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UCST & ULT
Managing the finances of multiple
independent schools and academies
The United Church Schools
Trust (UCST) uses PS Financials
across all of its schools and
academies. As well as managing
finances across multiple sites and
providing consolidated views,
PS Financials has helped UCST
to make considerable savings
and efficiencies.
“We have saved a lot of time
with VAT returns because the
system has a built in ability to
handle variable rate VAT claims.”
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PS Financials
Meeting the needs of charities
An easy system to use
UCST is an educational charity that provides
children with an education based on Christian
principles. It currently owns and manages ten
fee-paying independent schools across the UK.
In 2003, United Learning Trust (ULT) was
established as a charitable subsidiary of UCST and,
with 30 schools, is now one of the largest sponsors
of specialist state school academies in England.
UCST started to look for a new software
system after its existing provider decided they
would no longer support their version of the
software. UCST wanted a user-friendly system
that could provide flexible and consolidated
reporting across its schools and academies.
The system also needed to address issues that
affected them as a charity, such as variable rate
tax recovery.
Some accounting software systems have
user screens that include standard fields,
which are not necessarily relevant to all users.
PS Financials allows organisations to tailor the
system to display what is important to them.
This enabled UCST to define a system that had
many familiar elements to it, using terminology
that its users understood. As a result, users
needed just two days’ training on the new
software. Currently, there are approximately
90 users of PS Financials across the charity
including 15 staff in the central Finance Team
and two users in each school or academy.
Managing finances across multiple school sites
Saving time and money
PS Financials enables UCST to manage all of its
school’s finances from one central point. They can
drill down in detail for each school, but maintain
an overview of expenditure at a higher level.
Flexible reporting also allows analysis across
school departments. The Director of IT notes: “PS
Financials enables us to analyse the profitability
of our schools based on their senior and junior
departments. We can produce monthly figures and
split expenditure across these different departments,
which is something we couldn’t do before.”
PS Financials has allowed UCST to carry out
automatic transactions that wouldn’t be catered
for in most accounting packages. For example, each
school has its own account but funds can transfer
automatically between them when balances
drop below a certain level. With PS Financials,
UCST were able to build this into the user screens.
PS Financials can also adapt to the specific
timeframes that schools work to, allowing users
to produce reports based on the academic year
terms rather than on a monthly basis if required.
UCST case study
PS Financials’ Multi Academy Trust users include:
— Academies Enterprise Trust
— Ark Schools
— Girls’ Day School Trust
— Oasis Community Learning
— Harris Federation of London Schools
— Greenwood Academies Trust
— Diocese of Kent
“It’s a nice system to use
and I would recommend
it every time.”
The following features have helped UCST save time and money in its administration:
The unified ledger
PS Financials uses a single purchase ledger and
centralised invoicing. The Director of IT comments:
“The unified ledger was new to us, but coming from
an IT background the idea that everything is done in
one place makes perfect sense to me.”
Easy comparison between schools
The system also allows easy comparison between
schools, saving UCST a significant amount of time
when generating reports, as previously there was
just one separate set of figures for each school.
Variable VAT returns
The system has a built-in ability to handle variable
rate VAT claims. The Director of IT explains how
this has helped UCST save time and money: “When
you do running repairs on buildings you can get tax
relief, but the amount varies depending on the age
of the building, and of course this varies. We had to
be able to analyse the cost of repairs per building,
and this has all been built in to the system behind
the scenes. As a result, calculating the amount of
VAT is much easier and saves us money and time.”
The system also allows UCST to calculate the cost of
new building projects over several financial years.
BACS remittance
PS Financials’ BACS remittance element has
helped UCST to increase its efficiencies and save
on postage.
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PS Financials
UCST case study
About PS Financials
PS Financials is the author of award winning
financial accounting, order processing, budgeting,
billing, project control, consolidation, and process
automation software used by organisations across
the globe in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia,
Australasia and the Americas.
Accreditations
The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales has accredited this
software under the terms of its Accredited IT Product Scheme. Purchasers should
ensure that the software, its security features and related support meet their own
specific requirements, as the Institute will not be liable for any damage whatsoever,
incurred by any person, occasioned by the use of the software, or any related products
or services howsoever caused.
Contact us
PS Financials Ltd
Isis House
Isis Way
Minerva Business Park
Peterborough
PE2 6QR
Telephone
+44
(0) 1733 367 330
Fax
+44
(0) 1733 367 331
Email
education@psfinancials.com
www.psfinancials.com
2013 ©PS Financials Ltd