Guidance

Detailed user guide for automating the academies accounts return and draft financial statements

Updated 8 November 2024

Applies to England

1. General information – automating the academies accounts return

This section includes:

1.1 What this guidance covers

This is a detailed guide to assist trusts using the automation process to send data from their financial management system (FMS) to the Department for Education (DfE) for completing the 2023 to 2024  academies accounts return (AR) and draft trust financial statements.

This information may also be useful for trust auditors, although auditors are not currently able to send the automated data themselves.

If you are familiar with the detail of how the automation process works, you can review our Quick automation guide.

1.2 Introduction to automation

DfE has developed automation technology to help reduce the burden of submitting your financial information. This technology enables you to electronically submit your trial balance data directly from your FMS to DfE. This data is used to pre-populate the majority of your AR and the trial balance information needed for the trust’s financial statements.

There are 3 pre-requisites for using automation:

1. The trust has either adopted the academies chart of accounts (CoA) natively or is mapping to it via its FMS software provider – see Guide to adopting the academies chart of accounts
2. The trust’s software provider has developed the automation functionality – see automation availability
3. The trust has assigned and registered a ‘data transfer approver’ role within the trust on DfE Sign-in

1.3 Automation availability

We are working with an increasing number of software providers in the sector to make this technology available to as many trusts as possible over the next few years. Contact your FMS supplier to find out if they can automate your financial data.

FMS software providers that are able to provide automation functionality to trusts are:

• Access
• Bromcom
• Dayta (Sage 200, Sage Intacct for Education)
• ESS (FMS6 and SIMS)
• Hoge 100
• ION (Sage Intacct)
• Iplicit
• IRIS (Version 6 and 7)
• Solutions for Accounting (Sage 200, Sage Intacct for Education)
• Xero for Education (previously provided via Thorne Widgery)

De Novo (Oracle) is currently developing automation functionality for trusts.

Trusts using the academies CoA and automation are able to:

• pre-populate a high percentage of the AR
• make use of the draft financial statements
• partially populate the budget forecast return

If your trust is looking to upgrade its FMS software to take advantage of using the academies CoA and automation, you should review Choosing a trust’s financial management system (FMS).

1.4 Timelines for the availability of online forms

See the table below for the timelines of when trusts can automate their financial data to populate the draft trust financial statements and the AR for the 2023 to 2024 collection period.

1.5 Guidance review date

This guidance is applicable to the automation process for completing the 2023 to 2024 AR only.

The next review of this guidance will be in September 2025.

2. Getting started

2.1 DfE Sign-in registration and roles required

To send data from your FMS, all academy trust users will need to be set up on DfE Sign-in and assigned the relevant responsibility.

2.1.1 DfE Sign-in registration

1. all academy trust users sending data from their FMS need to be assigned a Data Transfer Approver role for their trust
2. a trust approver (previously the IDAMS super user) must assign or approve all requests for the data transfer approver role
3. for new trusts, all users will need to be set up, starting with the trust approver (which should be done at the earliest opportunity)

For further information, see DfE Sign-in.

2.1.2 DfE Sign-in user roles required for automation

Role	Description	Type
Trust approver	Can invite new users to register and allocate roles to already registered users within the DfE Sign-in registration system. This role is administrative and only applicable to the DfE Sign-in registration system.	Mandatory
Data transfer approver	Can electronically submit your trust’s trial balance data directly from your financial management software to DfE	Mandatory for automation

Action for trusts: ensure you set up a data transfer approver on DfE Sign-in otherwise you will not be able to send data from your FMS to the AR.

3. How automation works

This section includes:

If you are familiar with the how the automation process works, you can review our Quick automation guide.

3.1 Automation flowchart

DfE has developed an API which enables you to send data to DfE via your FMS. This flowchart provides a summary of the steps taken during automation.

Draft trust financial statements: the workbook will include the previous year’s data if the trust sent its data via an API in the previous financial year, and it will be the final data set uploaded. You should, however, check for accuracy against your final financial statements in case audit adjustments were not posted to your general ledger before the final data set was uploaded.

3.2 Sending your data

Trusts retain control over when their data is automatically shared with DfE. Data will only be shared with DfE when:

• the data transfer approver, assigned by the trust, chooses to send the trust’s FMS data
• the data is accepted into the online form when a user, designated by the trust, accepts it, as described in Applying submitted data to your AR

In order to send your data to DfE, you should ensure that you have registered for DfE Sign-in and been assigned the data transfer approver role as described in DfE Sign-in registration and roles required.

You must then log into your FMS to send your data to DfE. Contact your supplier for detailed instructions on how to send your data to DfE from your FMS. The process may vary between software types.

The user sending the data will be asked to confirm their username, password and that they are happy for the trust’s financial data to be transferred to DfE. In approving the transfer of data to DfE, the user is authorising DfE to use that data for the purpose of populating the AR form.

3.3 Types of FMS data included in submission

Each supplier has different functionality set up, but your submission could include up to 4 data sets.

Data type	Area of AR populated	Populated for a single academy trust (SAT)	Populated for a multi-academy trust (MAT)
Trust trial balance	Fields within the ‘Statement of financial accounts (SoFA)’, ‘balance sheet assets’, ‘balance sheet liabilities’, ‘balance sheet funds and other disclosures’; and ‘transfers and conversions’.	Yes	Yes
Academies trial balance	The ‘academies’; area of the benchmarking and land and buildings sections.	No	Yes
MAT central services	The ‘MAT central services’; area of the benchmarking and ‘centrally held’; area of the land and buildings section.	No	Yes
Trust counterparty transactions	The ‘counterparty transactions with the academy sector’; area of the counterparty section.	Yes	Yes

See the Academies chart of accounts and automating the accounts return for a more detailed breakdown on each of the above mappings.

3.3.1 The importance of trust status and data types

The status of a MAT or SAT determines what data is sent through the API. If a SAT is setup as a MAT, this results in some duplication of data within the AR once the API upload is accepted into the form.

Therefore, it is important that trusts ensure that their FMS is set up with the correct MAT or SAT status before sending their automated data.

3.3.2 Trading subsidiaries

For those trusts that have a trading subsidiary that is operating as part of the same legal corporate entity as the trust:

• if the accounts for a trading subsidiary are recorded on a separate FMS, then it is currently not possible to include your data within the automation processes, unless trusts journaled all the data from the trading subsidiary to the trust’s main accounting system at the year end. This is because the API can only accept a single data feed into the AR. However, if the FMS software provider for the trading subsidiary has adopted the CoA, the trust could also adopt the CoA on that system so that the information across the 2 systems is consistent and would improve efficiencies, such as mapping data to AR fields and making inter-company journals more transparent
• if the trading subsidiary is simply set up on a separate cost centre on the same FMS, then there will be no problem in automating this data. For the purposes of automation, this trading cost centre data would need to be tagged as ‘matOverview’ or ‘Academies’ by the FMS provider.^{[footnote 1]} Also, if the trading cost centre is specific to one academy only, then it should also be tagged with the local education authority (LEA) establishment number by the FMS provider for automation
• if the trading subsidiary is set up as a separate ‘entity’ on the accounting system, even though it is part of the same corporate legal entity, the trust will need to check with its FMS provider whether this data can be amalgamated with the trust’s main ‘entity’ to automate the data in one upload

3.4 API validations

An API is a set of programming code that enables data transmission between your FMS and DfE. When you choose to send data to DfE in your FMS, your software supplier will call the API. The code in the API will then perform several validations on your FMS data submission and if your data meets the criteria, it will be successfully accepted into DfE’s database. It will be rejected if any of the following reasons occur:

• your trial balance does not balance
• there are non-numerical values
• it contains a number with more than 3 decimal places
• you have sent academy data identifiers that do not match the records that DfE holds for your trust (more information on this can be found in the validating your trust section).

Your FMS supplier understands the validations that will be carried out on the data submitted and where possible will be sending the data to meet these requirements.

3.5 Validating your trust

Your supplier has set up your submission so that trust-level data will include a unique identifier such as your company registration number or trust unique provider identification number (UPIN). Your academy-level data will also be sent with a unique local authority establishment number (LAESTAB) for each of the academies in your trust.

When your data is sent, the API will cross check these identifiers with department records to validate your submission. The submission will be rejected if the trust UPIN or company number is not recognised, if the LAESTAB is not recognised as being associated with that trust or if the person trying to give consent does not have the correct role for that trust.

You can send academy-level data for any number of academies within your trust but the LAESTAB must match our records for all the academies that you send data for or the whole submission will be rejected.

We will send all trusts their individual reference data along with an automation checklist in early November 2024.

Once your data has been successfully submitted via the API, it will be transferred into DfE’s database.

3.6 Applying submitted data to your AR

When you next sign into your AR you will be taken straight to a data uploads page where you will be able to decide what to do with your data. This can only be accessed by users who have been assigned one of the following roles:

• AR trust preparer (previously AR internal preparer in IDAMS)
• AR trust approver (previously AR internal approver in IDAMS)
• external auditor preparer

External auditor approvers are not able to select what happens to the submitted data.

If you are already logged into the AR when you submit the data via your FMS, you will see a ‘Data uploads’ link and a ‘Pending’ tag in the right-hand corner of the screen.

If you select this, you will be taken to the data uploads page where you will see a choice of actions of what to do with the data.

The following information is provided to ensure you recognise the submission:

• Initiated by: this identifies who in your organisation sent the data from your FMS
• Date and time: this identifies when your organisation sent the data from your FMS

You have the following choice of actions available and you must select one to enable you to leave this screen:

• Apply: the data will be used to pre-populate the trial balance cells in your AR. If there is already data in these cells, it will be overwritten by this new data upload. Non-trial balance fields will not be impacted. You will receive a warning message to confirm this before the acceptance is performed. Following an import, page statuses will update and validations will clear or trigger according to the new data. Further validations may trigger as you go on to complete each page
• Reject: the data is deleted and will not pre-populate your AR. If you decide that you should have accepted the upload, you must resubmit the data via your FMS. You will receive a warning message to confirm this before the rejection is performed
• Ignore: the data will not pre-populate your AR but it is saved in the background so that you can return to this screen later to accept or reject it. If you submit more than one set of data without accepting or rejecting it, only the latest submitted data will be available and you will, therefore, lose your previously ignored uploaded data. You can access this ignored data through the ‘Data uploads’ link which is located on the top right-hand side of every screen.

The data uploads page will keep track of your data acceptance and rejection history. You can see this at any time in the ‘Activity history’ section on the bottom right-hand side of the index screen.

4. Data transformation

This section includes:

4.1 Data transformation – AR

The data sent in the FMS submission is formatted to meet the AR requirements. This includes 4 main activities:

1. sub-totalling of CoA codes to AR field level following the mapping described in the Guide to adopting the academies chart of accounts
2. the sub-totalled values are rounded to the nearest £000
3. due to the rounding in step 2, the residual values left after rounding are allocated to certain AR fields throughout the form. These are listed in the table below
4. the signage of the values is flipped on certain account codes, for example your income and liability codes are likely to contain negative values in your FMS but the AR may require you to report them as positive values

Type	Rounding approach	AR field allocated to	AR table
Trial balance	Net all residual values from asset codes	DEB110-A	Other debtors
Trial balance	Net all residual values from liabilities codes	CRD060-A	Other creditors
Trial balance	Net all residual funds codes	RGF080-E	Other gains, losses and transfers
Trial balance	Net all residual values from expenditure codes	OEX010	Other expenditure
Trial balance	Net all residual values from income codes	INC010	Other income
Benchmarking – academies	Net all residual values from academy level expenditure codes	BAE280-A	Other expenditure
Benchmarking – academies	Net all residual values from academy level income codes	BAI080-A	Other income
Benchmarking – central service	Net all residual values from central services expenditure codes	BTE280	Other expenditure
Benchmarking – central service	Net all residual values from central services income codes	BTI080	Other income
Counterparty	Net all residual values from Asset codes relating to counterparty fields	CPD050	Debtors under one year – other debtors
Counterparty	Net all residual values from liabilities codes relating to counterparty fields	CPL050	Liabilities less than one year – other creditors within one year
Counterparty	Net all residual values from expenditure codes relating to counterparty fields	CPE070	Purchase of goods and services
Counterparty	Net all residual values from income codes relating to counterparty fields	CPI100	Other income

Data transformation (AR) – worked examples

Here are 2 worked examples of how data is transformed from what you submit through your FMS to how it is displayed in the AR. There are further examples in the calculated fields section for opening balances and funds.

Example for AR field CAD010

FMS data received:

CoA account	CoA description	Value (£)	AR mapping
612100	SF: Teachers: Wages and salaries	1,754,099.62	CAD010
612200	SF: Teachers: Employers national insurance	189,572.10	CAD010
612300	SF: Teachers: Employers pension contribution	291,189.84	CAD010
615100	SF: Teaching Assistants: Wages and salaries	150,279.51	CAD010
615200	SF: Teaching Assistants: Employers national insurance	9,970.56	CAD010
615300	SF: Teaching Assistants: Employers pension contribution	20,726.34	CAD010
		£2,415,837.97

Transformation steps:

#	Step	Value
1	Sum FMS CoA values to AR field level	£2,415,837.97
2	Round value to nearest 1,000	£2,416
3	Calculate residual value
	i. Divide total FMS value by 1,000	£2,415.84
	ii. Minus rounded value calculated in step 2	£2,416.00
	iii. Residual rounding to be assigned	(£0.16)
	iv. Assign to allocated rounding account	OEX010
4	No signage flip required	£2,416
	Result: CAD010 AR value	£2,416

Example for AR field OTA030 (showing signage flip)

FMS data received:

CoA account	CoA description	Value (£)	AR mapping
530400	IN: Trading Income: Sale of uniforms	(170,056.63)	OTA030
530500	IN: Trading Income: Income from clubs	(51,121.00)	OTA030
530600	IN: Trading Income: Income from music	0.00	OTA030
		(£221,177.63)

Transformation steps:

#	Step	Value
1	Sum FMS CoA values to AR field level	(£221,177.63)
2	Round value to nearest 1,000	(£221)
3	Calculate residual value
	i. Divide total FMS value by 1,000	(£221.18)
	ii. Minus rounded value calculated in step 2	(£221.00)
	iii. Residual rounding to be assigned	(£0.18)
	iv. Assign to allocated rounding account	INC010
4	Apply signage flip	£221
	Result: OTA030 AR value	£221

4.2 Data transformation – draft financial statements

The data transformation of the trust’s FMS into the draft financial statements is a much simpler process:

• values are rounded into £s
• there is no rounding reallocation

Positive and negative balances are displayed as per the trust’s published financial statements.

5. After accepting the FMS submission – AR

This section includes:

5.1 Overview updates

The ‘overview’ section of the AR has 4 tables. All 4 tables must be completed to proceed with the rest of the AR form. You can accept the FMS submission but until you complete all 4 of the tables in the overview section, you will not be able to see your data.

Many of the AR tables, data entry rows and columns, and fields displayed within the AR form are dependent on information provided in the 4 tables. The FMS submission that trusts send will populate certain answers within these tables depending on the data sent.

5.2 Academy information – teaching schools

If an academy school within the trust has teaching school status, it is required to report income and expenditure relating to the teaching school separately.

If a trust has data at academy level in teaching school CoA codes, this will be sent across in its FMS submission, within the academy trial balance dataset. When this data is accepted in the AR, the form will automatically select ‘Yes’ against the teaching school question (ACI050) for the relevant academy, in order to display additional fields relating to teaching schools within the ‘SoFA’ and ‘benchmarking’ sections.

If, however, a trust has data against a teaching school CoA code at trust level and not academy level, for example only within the trust trial balance dataset, then the form will not be able to automatically make this selection. A form user will be required to review the list of academies on the academy information page and select yes to the teaching school question (ACI050) for the relevant academies before the page can be marked as complete. If your trust only contains one academy, then ‘Yes’ will automatically be selected against the relevant teaching school question (ACI050).

All 3 of the above scenarios will lead to the status of the academy information page being reset to in progress after accepting the FMS submission.

5.3 Academy information – transfers and conversions

The trust is required to confirm the status of each academy school within the trust on the academy information page. This can be done by selecting the correct status from the drop-down list which is situated below the ESFA recorded status.

If a trust sends an FMS submission containing data against in-period transfer-in, in-period transfer-out or newly converted member CoA codes at academy level, for example within the academy trial balance dataset, then the form will automatically select the relevant status in the drop-down list for that academy (ACI040). This will display additional fields relating to this type of transfer or conversion within the AR form, as well as activating the ‘transfers and conversions’ section.

If, however, there is data against in-period transfer-in, in-period transfer-out or newly converted member CoA codes at trust level and not academy level, for example within the trust trial balance dataset, the form will not be able to automatically make this selection. A form user will be required to review the list of academies on the academy information page and update the transfer status in line with the data which has been submitted. For example, if the FMS submission contained data for in-period transfer-in and newly converted member, the form user would need to ensure both these statuses are selected in the drop-down list (ACI040) for the relevant academies before the page can be marked as complete.

The above scenarios will lead to the status of the academy information page being reset to in progress after accepting the FMS submission.

If the form user has already completed the academy information section and the data imported from the FMS submission does not contradict the information input, there will be no change to the page status.

Action for trusts: check academies have the correct status.

5.4 Questionnaire

Most trusts will not have disclosures for every table in the return and completing this questionnaire tailors the return to the tables, assets and investment types that are relevant to them.

When an FMS submission is accepted, the system will check if there is any data related to the optional tables which can be made available through a questionnaire selection. If there is, this selection will be automatically chosen on the questionnaire, according to the data sent from the FMS, so that the table is made available and the user can see all values populated in the form. This will override any previous questionnaire responses, and the status of the questionnaire page will be changed from either not started or completed to in progress.

If the user has already completed the questionnaire and the data loaded through the FMS submission does not contradict the information input, then the status of this page will remain as completed.

If you have selected to make a table available in the questionnaire, and there is no data imported for this category, your answer on the questionnaire will not be changed.

Trusts can change the answers to questions at any time before the form is approved. Note that doing so would also remove any associated data in the form, including both data that has been imported through the FMS submission or manually entered.

Trusts may find that certain responses are pre-populated and in a read-only (greyed out) format. This is as a result of the closing balances disclosed in the trust’s previous AR. You will not be able to change the response to these questions.

