View my financial insights
Guidance for the view my financial insights (VMFI) tool, which provides users with insights into the financial position and performance of schools.
Applies to England
Documents
Details
You must have a registered DfE Sign-in and have been assigned a VMFI permission in order to log in and have data showing for your school. Read how to access the View my financial information tool before you start.
What the tool does
VMFI is an online tool that helps schools view and improve their financial performance. It enables academy trusts and local authorities to see all their schools in one place and provides users with an automated assessment of their data based on similar schools. This assessment identifies areas with the greatest variance, providing users with a helpful starting to point to investigate, potentially leading to improved resource management.
VMFI compares the financial performance of each school in an academy trust or local authority against the 30 most statistically similar schools across a range of cost categories.
Through access to a broader range of data and insights, VMFI supports school finance teams in 3 ways. It:
- increases efficiency by reducing the need for desk-based research regarding financial insights and data
- provides up-to-date and customisable data insights to help identify areas for further investigation
- offers access to commercial resources, including government contracts, frameworks and guidance
Other features of the tool
Select comparators
Create your own set of comparator schools.
Data modelling
Edit data locally to model different scenarios.
Integrated curriculum and financial planning
Create a high-level dashboard of financial metrics using data already held by the Department for Education (DfE).
Commercial resources
Browse specific commercial resources, depending on your financial position.
Forecasts and risks (academy trusts only)
View metrics and recommendations based on the trust’s budget forecast return data to tackle risks.
Data sources used
VMFI uses the most current data available from the following data sources:
| Data source | School sector |
| Academies accounts return submissions | Academies |
| Budget forecast return (BFR) | Academies |
| Consistent Financial Reporting (CFR) | Maintained schools |
| January school census | Both |
| Workforce census | Both |
| Condition data collection (CDC) data | Both |
| SEN dataset | Both |
| Get Information About Schools | Both |
VMFI uses data supplied to DfE from financial returns that have been submitted on time. It will show information only for those schools that have been part of the trust or local authority for the full financial year.
Further help
For detailed help accessing and using the tool, refer to the VMFI user guide.
If you have any questions about the latest version of the VMFI tool, visit the customer help portal.
Updates to this page
Last updated 26 September 2024 + show all updates
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Updated guidance to remove references to IDAMS login. All users need to use DfE Sign-in.
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We've updated the user guide for view my financial insights and the getting started guidance to reflect changes made to the tool.
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First published.