Here’s an overview of the updates we’ve made to Access Education Budgets in 2024

#1 New reforecasting capabilities

For MATs and LA maintained schools

Make real-time budget adjustments from a single, convenient view

With this new budget adjustment feature, users can monitor their budget's progress throughout the year and make necessary adjustments based on anticipated outcomes, end-of-year projections, and variances.

Previously, users had to analyse data in the ‘Snapshot’ view, export it, decide on adjustments, and then manually update budget lines in the scenario.

This manual and time-consuming process has now been eliminated, so there’s no need for external analysis tools, reducing the time it takes to make informed budget adjustments.

You can learn more about this specific update by reading – Enhancing Budget Management: Introducing Budget Monitoring Snapshots – Budget Adjustments.

You can also access our on-demand webinar to see this feature in action – Make budget adjustments and reforecast in minutes!

Central reporting views for income and expenditure… and staff details

Primarily designed for MATs, this update enhances your ability to analyse your Trust's financial health by providing a centralised view of your budget data. It combines income, expenditure, and staffing budget information, offering a consolidated view from individual schools to the Trust level. Additionally, you can customise the data displayed to focus on the most relevant budget information for your needs.

Simplify scenario reporting with multiple publish types

With this update, you can speed up the budget reporting process for each school. Now, you can define categories for publishing, enabling you to easily share multiple scenarios within your central reporting system. This enhancement saves time when setting up and configuring budget data reports, particularly for schools with diverse financial structures. Additionally, the ability to switch between publish types simplifies reporting on various scenarios, further enhancing efficiency and saving time.

#2 Optional updates to specific budget scenarios

For MATs and LA maintained schools

This update gives you more control over your budget scenarios. You can now choose which scenarios receive optional updates, such as national data changes or updates to key budget planning data from your Trust. This allows you to:

• Maintain historical data: Keep older scenarios intact for reference.
• Model specific situations: Preserve scenarios that reflect unique conditions unaffected by the update.

This flexibility ensures your budget scenarios remain accurate and relevant to your specific needs.

#3 View a history of updates applied to budget scenarios

For MATs and LA maintained schools

Keeping track of changes to your budget scenarios can be stressful. This new feature provides a clear record of all updates, allowing you to see:

• Who made the update and when it was published.
• The status of the update (accepted or declined) and by whom.

This detailed history ensures complete transparency in your budgeting process and eliminates the need to contact support to track down missing updates.

#4 Centralised planning and reporting

For MATs

In January, we introduced Access Central Budgets, a functionality that allows MATs to achieve centralisation across their trust. With this enhancement, you can easily see, update, and manage things like Pay Scales from one central place. No more doing the same tasks over and over for each trust site on the platform. This means you get a complete picture of your trust's budgeting needs and requirements, saving you time and energy.

Access Central budgets delivers three big benefits:

1. Real-time data. With Central Budgets, data moves seamlessly between trusts and individual academies, cutting down on human errors.
2. A clear view at both Trust and Academy levels. This means you have a single, reliable source for setting up budgets and planning. Plus, you can dive deep into budget scenarios for a thorough understanding.
3. Better decision-making tools. The 'Publish Type' feature lets you report on multiple scenarios using reports and dashboards. You can even customise these reports to match the specific needs of different stakeholders.

To learn more about Access Central Budgets, watch our 2 minute overview video: Central budgets for MATs resources (theaccessgroup.com)

To learn more about the benefits of centralisation, read our latest article – Five key benefits of centralisation for Multi-Academy Trusts.

#5 Publish control enhancements

For MATs

Publish updates to specific establishments within your trust

Central Budgets now allows you to publish updates to specific schools within your Trust. This means:

• Greater Control: You decide exactly which data updates reach each academy.
• Increased Flexibility: Need to update pay scales for just a few schools? No problem! This feature lets you target specific establishments for updates, ensuring only relevant data reaches the right people.

Extended version history

Central Budgets now offers a more detailed "version history" page. This allows you to see:

• The status of each update (accepted or declined) at each school within your Trust.
• Who took action on the update and when.

With a comprehensive history of all changes, you can easily track updates and maintain complete transparency in your budgeting process.

#6 Central account coding

For MATs

This update to Central Budgets simplifies account code management for Multi-Academy Trusts using:

• Access Education Finance
• 3rd party financial management systems, where an Excel import is used to update account codes

Previously, updating account code structures required changes at each individual school. This new feature allows you to:

• Make updates centrally: Update account codes for all schools within your Trust from a single location.
• Save time and effort: Eliminate the need to navigate to each school separately.

That’s a wrap on our 2024 updates for Access Education Budgets

And there you have it: All the updates we’ve made so far in 2024! As we mentioned, we’re committed to listening to feedback and evolving with the ever-changing educational landscape. Above all else, we want to ensure you get the cutting edge in education technology.

Ready to see these powerful features in action? Schedule a free, no-obligation product tour of Education Budgets today. Simply fill out the form on this page and an expert will be in touch.