CMIS Non Cheque Book

Appendix 1

To: Head Teachers of Schools Operating the External Payments Account (EPA) using SIMS FMS

Dear Colleague,

FINANCIAL END OF YEAR PROCEDURES 2017/2018

At the end of each financial year, the Chief Finance Officer has the responsibility for preparing the annual accounts for the City Council. This letter summarises the key actions to be taken by schools and changes to the financial procedures for this financial year.

For this financial year the last date for processing transactions on FMS is 16th March 2018 and all other key dates and actions are summarised at Appendix 1. The full system procedures for schools subscribing to Link2ICT will be available to download from the Link2ICT knowledgebase at http://link2ict.service-now.com. The procedures allow for all goods and services received by 16th March 2018 to be correctly recorded in the financial year 2017/18. For schools with financial delegation, even though any unspent (or overspent) balances against the budget share will carry forward to the next year, adherence to the procedures is important to allow the Chief Finance Officer to prepare annual accounts in accordance with accounting standards and legal requirements.

For schools using Cityserve as their catering provider the arrangements for the Spring term’s invoice are as follows. Where the service is charged on actual costs, it is not possible to produce the final invoice until all central financial systems have been closed. Cityserve will raise a liability for this invoice to ensure that the charge is accounted for in the correct financial year. Your school will be charged with the actual amount via a journal against code L25R. The journal will debit the financial year 2017/2018and credit2018/2019. The credit will then be offset when the actual invoice is paid in 2018/2019. It is important that schools ensure all cash received for schools meals for the Financial Year 2017/2018 is recorded on the schools income portal system by the 16:15 on 29th of March 2018. Corresponding Paying in slips for 2017/2018 should be dated 29th March 2018 for the next scheduled collection by G4S.

Please ensure this letter and the procedures are brought to the attention of all staff involved in the closedown process ahead of the key dates. If you are unclear over any procedure, or need further clarification, please contact your Financial Services Provider as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely,

Xiao-Ming Hu

Schools Finance Team

Children and Young People Directorate (CYP)

CYP Finance EPA SIMS FMS February 2018 Page 4 of 4

©Birmingham City Council

Appendix 1

FINANCIAL YEAR END PROCEDURES 2017/2018

KEY DATES

DATE / ACTION
9th March 2018 / · Last day for processing 2017/2018 CAPITAL invoices for submission to Accounts Payable. These invoices must be received by Accounts Payable by the 16th of March 2018for inclusion in the 2017/2018 Final Accounts.
9th March 2018 / · No orders to be raised on FMS after this date.
· Last day for input of goods received notes.
9th March 2018 / · Last day for processing 2017/2018 EXTERNAL invoices for submission to Accounts Payable. These invoices must be received by Accounts Payable by the 16th of March for inclusion in the 2017/2018 Final Accounts.
· Note that invoices raised by Acivico, S4E or Music Service are treated as External Invoices
· Any External Invoices received by Schools between the 17th - 31st of March 2018, must be sent to Accounts Payable after the 1st of April 2018 for payment in the 2018/2019 financial year (Invoices received on these dates relating to 2017/2018 should have been included in the 2017/2018 Liabilities file).
· All other goods and services received but not invoiced should be recorded on the system to enable a liability to be raised.
16th March 2018 / · Produce list of orders to be declared as liabilities (Deliveries not invoiced report), delete all internal BCC liabilities, e-mail to by 23rd March 2018.
PLEASE ENSURE SCHOOL NAME APPEARS IN EMAIL SUBJECT MATTER
· Where possible liabilities should be sent in an editable format (either Excel or Text file)
· For 2017/2018 schools will need to provide an estimation of sessional/relief staff to be included in year-end liabilities
· Files received after 23rd March 2018 may not be actioned and will result in the school carry forward being overstated
28th March 2018 / · Schools should Authorise or Reject all internal invoices on Voyager by 28th March 2018.
29th March 2018 / · Deadline for EPA claims submission.
· A Bank Claim for the period 1 March – 28 March needs to be generated. This bank claim can be printed and submitted. A nil return for the period 29 March – 31 March 2018 will then need to be submitted on 18th April 2018.
· Last Bank Reconciliation, EPA Claim and System Reconciliation to be completed and forwarded to the
· If claims are not received in the EPAMailbox by this date, this will result in school carry forwards being overstated for 2017/2018 and we will not be in a position to make any manual adjustments
· No EPA transactions should be posted in the 2017/2018 financial year after the VAT Short Summary and Bank Claim have been printed and sent to Finance on 29th March 2018.
· You must not cancel any invoices or cheques after the VAT Short Summary and Bank Claim have been printed and sent to Finance on 29th March 2018 or before the VAT return is submitted in April.
29th March 2018
29th March 2018 / · Schools must not approve any internal invoices on the 29th March 2018.
· Schools can add income to the income portal up to 16:15 on 29th March 2018 and this will be included in the 2017/2018 financial year. Again, cash received for schools meals etc for the Financial Year 2017/2018 must be recorded on the schools income portal system by 16:15 on 29th March 2018. Corresponding Paying in slips should be dated 29th March 2018.
· Income entered onto the portal from the 1st of April 2018 will be included in the 2018/2019 financial year.
· Schools should note that any income provided to G4S relating to the 2017/2018 financial year and not added to the income portal in 2017/2018 by 16:15 on 29th March 2018, will not be reimbursed to schools. Schools are therefore advised to reconcile all income and ensure income portal transactions match.
3rd April 2018 / · All incomplete orders transferred to 2018/2019.
· All outstanding commitments relating to 2017/2018 cleared.
16th April 2018 / · Suspense Account should be cleared or queries raised.
18th April 2018 / · Submit a Bank Claim for the period 29 March – 31 March 2018 in FMS. This should be a nil return as no transactions should have been posted to the bank account during this period.
May 2018 / · Last reconciliation file of 2017/2018 transactions available to download. (The date will be confirmed as soon as possible) You must not run the final year end process until all reconciliation files for 2017/2018 have been run in FMS
· All remaining items in Suspense Account reconciled or queries raised (Any errors will be corrected in the new financial year).

