College accounts direction
Guidance on preparing and submitting annual report and financial statements (accounts) to the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA).
Applies to England
Documents
Details
The guidance and requirements in the college accounts direction do not apply to specialist further education (FE) colleges funded by ESFA as ‘Special post 16 institutions’ (SPIs) which are often described as FE colleges.
College accounts direction for the year 2023 to 2024
The college accounts direction for the year 2023 to 2024 sets out ESFA’s financial reporting requirements for:
- further education colleges
- sixth form colleges
- designated institutions established or designated under the provisions of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992
The updates made to the college accounts direction since last year are captured at the beginning of this new edition.
The accounts direction outlines the requirements for each college to:
- prepare audited accounts to 31 July 2024
- submit accounts and associated documents to ESFA by 31 December 2024
- publish accounts on the college’s website as soon as possible after signing but no later than 31 January 2025
You must refer to the college accounts direction 2023 to 2024 when preparing your accounts.
If you have concerns about meeting the 31 December submission deadline you should contact your Department for Education (DfE) Place Based Team contact as soon as possible and prior to the submission deadline.
You, rather than your auditors, will need to submit all required documents by following the submission process below.
Finance Record for the year
2023 to 2024
ESFA has issued an updated finance record for you to submit with your audited annual report and accounts for the college financial year 2023 to 2024.
2024 to 2025
An updated finance record will be published to submit with your audited annual report and accounts for the college financial year 2024 to 2025.
Submitting your documents
Your financial statements for 2023 to 2024 and associated documents must be submitted through the College financial data (CFD) service. This requires a DfE Sign-in account.
Once a you have logged in you will be able to upload your documents by clicking on ‘start’ and then choosing:
- ‘Annual financial statements return’
- the year the submission is being made for
The 4 mandatory elements (audited financial statements, auditor’s management letter, finance record and the audit committee annual report) must initially be uploaded at the same time, but can be resubmitted separately, if required. There are also options to upload subsidiary financial statements and additional supporting documentation if applicable. You will receive email confirmation that your upload has been successful.
Further details are available within the submission portal. If the person responsible for submitting these documents does not have access to DfE Sign-in they should follow the instructions to Create a DfE Sign-in account.
Contact us using the Customer Help Portal if you have any questions about your submission.
Updates to this page
Last updated 6 November 2024 + show all updates
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Added 'Finance record for 2023 to 2024'.
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Updated 'College account direction 2023 to 2024' to clarify how documents should be submitted.
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Added 'College accounts direction 2023 to 2024', updated 'Proposed timeline for upcoming college financial returns' and updated the DfE sign-in link for submissions.
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We've published the finance record for 2022 to 2023 and have updated the proposed timeline for upcoming college financial returns.
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We have published the college accounts direction for 2022 to 2023. We have also updated the proposed timeline for upcoming financial returns.
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Added Finance record for 2021 to 2022
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We have published the college accounts direction for 2021 to 2022. A full list of changes is provided in the summary.
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We have updated the Finance Record template and the proposed timeline for upcoming college financial returns.
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We have published the College Accounts Direction for the year 2020 to 2021. You can read the changes made to this document in the "What's changed in the 2021 edition" section.
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We have published an updated version of the finance record for 2019 to 2020. Details of the update are on the contents page of the finance record under ‘version control’.
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We have published the finance record for colleges to submit with their audited annual report and accounts for the college financial year 2019 to 2020, and version 2 of the college accounts direction. A list of changes made can be found in the document.
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We have published our proposed timeline for college financial returns during 2020 to 2021.
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We have updated this page to reflect the changes in deadlines for colleges to submit their documents to ESFA. The deadline for colleges to submit these documents to ESFA has now been extended to 31 January 2021. Colleges will then have until 28 February 2021 to publish their audited accounts on their website.
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We have published the college accounts direction for 2019 to 2020.
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Update to gov.uk page to provide colleges with details of the submission arrangements for the Financial Statements by the 31st December 19.
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We have published the college finance record template.
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We have published the college accounts direction for 2018 to 2019.
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We have updated the finance record template 2018.
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We have published the college finance record for 2017 to 2018, which further education and sixth-form colleges must complete and return to ESFA by 31 December 2018.
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College accounts direction for 2017 to 2018 has now been added.
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Updated section added Submitting your accounts and associated documents
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We've now published the finance record 2016 to 2017 template.
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First published.