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10 September 2019
By Leanne Parker

Schools Financials Services Newsletter

MAKING VAT DIGITAL

All academies and academy trusts with Revenue (excluding funding) in excess of £85,000 will need to be VAT registered and send their return to HRMC directly.  Academies with less then £85,000, who are not VAT registered, should use the VAT126 return produced from FMS6.

Kent Schools using FMS6 who are still under Local Authority Governance should continue to use the VAT 4 Schools System.  Schools Financial Services will update schools if and when this process changes.

CORPORATE CARD E-LEARNING

The Corporate Card e-learning course is now active.

The course will only take about 45 minutes to complete and is a very good insight as to why it would benefit schools to apply for a card as well as take you through step by step stages on:

  • What Corporate Cards are
  • How to obtain and make changes
  • Financial Controls
  • Accounting processes on FMS6

Please visit:

E-Learning CPD Online

SCHOOL CENSUS GUIDE IMPROVEMENTS

The Department for Education (DfE) have recently been working to improve the school census guide following feedback from schools and local authorities.  The 2019 to 2020 academic year guide is now a web based manual, with information relating to the Autumn 2019 census, which has many benefits such as:

  • important information presented first
  • clearer content 
  • search function 
  • data items listed by school type 

For any queries relating to the school census or the manual, please use the DFE data collections service request form.

FINANCIAL CONTROLS UPDATE

Key areas to note:

  • Section 1.6  Bank mandate signatures (updated July 2019)
  • Section 2.2  Monitoring report review (updated July 2019)
  • Section 4.6  Removal of reference to SIC, addition of SFVS notes (updated July 2019)
  • Section 7.6  Corporate Cards (updated Sept 2019)
  • Section 9.2  Time frame for checking of Payroll reports (updated July 2019)

Please refer to KELSI for full details.

Remember if you want to know when the Newsletter is available each month, subscribe via The Education People website.

IN THIS ISSUE

  • Making VAT digital
  • Corporate Card e-learning
  • NatWest Corporate Bank Account
  • Finance Information Groups
  • New academies chart of accounts
  • update to guidance on the teachers pension employer contribution grant

NATWEST CORPORATE BANK ACCOUNT

Some Kent schools may have received a letter in July regarding increased security when using Bankline from September.  This has now been delayed until 2020.  Further details regarding this will be sent next year.

FINANCE INFORMATION GROUPS

Places are still available on the Finance Information Groups on the following dates:

  • 14 Oct - Cornwallis Suite - Maidstone
  • 15 Oct - The Orchards Event Venue - West Malling
  • 17 Oct - Singleton Environment  Centre - Ashford
  • 18 Oct - Spitfire Ground -Canterbury

Please book your place via CPD Online.

USEFUL INFORMATION

  • 6 month returns are due in 18 Oct
  • It is always useful to a do a healthcheck before your 6 month monitoring
  • School Census 3 Oct 2019

UPDATE TO GUIDANCE ON THE TEACHERS PENSION EMPLOYER CONTRIBUTION GRANT

The Department for Education (DfE) has updated the teachers pension employer contribution grant methodology, published in April this year.

The update confirms that Supplementary Fund applications will be based on schools’ actual pension costs for November 2019.

In October, they will publish school-level grant allocations and announce details of the Supplementary Fund, including how schools can apply.