CYP Finance EPA SIMS FMS February 2018 Page 4 of 4

©Birmingham City Council

Appendix 2

YEAR END PROCEDURES FOR EPA CHEQUE BOOK SCHOOLS 2017/2018

A. PAYMENTS UNDER LOCAL EPA CHEQUE BOOKS

1. Invoice Processing

(a) Final cheques for goods and services received must be issued and authorised by Friday 16th March 2018. No cheques should be issued after this date to allow the relevant system reconciliation to be completed by 29th March 2018.

(b) All incomplete orders, where goods and services have been received before 16th March 2018 but where invoices have either not been received or received but not paid must be declared as liabilities. The procedures for producing the liability listing are detailed in the SIMS FMS - Year End Procedures 2017/2018 – External Payments Account notes for guidance in Section 2. Liabilities Report, available to download from the Link2ICT knowledgebase at http://link2ict.service-now.com.

2. Reconciliation

(a) Voyager must be reconciled with the balances on all school Bank Accounts relating to public funds and the balance of expenditure and income shown on FMS.

(b) The following reports must be produced by 29th March 2018 for the financial year 2017/2018, in accordance with the reconciliation procedures, and include all transactions up to and including 28th March 2018.

For this year only due to early Easter holiday, bank statement will be sent by CYP Finance on 26th March to all EPA schools for the period 1st March- 23rd March 2018. Schools should avoid any bank transactions after 23rd March, or limit bank transactions to minimal.

N.B. Ensure that you are in the 2017/2018 financial year and then produce the following reports for reconciliation purposes:-

§ A list of Unreconciled Payments and Receipts - use Reports | General Ledger | Bank | Unreconciled Transaction Listing for each local Bank Account from 1stApril 2017 to 28th March 2018. Make sure you select each bank account individually; otherwise the report will be for all transactions for all bank accounts. Please ensure that no further bank account transactions are processed until the new financial year.

§ Balances and Reserves Report - use Reports | General Ledger | Balances/Reserves.

§ Bank Account Claim - use Focus | General Ledger | Bank Claim - that is from the date of the previous claim up to and including 28th March 2018. You will also need to submit a Bank Claim by 18th April 2018 for the period 29 March – 31 March 2018 in FMS. This should be a nil return as no transactions should have been posted to the bank account during this period.

§ VAT Reports

As it is not possible to submit the March VAT return in FMS before 1st April 2018, you will not be able to generate the VAT Submittal report. You should therefore print the VAT Short Summary instead. The wording normally used on the VAT submittal report should be entered manually and the report signed by the designated member of staff.

It is vital that you submit the March VAT Return in FMS before processing any EPA transactions in the 2018/2019 financial year.

(d) It is vital that all these reports are produced on the same date as the bank reconciliation, and supported by a Bank Statement for the period including 28th March 2018; otherwise it will not be possible to balance the accounts correctly.

(e) A Bank Reconciliation Statement must be completed for the Bank Account as at close of business on 28th March 2018. Bank Statements supporting each account balance on this date should also be provided and submitted to CYP Finance as soon as possible after receipt. Head Teachers will be required to certify that this reconciliation is correct.

B. SUBMISSION OF INFORMATION

1. All reports and statements requested should be sent to

2. Information should reach CYPF Finance by no later than Thursday 29th March 2018. Please contact your EPA compilation team officer if you need help or have any questions.

CYP Finance EPA SIMS FMS February 2018 Page 6 of 6