Independently accredited accountancy software

Chief Operating Officer or

Finance Director

Business Manageror Director

Bursar or Finance Officer

Who benefits? Financial management for academies and multi-academy trusts

SIMS integrated to save time and reduce errors

Multi-year budget planning

New solution for multi-academy trusts

Simplified academy reporting

Multi-academy solution

Work efficiently

Avoid re-keying and errorsFully integrated

Easy to use

Access anytime, anywhere

Benefits

Manage your finances effectivelyWith school and academy finance growing in complexity, you need a solution to help streamline your financial processes and improve efficiency across your organisation.

Our finance solution is designed specifically to meet the business needs of the education sector - this includes academies, multi-academy trusts and independent, maintained and free schools. SIMS Financial Management is the most comprehensive solution for meeting your financial legal obligations and our FMS accounting software is ICAEW accredited.

Our complete finance solution comprises:

• FMS – core accounting package

• FRS – enhanced reporting for FMS

• FPS – multi-year budgeting for FMS (software provided under partnership with HCSS)

• FMS MultiView – consolidated tracking and reporting for MATs (software provided under partnership with HCSS)

Working together as a whole solution, it provides you with an integrated double-entry accounting system, enhanced, flexible reporting and online multi-year budget planning. It’s everything you need to successfully manage your academy’s finances.

As well as being a solution for standalone academies, our finance package enables MAT Finance Directors and Officers to have instant online access to consolidated account reports from data entered into FMS. FMS MultiView also provides on-screen indicators and reports of individual academy financial performance.

In FMS, the entire process from requisition to payment can be electronic, eliminating the need for paper-trails or storage and saving academies considerable time and money. Attach electronic invoices and supplier documents to save office storage, and import supplier catalogues to streamline purchasing from preferred suppliers.

With 80% of your expenditure related to staffing, you need to be sure you have accurate and up-to-date information. FMS is the only accounting application that pulls through contractual information held in SIMS to generate salary projections without the need to re-enter and update contracts in the finance system.

Our solution is fully integrated for maximising cost and time saving. It’s also integrated with SIMS to reduce manual financial errors and save time.

After converting to academy those that used FMS as a school will be familiar with the software so there is no need to re-train. The extra functionality required for academies is also very intuitive - however, training courses are available.

The finance solution is very flexible. Whether you’d like to continue using FMS on a server, have remote access to allow staff to work from home or would like FMS hosted online it’s your choice - Capita, your LA or your IT provider can help you.

Accruals accounting

Manage your budget

Monitoring and reporting

EFA & statutory reporting

NEW FEATURES

• New reporting engine in FMS for improved outputs

• FMS MultiView for multi-academy trusts

• Debit card payments

• Enhancements for the paperless office

RELATED PRODUCTS

SIMS PersonnelSIMS AgoraSIMS Dinner MoneyEARNIE Payroll

One of the new FMS academy reports with expandable rows

“SIMS FMS is incredibly powerful and we get every report we need from the system. Weknow we can produce all the reports the auditors want, which is one less thing on our to do list. We have no last minute report requests sprung upon us!”

Alison Macarthur, School Business Manager, Wigmore School (Academy)

“I need the confidence that everything in the system is accurate and up to date. I also do not want to be pulling together lots of different figures to do my external reporting. SIMS FMS was the system we decided was up to the job. In fact, we trialled another system just to be sure and then reverted back to SIMS FMS as it was the most efficient option.”Valerie Haffey,Business Manager, Ryvers School and Nursery (Academy)

“SIMS FMS gives us the top-line view we need to monitor each individual academy’s spending centrally. This means I can quickly alert headteachers when they are getting close to a budget ceiling, meaning that they keep within their budgets and we keep a tight ship.”Sarah Usher,Finance Manager, Diamond Learning Trust Partnership (MAT)

FMS is a full double-entry, accruals-based accounting package. It supports two-stage period close, recurring and reversing journals and asset management automatically accounts for depreciation. FMS allows the customer flexibility for the Chart of Accounts, either transferring an existing structure that you are familiar with or designing an entirely new one to be imported.

FPS allows academies and MATs to model and explore future multi-year budgets. It integrates with FMS to import staff contracts and staffing commitments. After looking at an unlimited number of scenarios, the chosen academy budget can be transferred into FMS to become the operational budget for the coming financial year.

There is a range of standard reports and the ability to create your own making it easier to manage your day-to-day activities.

The FMS solution includes key reports such as Budget Forecast and Summary Trial Balance enabling Finance Directors and Accountants to prepare EFA Budget Forecast, EFA Accounts Return and statutory accounts for Companies House. The system maintains a detailed audit record satisfying auditor requirements.

Over 1,800academies use FMS, making it the most popular academy finance package.

Capita SIMS, Franklin Court, Priory Business Park, Cardington, Bedford MK44 3JZTel 01234 838080 | Fax 01234 832036 | Email info@capita-sims.co.uk | www.capita-sims.co.uk

Registered office 71 Victoria Street, Westminister, London SQ1H 0XA | Registered in England No. 2299747. Part of Capita plc.

Want to know more about finance for academies?

SIMS 5148 V3 06/14

Telephone: 0800 170 1722

Email: info@capita-sims.co.uk

Web: www.capita-sims.co.uk/academyfinance

Follow us @CapitaSIMS

FMS Accruals accounting package

FRS Enhanced reporting for FMS

FPSMulti-year budgeting for FMS

New FMS MultiView Multi-academy trust

solution for FMS

• Double-entry, comprehensive audit trail

• Supports multiple bank accounts

• Accruals and pre-payments• Supplier and delivery

management• Fund management and

reporting• Asset management and

depreciation• Cash flow management and

reporting• General, purchase and sales

ledgers • Trade electronically

• Send POs as PDFs• Store invoices and

supporting docs• Create and import

supplier catalogues• BACS payment• Comprehensive range of

finance reports• User define reports• View reports on-screen,

printed or output to Excel or PDF

• Create, import, update Chart of Accounts

• Multi-user (unlimited academy site licence)

• Definable user permissions to enable/restrict rights

• Integrated with• SIMS Personnel (for

contract information)• SIMS Dinner Money• Earnie payroll system• Capita HR & Payroll

• Drag ‘n’ drop columns and ledger codes to build reports

• Add/hide ‘nil’ lines and sub-totals etc

• Options for customising report layouts and adding graphs

• Save and clone report templates

• Add and save notes and annotations for future reference

• View reports on-screen, printed or output to Excel or PDF

• Current and planned expenditure is transferred from FMS

• Salary information is transferred from SIMS Personnel

• Explore an unlimited number of future budget scenarios

• Plan multi-year budgets up to 5 years

• Chosen budget is transferred into FMS.

• View reports on-screen, printed or output to Excel or PDF

• Financial account consolidation for multiple academies

• Individual Chart of Account mapping to global structure

• On screen status of ‘period close’ per academy

• On screen indicators of each academy’s financial performance

• Standard and user defined finance reports

• Multi-user (unlimited MAT licence)

• View reports on-screen, printed or output to Excel or PDF

Academies can select the finance modules that best suit their needs. The SIMS finance solution includes: