figures required. Forecast September 2016 to March 2017/ April 2017 to August 2017 Use the HCSS Budgeting for Academies Academy Budget Forecast Report which will automatically include the profiled budget for this date range. Please ensure that any virements to the 2015-16 budget have been made in HCSS Budgeting for Academies as this will impact the 2016-17 forecast figures. Save this worksheet to an appropriate area. The prepared calculated figures from the spreadsheets can now be used to populate the Budget Forecast Return Workbook. 6

APPENDIX 1 USER DEFINED REPORTS Creating a User Defined Report Reports General Ledger User Defined Reports Click on the to create a report Give the Report a name, i.e. Budget Forecast Return 2015/2016 Note: All Report names must be unique Create a Row Set: Click on the Browse next to Row set The Row Set Browse Screen will appear Click on the Green Add Icon Put the radio button in the preset Row Set All Ledger Codes as individual rows, with Grand Total 7

Click OK Give the Row Set a Name Note: All Row set names must be unique Each row within the row set is defined specifically. 8

Each ledger code will be shown against the DATA category. The TOTAL row will show as SUM in the CALCULATION category. The signing will default to Treat Income as a negative (Normal N). The Budget Forecast Return requires all numbers to be positive. If you wish to change the report format to show all income items as positive balances, this can be changed by placing the radio button in the treat income as a positive/expenditure as positive (Reversed R). Please ensure that the (Reversed R) option is selected on each line. This only needs to be done to income balances. Saving your Row Set Once you are happy with the rows Click on Save from the Row Set Details window. You are then returned to the Row Set Browse window and your recently created Row Set appears alongside the others. Make sure the new row set is highlighted YOU MUST CHOOSE 'SELECT' NOTE: If you do not choose Select the rows recently created will all be cancelled Save before leaving the User Defined Report area. NOTE: To save a new report both the row set and column set need to have been created. Creating your own column set Reports General Ledger User Defined Reports Choose the report to work on Click on the browser by Column Set 9

This will open the column set browse Click on add Name the column set NOTE: All Column Set names must be unique 10

Click on add Double click on the new column set Choose the type of information required from the Data Field Column Set details When looking at the columns you will be identifying data attached to that information, e.g. actuals, budget allocated etc. A column set is the collective name for the individual columns in the report. The available functionality falls into two categories: DATA Actual Current Budget Original Budget (Fixed) Committed Enables actuals to be selected Enables the current budget to be selected Enables the original budget to be selected if the budget has been fixed Enables commitments to be selected. This will be both outstanding orders and salary commitments, if salary commitments have been generated. CALCULATION Add Sum Difference Percentage Difference Enables individual columns to be added together Enables a range of columns to be summed Enables a difference between two columns to be calculated Enables a percentage difference between two columns to be calculated 11

Note: In this example, in the DATA section Actual is highlighted but other choices can be made e.g. Current Budget. Give the column a name that relates to the information, Actuals to P7 The name of the column is what will appear on your report Select Actual in the DATA area Choose the year by typing or clicking through the browse and selecting the year Choose the From Period by typing in the period or clicking on the browse and selecting the period Choose the To Period by typing in the period or clicking on the browse and selecting the period Save Repeat to add another column and name it Budget Periods 8 to 12 12

Select Current Budget in the DATA area Choose the From Period by typing in the period or clicking on the browse and selecting period 8 Choose the To Period by typing in the period or clicking on the browse and selecting the period 12 Click on Save Repeat to add another column Select Add from the CALCULATION field Go through the spyglass and choose columns 1 and 2 Rename Add Columns 1&2 to Outturn 2015/16 13

Saving your Column Set You are then returned to the Column Set Browse window and your recently created Column Set appears alongside the others. Highlight and select From the Column Set Browse window YOU MUST CHOOSE 'SELECT' NOTE: If you do not choose Select the columns recently created will all be cancelled Save before leaving the User Defined Report area Changing the Orientation of the Report The orientation of the report can be either portrait or landscape. The default orientation is portrait. To change the orientation report: Click onto the appropriate orientation radio button NOTE: If a report has more than 4 columns it must be set to landscape in order to display all columns. Large reports may need to be formatted with a small font size to enable all data to be displayed. Printing a Report Report General Ledger User defined Reports Highlight the report you wish to print Click on the print Icon The report will appear to screen Click on the print Icon and the report will print 14

To Change the Report Rounding Reports are automatically set up to round to the nearest 1 To change this: Click on Round to blue handled browser Make your selection Select the 1000 option Exporting UDR Reports Once a report has been set up it can be exported to other software applications. The route to follow is: Reports General Ledger User Defined Reports Highlight the appropriate report Click on the Print Click on the export to disc button to produce the report on screen. icon In the Export Options screen click on the browser 15

Three output formats will be available: Comma Separated Values Format (CSV) Rich Text Format (RTF) Tab Separated Values Format (TSV) Select the appropriate format (CSV) Click the select button Select where you would like to save the file Click Save Open the spreadsheet Add a column and name it Budget Forecast Line No Enter the appropriate line number from the Chart of Account sheet appropriate for when you converted to an academy Now sort the spreadsheet by the Budget Forecast Row numbers. Then sub-total each change in Budget Forecast line number. This will provide the Outturn 2015/16 figures required. 16