For schools that currently have vacancies in their finance and administration functions, SMS can offer an experienced member of our team to provide cover on a short or long term basis.
In some cases we find some of our schools choose to use SMS to cover the [finance-related tasks!] for longer periods, usually over 1 or 2 days a week, leaving school staff to focus on other areas.
Our work with other growing trusts and experience in working with other schools leads us to the conclusion that there are 3 main levels in terms of Finance Roles and responsibility and the key is to ensure that staff are paid at the correct level for the roles and responsibilities they undertake.
The 3 main levels are shown in the table below.
| High - Finance Manager – Main Roles and Responsibilities | ||
| Site Visits | BMR Completion | Budget Planning |
| Income Projections | Payroll Reconciliation | Statutory Return Support |
| Audit Readiness | LGB Attendance & Reporting | Payment Approval (Dual) |
| Medium - Assistant Finance Manager/Finance Officer – Main Roles and Responsibilities | ||
| Monthly Reporting | BMR Readiness | Budget Inputting |
| Accounts Maintenance | Finance System Administrator | Monthly Adjustments |
| Payment Conflict Resolution | Audit Support | Monthly Pension Returns |
| Payments Uploading | Bank Reconciliations | Payroll Processing |
| Low - Finance Assistant – Main Roles and Responsibilities | ||
| Accounts Payable Inputting | Accounts Receivable Inputting | Releasing Purchase Orders |
| Supplier Details Administration | Supplier Contact | Credit Card Transactions |
| BACS Remittances | Sales Invoice Inputting | Posting of Income |
Schools use a variety of different systems, and our staff are familiar with the most used, including the following:
SMS FMS6
Access Finance & Access Budgeting
RM Finance
Civica
IRIS Financials (formerly PS Financials)
Sage
SMS now provide a flexible finance officer support service. The service primarily aims to ensure that all the processing of orders and invoices are made in an accurate and timely manner. The advantage of this service is that our staff are fully trained on SIMS/FMS, Access, PSF and RM Finance systems so hit the ground running from Day 1.
The service is flexible in that we can provide the service remotely or on site and whilst we would normally expect a primary school to need between ½ or 1 day per week support you can cancel a visit at short notice if you do not have sufficient work for that week. You also only pay for the hours worked rather than a set time period.
The Annual Price for this service will typically range from £2,500 - £5,500 per year (based on ½ day to 1 day per week TTO).