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Access Education Budgets
School budgeting software
Designed exclusively for the education sector. Boss your budgets, seamlessly.
School budgeting software helps you create accurate, balanced school budgets and forecasts for up to five years, quickly model the impact of changes and produce powerful reports for even more robust planning and management. And, because all our software is delivered through our cloud-based platform, Access Evo Workspace, all your Access software works together for optimal efficiency, productivity, and more informed decisions.
8,500+ business professionals trust our budgeting software for schools
Why choose our school budget software
We truly believe that software can save you money and we support more than 9,000 schools across 42 local authorities to help them do just that. Our software takes care of the admin burden, increases efficiencies and tracks the income and expenditure throughout your school.
School specific
Designed for schools, our easy-to-use software makes it easy for non-finance staff as well as school finance professionals to manage budgets.
Secure and cloud-based
100% cloud-based with secure access through Access Evo Workspace, anytime, anywhere.
5-year forecasting
Forecast and plan your school budget for up to 5 years, increasing your visibility so your school can avoid deficits and track spending. Tweak as needed from the ‘snapshot’ view, avoiding manual data analysis and entry.
Scenario planning
Model the financial impact of multiple scenarios such as changes in staff, pay, pupils, income, expenditure and more. This is now even easier with our latest budget forecasting functionality, allowing you to make changes within the ‘snapshot’ view.
Powerful reporting
Produce and view powerful reports, including income and expenditure, monthly staffing profile and pupil reports all in real-time.
DfE & ESFA reports
Our Governor report combines your budget forecast with actual income and expenditure commitments, while our ESFA report helps academies submit their budget forecast returns.
Salary modelling
Understand the impact of your school’s biggest cost to estimate your end of year outturn and plan your school budget. Easily model and monitor changes to staff costs and benefit from automatic payroll calculations.
Income & expenditure
Track, manage and report on all your school’s income and expenditure to ensure your budget stays on track.
Reforecasting feature now available in the Snapshot view
Revolutionise budget management with direct adjustments, eliminating manual updates
Now you can track your budget year-round, tweaking it as needed - based on expected outcomes, end-of-year projections, and variances, all from one convenient view.
Bid farewell to manual data analysis and entry, and welcome faster decision-making, time savings, and enhanced data quality.
COMING SOON! Integrated Curriculum and Financial Planning (ICFP)
Access Education Curriculum is about to become even more powerful. We’re launching a new Integrated Curriculum and Financial Planning (ICFP) feature designed to transform how schools plan and manage their curriculum and finances.
With this upcoming functionality, schools will be able to:
- Seamlessly link curriculum planning with financial budgeting, offering a clear view of affordability and resource allocation.
- Model different curriculum and staffing scenarios with long-term forecasts of up to 5 years.
- Make data-driven decisions that ensure both high educational standards and financial sustainability.
The ICFP update will integrate directly into our existing Access Education Curriculum platform, helping schools, academies, and trusts take control of their curriculum planning like never before.
Find out more about how our school budgeting software can save you money
Calculate, plan and model staff costs
Your biggest cost is your staff so ensuring your numbers are accurate and can easily be adapted to suit any changes in your school is crucial
Access Education Budgets has a number of key features, including:
Quick salary calculator - Calculate the full cost of employing a new member of staff, compare costs for different staff, and calculate the impact of pay adjustments with our quick salary calculator.
Automatic payroll calculations - Built-in functionality automatically takes account of the latest National Insurance rates and threshold values, inflation factors, and automatic in-year updates for all DfE, ESFA and National Insurance requirements.
Staff costs - Nationally applied staffing costs and adjustments are calculated for you and automatically take into account multiple contracts, pay scales, pensions and allowances.
Payroll reconciliation - By importing your monthly payroll file you can automatically reconcile expected and actual monthly payments and see an up-to-date view of cost-versus-budget variances against critical fields such as total pay, pension payments and National Insurance.
Scenario planning and 5-year forecasting with our school budgeting software
Create precise 5-year budgets and forecasts with school-specific settings
Our system calculates staff costs, considering contracts, scales, FTE hours, pensions, and allowances.
Easily model 'What if?' scenarios for staff, pay, pupil numbers, income, or expenses, empowering you to craft effective short, medium, and long-term plans. This saves time with simplified decision-making for short, medium, and long-term plans.
Plus, utilise our latest budget adjustment feature for real-time modifications based on evolving variables.
Generate comprehensive reports and returns
An extensive reporting suite allows you to quickly generate customisable, easy-to-understand reports in a variety of formats, including:
- The consistent financial reporting (CFR) framework
- Income and expenditure
- Monthly staffing profile and pupil reports
- Payroll reconciliation
- A comprehensive budget dashboard
The DfE compliant Governor report combines your budget forecast with actual income and expenditure commitments and presents data at the highest level or down to individual ledger codes.
Budgeting software for schools integrations
Easily transfer data between your budgeting, accounting, HR and MIS software to monitor real-time spending against your original and current budget. This can not only save you time but it can save you money too.
Access Education Finance integration
Seamless integration with Access Education Finance software means schools can easily transfer data between their budgeting and accounting software to monitor real-time spending against their original and current budget.
Third-party finance integration
Integration with third-party financial management systems such as PS Financials, Sage, Civica, SIMS Financial Management System and more through Access Education Links, as well as SIMS Personnel 7.
Access Education People & Payroll integration
Links to Access Education People & Payroll software to ensure any updates made in your HR system then update in your budgeting tool.
Access Education Curriculum & Access Education SEND integration
Integrated with our curriculum planning software, Access Education Curriculum and our SEND funding software, Access Education SEND. This integration allows schools to accurately model different curriculum and staffing scenarios and make financially viable decisions in the short-, medium- and long term.
