We provide schools with a broad range of high quality support services including:
- financial support
- all costs relating to postage and general stationery
- all relevant bank charges
- all associated ICT provision
- the assurance that cheques are printed in accordance with the specification of the council’s bankers
In addition, as part of the agreement and at no additional cost, schools also receive all appropriate Schools Information Management System (SIMS) advice on invoices, petty cash and income.
What we offer
Invoicing, Payments and Expenditure Services
- processing of supplier invoices within five working days of receipt (via crossed cheque or BACS transfer), including more urgent processing if required (e.g. to comply with the Late Payment of Commercial Debt [Interest] Act 1998)
- ensuring compliance with VAT, Inland Revenue and CIS legislation
- including payment of statutory amounts to relevant bodies
- checking discount has been taken, where applicable
- dealing with supplier queries before and after payments are made
- provision of foreign currency payments
- stopping, cancellation and replacement of cheques
Payment of invoices centrally at request of your school, chargeable to your budget at a later date, for example:
- early April (before schools have set their budget) in particular examination fees
- school holidays when relevant staff may not be in school
- any occasion of machine malfunction in school when urgent payment required
Payment of invoices centrally where more than one school is affected (for example, shared boiler plant/refuse collection).
- reconciliation of invoices from SIMS to Oracle prior to payment
- assist in the reconciliation of all payment entries and automatic downloading of entries, suitably annotated, to and from schools’ SIMS-FMS records
Procurement Card Services
We can process a range of claims on your behalf including:
- assistance with routine reconciliation
- verification with relevant legislation including VAT
- checking coding
- reconciliation and validation of procurement card expenditure
Income
- petty cash – assistance with routine reconciliation, verification with relevant legislation including VAT and coding checks prior to posting in Oracle.
- income – investigate banking discrepancies and monitor deposits to ensure the bank and school systems reconcile, resolving any associated queries.
- cash collection contract – arrange collections prior to each School Holiday and ad-hoc collections throughout the year for both council and private school funds, resolving any issues such as missed collections, missing cash/cheques etc. with Loomis
- Parent Pay – receive the weekly file from Parent Pay and work with schools and Parent Pay to resolve any queries prior to uploading
- e-returns – train new members of staff on using the ICON e-returns system. Provide subsequent support by processing e-return template coding adjustments, resolving queries and where possible transferring income incorrectly allocated.
Support Service
The support service is available to schools already buying into the creditors SLA. The nature of the support depends upon the school, examples are:
- assistance in processing orders/invoices on FMS
- balancing petty cash claims before submission for re-imbursement
- additional training on FMS
Examples of situations where this type of support might be appropriate include:
- short-term absence by school staff responsible for financial administration
- cover between staff leaving and replacement staff starting
- support for new staff
The support would normally be one-to-one assistance at a visit to the school. All staff have up-to-date DBS disclosures.
Charges for this service cover all costs, including salaries and travelling expenses. Charges will be made centrally, termly in arrears.
Please note: The service is subject to staff availability and we cannot provide long-term support. We cannot provide cover for non-financial issues.