Action for trusts: review and confirm questionnaire – updating where necessary.

5.5 Calculated fields – opening balances

Opening balances are pre-populated fields using the data submitted as the closing balance in the previous year’s AR. The opening balance values are read-only and cannot be modified.

#	Step	Value
1	Sum CoA values to AR field level	£4,025,277.95
2	Round value to nearest 1,000	£4,025
3	Calculate residual value
	i. Divide total FMS value by 1,000	£4,025.28
	ii. Minus rounded value calculated in step 2	£4,025.00
	iii. Residual rounding to be assigned	£0.28
	iv. Assign to allocated rounding account	DEB110-A
4	No signage flip required	£4,025
	AR pre-populated opening balance in TFC010-A	£4,500
5	Calculate difference between AR and FMS opening balance	(£475)
	Result: TFC020 AR value	(£475)

When an FMS submission is accepted, the pre-populated opening balances figures are deducted from the brought forward figure sent through the FMS and any remaining posted to the relevant adjustments made to opening balance line. As these fields are showing the result of a calculation rather than the imported FMS value, the field-level tracking label will default to ‘Modified’ rather than ‘Automated’.

Below is a worked example showing the data transformation and opening balance calculation.

Example for AR field TFC020-A

FMS data received:

CoA account	CoA description	Value (£)
110100	FA: Freehold Land: Cost brought forward	400,000.00
115100	FA: Freehold Buildings: Cost brought forward	3,625,277.95
		£4,025,277.95

Transformation steps:

#	Step	Value
1	Sum CoA values to AR field level	£4,025,277.95
2	Round value to nearest 1,000	£4,025
3	Calculate residual value
	i. Divide total FMS value by 1,000	£4,025.28
	ii. Minus rounded value calculated in step 2	£4,025.00
	iii. Residual rounding to be assigned	£0.28
	iv. Assign to allocated rounding account	DEB110-A
4	No signage flip required	£4,025
	AR pre-populated opening balance in TFC010-A	£4,500
5	Calculate difference between AR and FMS opening balance	(£475)
	Result: TFC020 AR value	(£475)

5.6 Calculated fields – funds

Within the CoA, the funds trial balance codes represent the total funds balance for the year. When this information is passed from the FMS to DfE to be populated in the AR, a calculation is required. The AR already pre-populates the opening balance with the closing balance submitted in the previous year’s AR. As the funds balance contains the opening balance within its figure, the AR form deducts this opening balance from the funds balance and the remainder is added into the ‘Other gains, losses and transfers’ line in the funds table.

As the trial balance codes do not provide further detail, you will need to go into the form and manually modify the funds tables to provide the breakdown of the fund balance.

In addition, you may also need to amend the following fields in the benchmarking section, as BOB030 (Benchmarking totals > Closing balance) is auto-populated with the value mapped from CoA account codes 420100 and 460100:

• BAB030 – Benchmarking academies > Closing balance (Restricted and Unrestricted Funds) for each applicable academy
• BTB030 – Benchmarking MAT central services > Closing balance (Restricted and Unrestricted Funds)

Using the benchmarking field guidance in the AR form, overwrite the automated value in line with the adjustments made to the ‘Funds’ tables for restricted and unrestricted funds.

Worked example for AR field RFF080-A

If the following data was submitted at CoA level through an automated FMS submission:

CoA account	CoA description	Value (£)
430100	FD: Restricted Fixed Asset Fund: Fund balance	70,000.00
470100	FD: Revaluation Fund: Fund balance	30,000.00
		100,000.00

Transformation steps:

#	Step	Value
1	Sum CoA values to AR field level	£100,000.00
2	Round value to nearest 1,000	£100
3	Calculate residual value
	i. Divide total FMS value by 1,000	£100
	ii. Minus rounded value calculated in step 2	£100
	iii. Residual rounding to be assigned	£0
4	No signage flip required	£100
	AR pre-populated opening balance in RFF010-A:	£10
5	Calculate difference between AR opening balance and FMS closing balance	£90
	Result: RFF080-A AR value	£90

When it is first imported, the table would look as illustrated in table 1. You would then manually allocate these as appropriate so the form may look more like table 2:

#	Step	Value
1	Sum CoA values to AR field level	£967,724.08
2	Round value to nearest 1000	£968
3	Calculate residual value
	i. Divide total FMS value by 1,000	£967.72
	ii. Minus rounded value calculated in step 2	£968.00
	iii. Residual rounding to be assigned	(£0.28)
	iv. Assign to allocated rounding account	RGF080-E
4	No signage flip required	£968
	AR pre-populated opening balance in RGF010-A:	£1,000
5	Calculate difference between AR opening balance and FMS closing balance	(£32)
	Result: RGF080-A AR value	(£32)

Worked example for AR field RGF080-A

FMS data received:

CoA account	CoA description	Value (£)
420100	FD: Restricted General Fund: Fund Balance	967,724.08

Transformation steps:

When it is first imported, the table would look as illustrated in table 3. You would then manually allocate these as appropriate so the form may look more like table 4:

AR field description (A)	Initial FMS coding of COVID income in CoA – (B)	AR field mapped to via automation API – (C)	Bench-marking field mapped to via automation API – (D)	AR field to manually reallocate grant to – (E)	Benchmarking field to manually reallocate grant to – (F)
Other DfE COVID-19 funding	510950	RGR150	BAI010-A	RGR151	BAI061
Catch-up premium	510950	RGR150	BAI010-A	RGR152	BAI061
Recovery premium	510950	RGR150	BAI010-A	RGR153	BAI061
Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme Grant	520300	ORG040	BTI060 / BAI060-A	ORG041	BTI061/BAI061
Other COVID-19 funding (non-DfE)	520300	ORG040	BTI060 / BAI060-A	ORG042	BTI061/BAI061

CoA codes affecting gross transfer between funds will map into the gross transfer between funds line and affect the closing balance.

Action for trusts: update funds table pages.

5.7 Manual allocation of COVID grant funding

There are no CoA codes available to post COVID-19 funding directly to, and as noted in the ‘Guide to using the academies chart of accounts’ the trust should allocate COVID-related income to the following account codes (columns B,C and D), then manually reallocate the balances relating to COVID funding (columns A,E and F), as follows:

Table configuration:

• columns B to D – shows CoA income allocation and mapping
• columns E and F – shows action for trusts to manually amend field value

Action for trusts: manually re-allocate grant received for COVID-19-related expenditure as per table above.

5.8 Manual allocation of pension surplus deemed irrecoverable

A new field (DBO061) has been added to the AR for 2023 to 2024 for ‘Pension surplus deemed irrecoverable’, but there is no account available in the academies CoA 2023 to 2024 financial year.

Therefore, for this year, you should use account code 370350 ‘Actuarial gain/loss – experience’ which maps to DBO090 ‘Actuarial (loss)/gain – experience gain/losses’ in the AR, then reallocate the appropriate amount within the AR form to DBO061.

A new code is available for 2024 to 2025 (370370), which maps directly to DBO061 ‘Pension surplus deemed irrecoverable’.

5.9 Non-automated data

Data can only be automated if it is held within your FMS and therefore part of the trial balance. There are several non-trial balance CoA codes, which all start with 9. These will not be sent across from your FMS and so fields within the AR, which relate to non-trial balance data, will have to be completed manually.

There are several tables within the AR, which comprise of only non-trial balance information. These tables are listed below and where applicable, will need to be completed manually:

• academy transfer in
• academy transfer out
• agency arrangements
• amortisation periods
• average staff numbers (full-time equivalent (FTE))
• capital commitments – contracted
• capitalisation thresholds
• contingent liabilities
• COVID revenue grants (see section 5.7)
• depreciation periods
• exit schemes
• finance lease commitments
• fixed-asset financing
• fund analysis
• intangible fixed assets – asset financing
• loan analysis
• loss of office payments
• losses and special payments
• newly converted member
• non-cancellable contracts
• off payroll arrangements
• operating lease commitments
• pension breakdown
• pension – employer contribution
• pension life expectancy
• pension major assumptions
• pension plan assets
• pension sensitivity
• pension surplus deemed irrecoverable (see section 5.8)
• permanent employees – gender analysis
• private finance initiative (PFI) commitments
• provisions (ageing)
• related party transactions
• staff costs
• staff emoluments
• staff sickness – days lost
• trustee remuneration

Cells which must be completed manually are called non-automated cells. Sending data from your FMS will have no impact on these non-automated cells – as in, where you have manually entered data into the non-automated cells and then need to import or re-import data from your FMS, these non-automated (manual) cells will not be overwritten.

Action for trusts: manually update non-trial balance cells.

5.10 Checking and tracking your data

Once you have accepted your data upload into your AR, you will need to check it is correct. To easily identify which cells have been pre-populated from your finance system (rather than completed manually), these cells have been tagged with ‘Automated’ underneath them. If you manually change the data by over-typing in the field the tag will change to ‘Modified’ and the cell outline colour will change from grey to blue. If you decide the original pre-populated value was correct and you change it back, the tag will revert to ‘Automated’ and the cell outline colour will be grey once again.

