Due to Covid-19, it is likely that school trips will be cancelled and parents will need their paid contributions reimbursed.  The recommended method is to use Sundry Payments as this is the quickest method and saves having to add parents as suppliers on FMS. 

Please note that Sundry payments should not replace the usual procedure for paying suppliers; individual suppliers must still be input to FMS separately.  The refund of school trips is a one-off circumstance.

Please note that all refunds will need to be coded to E19 in the first instance.  A normal journal should then be processed to debit the income code for school trips and credit E19.

For further methods please contact the SFS helpdesk.

We have been notified by KCC Fraud Team of a suspected PPE supplier fraud.

Please be vigilant with any emails you may receive especially where they are offering limited time offers.

Please read the communication sent to all schools on 29 May 2020 for further important information. 

An email has been sent out to all Kent schools advising that the Next Year menu will be closed on 5 June 2020 and that they need to save their employee reports from 19/20 by the end of the day on 5 June 2020.

As such, budget monitoring for Kent Schools should be able to begin on Monday 8 June 2020.

The latest version of the Schools Financial Services Service Level Agreement (2020-21) is now available on the TEP website.

Visit www.theeducationpeople.org to view a copy.

We will be taking orders for the 2020-21 Benchmarking Report as of 1 June 2020.

If you are interested please contact our helpdesk, and once ready we will send across the order forms.

Benchmarking Report costs:

• £75 (excluding VAT) - Standard
• £100 (excluding VAT) - Advanced

The Standard version provides an electronic PDF report emailed to the purchaser as well as two hard bound versions sent out via post to the school.

The Advanced version provides the same as the above along with an additional report which benchmarks using pupil numbers.

For further detail and to view an example report click below:

https://www.theeducationpeople.org/blog/financial-benchmarking-report/

• dealing with School Trip refunds
• Benchmarking Report 2020-21
• SFS Service Level Agreement (SLA)
• Finance Information Groups (FIGs)
• PPE Supplier Fraud alert
• BPS Kent Schools Next Year Menu closure
• training webinars
• helpdesk closure.

The Finance Information Groups to be held in June have now been re-booked as a single webinar which is being held on 10 June, 9.30am to midday. 

All those that had already registered for an original session on the same date have been moved to the webinar, so do not need to re-book.

Schools have been emailed via CRM to explain this and have been provided with a copy of the agenda.

A link to the webinar will be emailed out 24 hours before the event. 

Places are still available and can be booked via CPD Online, details below:

• 10 June - SCH 20/415

All those that had already registered for an original session on the same date have been moved to the webinar, so do not need to re-book.

We are in the process of converting all training courses for this academic year into webinars.

The Budget Monitoring courses are being held as webinars from 9.30am to 2.30pm on the following dates:

2 July 2020

9 July 2020

Links for these webinars will be sent to all delegates attending 24 hours before the course start time.

It appears that a correction was made by Capita to the Apprenticeship Levy in May payroll reports due to absence payments and backpay not being included in previous months.

Further details are expected to be sent by Capita to their customers in due course.

Please contact them via the Ask HR portal if you have any queries.

We would like to thank everyone for returning their budget submissions back on time as well as ensuring the Covid-19 form was returned before 31 May.

Remember if you want to know when the Newsletter is available each month, subscribe via The Education People website.