Coming soon: We’re excited to announce that our new Integrated Curriculum and Financial Planning (ICFP) functionality will soon be available. This enhancement will further streamline planning by linking curriculum and financial data, offering powerful insights to help schools balance educational outcomes with financial sustainability for the next 3-5 years.
Partners
Partnered with school management information systems such as Arbor and integrated with SIMS.
Why schools love our budgeting software
Access Education Budgets has transformed the day-to-day running of the finance department
The system is particularly user friendly for non-finance staff. Teachers can keep track of their spend versus budget from the beach during the summer holidays, should they wish!
Integrated Finance with Budgets provides me with a brilliant overview of the school’s finances
It helps me quickly identify any worrying trends or oversights that need attention. As well as preventing any costly errors, it also ensures we can allocate resources in the best possible manner - ensuring every pupil gets the education they deserve.
With our new system we can produce easily-accessible reports and budget projections
The system has also removed the need to produce hard copy orders, therefore reducing our paper consumption, helping us move towards our aim of becoming paperless and, of course, saving money.
More than just great school budgeting software
We are dedicated to providing our customers with award-winning implementation and support to help them get the most out of their software.
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DanniMarie Rutherford provided some…
DanniMarie Rutherford provided some great one to one training and tailored the training to the organisation and the level of support required SHe fol…
We have just implemented the Access Payroll System
We have just implemented the Access Payroll System as part of our ongoing move to using the Access Education portfolio of systems to run our schools.…
Danni Rutherford was extremely helpful
Danni Rutherford was extremely helpful, her vocal communication was precise and very clear. I left the training with a better understanding of the bu…
Nicola has been extremely helpful and…
Nicola has been extremely helpful and accommodating in working around some specific requirements and availability. The process so far has been really…
Quick support response
Was experiencing some frustrating delays and no response to queries. Danni Rutherford was introduced to us by a new person joining our LA support te…
We were struggling to understand the implications of transitioning the MAT to one bank account on Access Finance.
We were struggling to understand the implications of moving to a central bank account. The technical side was explained very clearly but we had more …
How Access Finance can work for GAG Pooling
Our Trust will be GAG pooling and I wanted to know if and how Access Finance & Budgets could adapt to this. Dave Young listened to what I wanted to …
Education budgeting resources
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Access Education Budgets product enhancements 2024
We are thrilled to announce a series of exciting upgrades to our popular budgeting software. Discover how these enhancements can make a tangible difference in your financial planning and management.
02
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Planning and forecasting your school budget effectively
This guide takes you through...
- Key stages of the school budget preparation process
- Gives you practical advice for better planning
- Provides hints and tips for more accurate forecasting
03
08
Your tender document cheat code
Procuring operational education software but don’t know where to begin? In this guide, we cover everything you need to create the perfect tender document.
04
08
Budget deficits - A guide to avoidance and recovery
Our guide looks at:
- The importance of planning and most common budgeting mistakes
- Key tips for budgeting your staffing costs
- Key recruitment tips
- Keeping costs under control and what budgeting tools are available to help
05
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Introducing Budget Monitoring Snapshots – Budget Adjustments
This press release covers:
- About Access Education Budgets
- Evolution of our snapshot functionality
- New budget adjustments: what is it? How does it benefit you?
- What else is planned for development
06
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On-demand webinar: Benefits of integrated Budgets & Finance
A webinar for schools and local authorities.
Watch the webinar to:
- Discover what’s ahead for your Budgets software - roadmap and plans for Access Education Budgets
- Learn about how to increase your school’s operational efficiency with integrated Finance & Budgets – Short demo
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Best practices for school budget planning
The positive impact behind a comprehensive, robust budgeting process can be financial, reputational and educationally beneficial. Schools and trusts that have control over their budgeting process can focus on wider school objectives around teaching, attainment and student wellbeing.
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Curriculum-based financial planning
Funding is becoming tighter, and finances are being squeezed. You’re expected to do more with the same – or even less. With staffing costs making up around 80% of an average school’s expenditure, balancing the budget while focusing on a broad and balanced curriculum is an ongoing challenge.
School budgeting software FAQs
What is school budgeting software?
School budgeting software is designed to help schools, academies and Multi-Academy Trusts accurately forecast and plan for future scenarios. By giving schools more visibility over their finances, school budgeting software can help schools to foresee and avoid financial deficits while keeping track of funding. Our school budgeting software helps over 9,000 schools across the UK do this and more.
What is the purpose of budgeting software for schools?
The purpose of school budgeting software is to help increase financial visibility and control in schools, academies and Multi-Academy Trusts. By giving schools this overview of their finances, the school budgeting software helps them to foresee and avoid potential financial deficits while keeping track of their funding. Our school budgeting software helps over 9,000 schools across the UK do this and more.
Solutions created by educators, for educators
At Access Education, we believe in simplicity. Our suite of integrated solutions is designed to seamlessly work together, creating a unified experience that transforms how you manage your school or trust.
- Financial Management: Optimise budgeting and financial management with real-time insights and simplified reporting.
- People Management: Manage recruitment, payroll, and staff well-being effortlessly.
- Parental Engagement: Consolidate communications and administrative tasks into one intuitive system.
- Curriculum & Assessment: Enrich learning with Access GCSEPod and Key Stage 3 resources, offering comprehensive content and insights.
Explore our full educational software solutions
Experience effortless integration, enhanced efficiency, and a unified user experience. Our solutions work together to simplify your processes, so you can focus on what truly matters: delivering exceptional education.