Where fields are calculated using data provided from your FMS, such as opening balances or funds, if the calculation results in a different number to the one sent from your FMS, the field will be tagged with the ‘Modified’ label.

This field-level tracking functionality will be turned on as a default when you accept data into your form. You can turn it off and on using the display tracking button on the right-hand side of the index screen. This button, as well as the field-level tracking, is only visible after you have accepted an FMS submission and can then only be seen by those with the AR trust preparer, external auditor preparer or AR trust approver roles.

5.11 Report showing mapping between FMS and AR

The FMS mapping report can be found on the right-hand side of the index screen once you have accepted a data upload. This report will not be visible before this point. This report shows which academies’ CoA codes have been fed from your FMS into each AR fields. You will also be able to see the original values submitted from your FMS and how they have been transformed to meet the AR requirements per the data transformation steps.

5.12 Amending your data

If you need to make amendments to the pre-populated cells, you can either:

• change the data manually by deleting the automated figure and typing in your own. Note that this will change the field-level tracking tag for those cells from ‘Automated’ to ‘Modified’
• make the adjustments in your finance systems and upload a new set of trial balance data. Note this will overwrite all automated cells including those you may have previously changed manually (manual cells, those that cannot be automated, will be unaffected)

For SATs, where possible, the form will use data submitted in the SoFA to auto-populate cells in the benchmarking section. This will be read-only data and you will not be able to amend these fields.

5.13 Cut-off for data uploads

Uploads from your finance system will only be possible up to the point the form is sent through the approval cycle. After this, no more uploads will be accepted, even if the form is sent back to preparer stage.

All changes will thereafter need to be made manually.

5.14 AR review, approval and submission

Once you have completed your return, checked your data and confirmed this by selecting mark as complete on each page and cleared any validations, you should follow the normal approval process, submitting the AR to your trust and auditor approvers. More information on this can be found in Academies accounts return: guide to using the online form.

Action for trusts: check your data and confirm using the mark as complete button on each page and send for approval.

5.15 Checklist post-automation

Once data has been accepted into the AR form:

• Overview – check each academy has the correct status for teaching schools and transfers on the academy information page
• Overview – review and confirm questionnaire responses
• SoFA > Revenue grants – manually re-allocate funds from RGR150 and ORG040 as directed in Manual allocation of COVID grant funding
• Balance sheet funds and other disclosures > Pension disclosure – present value – manually re-allocate funds from DB0090 to DBO061 as directed in Manual allocation of pension surplus deemed irrecoverable
• Balance sheet funds and other disclosures – update funds table pages
• Non-trial balance fields – manually update non-trial balance fields throughout the form

Check all your data and confirm using the mark as complete button on each page before sending for approval.

6. After accepting the FMS submission – draft financial statements

This section includes:

6.1 Data upload and acceptance processes

  Trusts use the same process of uploading and accepting data into the AR form and should refer to guidance in How automation works. 

The differences for draft financial statements between this guidance and the AR guidance are: 

• the AR form for will now be live by 5 November 2024. The submission deadline remains unchanged at 28 January 2025
• the overview section of the AR form does not need to be completed to use the financial statements report

6.2 Data transformation

Trusts can generate their draft financial statements by selecting the ‘Draft trust financial statements’ link, which is located in the right-hand menu of the index page of the AR and is highlighted with a red box in the image below. When selected, this link displays options for the user to download the data into an Excel or PDF file.

6.3 Draft trust financial statements workbook

The workbook uses the trust’s automated data to produce draft financial statements in the Coketown format. An ‘Instructions’ tab has been included at the beginning of the workbook to aid with understanding the workbook.

6.3.1 Workbook data population

The workbook can be updated with new data by uploading in a new version of the trust’s FMS upload file to the AR form. It will populate this template and be ready to download. There is no need to accept the data into the AR form first.

Each new automated data submission generates a new ‘Draft trust financial statements’ workbook. Older versions will not be retained. If you wish to keep older versions, these will need to be downloaded and stored locally.

6.3.2 Workbook navigation

The ‘Note names’ tab enables easier navigation and the user can move around the workbook in the following ways:

• each note is hyperlinked and the user can navigate to them easily from the ‘Notes name’ tab
• alternatively, the user can right-click on the arrows found in the bottom left-hand corner of the workbook and select the appropriate tab from the list
• links are also available to the notes from the relevant references on the primary statements
• the user can also navigate back to the ‘Notes name’ tab from any of the notes by selecting the note name in the top-left cell (cell A1)
• the user can navigate to the relevant tabs directly from the B/S, SoFA, and CF tabs by selecting the note number, found in column C ‘B/S’ tab or column B (CF and SoFA tab)

The image below highlights the note numbers that can be selected to navigate to other tabs within the document.

6.3.3 The ‘Note names’ tab

The ‘Note names’ tab can be used to alter the note numbering dynamically by deleting any number. An example is shown below where you may wish to delete note 7 (expenditure).

6.3.4 The ‘Mapping’ tab

The ‘Mapping’ tab shows the downloaded CoA data from the trust’s FMS data upload. This shows how the account codes map to the draft trust financial statements workbook and the AR.

Selecting the ‘+’ above the stated columns unhides the relevant sections for you to view.

All cells can be overwritten but many are formula driven. If you change them, the formulas may no longer work. Where data is not available from the automated feed, you can manually type information in. We suggest adding or subtracting from existing formulas rather than overwriting where this is necessary. If you find there are errors in the mapping, feed this back via Finance.API@education.gov.uk so we can improve the workbook.

Regarding account codes:

• if your trust has added its own account codes, these will be rolled up to DfE’s account code
• if an account code is being used which is currently not in our CoA, for example, the trust has used a code added to the following version of the academies CoA, then it must be added manually
• if there are any cases where an account code is missing from the current collection periods academies CoA, feed this back to us via Finance.API@education.gov.uk

6.3.5 Previous year’s data

The previous year’s data will be completed if the trust sent automated data in the previous financial year, using the last submission sent.

You should be mindful that if adjustments were actioned in your trial balance data after the point that your final automated data submission was sent to the AR, then they will also not be reflected in the previous year’s data and the trust would need to adjust values accordingly. There is also the potential that audit adjustment made to your financial statements and AR were not actioned in your trial balance.

If your trust did not send automated data in the previous year, you can add it manually. We suggest adding into the ‘Mappings’ tab, so that it pre-populates the statements for you.

6.4 Workbook data types

The workbook will need to be reviewed and updated with any changes needed for pre-populated data and also for non-trial balance data so that the trust has a full data set for the draft financial statements.

The table below describes the action required in different tabs of the workbook to provide the trust with a full set of financial statements data.

Tab colour	Trial balance type	Action
Green	Trial balance driven	All fields in the tab will be completed by automated feed (data dependant) and manual input is only required if the user wishes to update the pre-populated data
Amber	Partially trial balance driven	Some fields in the tab will require manual input
Red	Non-trial balance information	All fields in the tab will require manual input

7. Further help and information

Support category	Support available and where to find it
Further information on completing the AR	Academies accounts return 2022 to 2023: guide to completing the online form, section 1.5 Further help and information.
Academies chart of accounts	Trusts should use the 2023 to 2024 version to complete their trusts financial returns for 2023 to 2024, which can be found on Academies chart of accounts and automating the accounts return.
Pre-automation support: preparing your data for automation	1-2-1 session for trusts and their auditors if they have not used automation before. If you are interested, you should complete the automation 1-2-1 slots 2024 form. A checklist is available in the Quick automation guide. We are also sending trusts their individual reference data for automation along with the checklist in early November. Many FMS providers offer ‘How to’ guides and videos in their help centres on preparing your data for automation in your finance software. Your FMS provider may deliver joint training sessions with DfE to show the end-to-end automation process.
Post-automation information: once data has been accepted into the AR form	For automation webinars, see our DfE academies CoA collection on Eventbrite and book onto a session. This checklist is available in the Quick automation guide. The checklist can also be found in AR review, approval and submission.
Help with automation queries	Approach your FMS provider help desk in the first instance if the query relates to sending your data to DfE. For queries after your data has been accepted into the AR form and not addressed by our guidance, you should contact the customer help portal and add reference ‘Automation’ and provide an explanation of the issue and an accompanying screenshot, where possible. For urgent queries, you should contact us on Finance.API@education.gov.uk. For automation dial-in sessions, see our DfE academies CoA collection on Eventbrite and book onto our Q&A sessions.
Help with academies CoA queries	For automation dial-in sessions, see our DfE academies CoA collection on Eventbrite and book onto our Q&A sessions. Any questions not addressed in the above tools and guidance should be addressed to the customer help portal and add reference ‘Academies chart of accounts’ and provide an explanation of the issue and an accompanying screenshot, where possible. Trusts that are members of the FD Forum as also able to contact us on the Academies CoA channel.
For more information about FMS software	See Choosing a trust’s financial management system (FMS). We will also be to running short webinars on choosing an FMS; see our DfE academies CoA collection on Eventbrite.

1. If the trust is a MAT, it is up to the trust to decide where to report the trading organisation on the benchmarking. It should be included within the relevant academy if the trading is solely related to that academy. To test this, consider if the trading subsidiary would also move if the academy were to move to another trust. However, if the trading organisation applies to 2 or more academies within the trust, it should be allocated to MAT central services. ↩