Period End
Financial Month End
Download printable word document for Month End
Month End Overview
PFM does not have a formal month end closedown procedure. It utilises the transaction date entered to generate reports, so it very important that dates are carefully entered.
The date is particularly important when processing batches of receipts where the money is received at the end of the month but not banked until the start of the following month. In this situation YOU MUST either enter a date for banking before the month end, or change the receipt date for each transaction to after the month end. If you do not, then at the month end point your BALANCE SHEET will not BALANCE. Therefore, receipt date and banking date must be within the same month
It does mean however, that you can begin processing the following month’s transactions immediately because reports can be run for a date range. Here is a summarised set of steps but full details are on the printable word document above.
Month End Steps
1. Process all receipts and payments in Transaction Entry.
2. Process all bank transfers and any transfers required between short codes
3. Reconcile the Bank Accounts in Transaction entry – Bank Statements and Print and File the Reconciliation Report Produced. (Make sure you check for any interest received etc on bank statements, and enter these as receipts before starting the Bank Rec)
4. Print a copy of the Financial reports required, being careful to enter a date in the To date box if you have processed any transactions beyond this month end.
5. Make any adjustments necessary based on the reports produced, and if amendments were made re-run the reports.
6. Print Reports by Account for those responsible for the accounts. The Summary Statement may be all that is necessary at month end.
7. TAKE AN ARCHIVE of the month end position. Call it something like JANUARY 2009 MONTH END, so its clear what it is!
Financial Year end
Download printable word document for Year End
The Private Funds Manager year end closedown should be a relatively pain free process, especially if you do some preparation work in advance.
When you do the year end is up to you - some schools do it on the very last day(or closest) of the year, so will close down on 31st March without doing the final bank reconciliation until the new year. Other schools like to wait until the bank statement appears, and any final items relating to the financial year turn up. Its up to you when you close year end. However, if you do not close the year for a few weeks (or months) you must be very careful that you date things correctly - anything related to the old financial year, including journals/transfers - must be dated on or prior to the last day of that financial year, and all new transactions must be dated on or past the first day of the new year.
Do the 3 year end preparation tasks before year end - you can do this quietly and gently in the run up to year end, to ensure that the close down itself is straightforeward.
Preparing for Year End
1. Clear unwanted items from the Bank Statement screen
Are all the items on the unreconciled list genuine items that will appear in the next one or two bank statements? Or are they old transactions that now will probably never be presented? Are they duplicates or errors entered somewhere along the way?
If you have payments that date back some time, you will probable want to cancel them off the system. Track down who the cheque was for and what short code was used. Then go into Transaction Entry - Payments - Cancel Payments. Enter a cancellation exactly as the original item with the same amount and date and enter notes indicating this is a write off. Repeat for all payments to be cancelled.
If you have receipts showing that are more than a week or two old, it is very unlikely that these are correct. They may be duplications or just straight errors. Track down who the receipt relates to and what short code was used. Then go into Transaction Entry - Receipts - Direct Receipts. Enter a cancellation exactly as the original item but with a NEGATIVE amount, same date and enter notes indicating this is a write off. Press BANK IT. Repeat for all receipts to be cancelled.
You can then go into Bank Statements, and each 'old' transaction will have a corresponding cancellation entry - tick one against the other. Commit Changes and print the report for Audit records.
2. Clear short code accounts that won't be needed next financial year.
Are there some trips or other accounts that are no longer used? If so, you might want to delete them after completing the year end closedown. If this is the case, now is the time to start looking at these accounts to see what balance is left (positive or negative), are there any further transactions likely this year - if not you might want to start clearing the accounts in preparation for deletion. (Short codes need to have a zero balance at year end to be cleared) Print an Income and Expenditure report, then use Transaction Entry - Transfers - Short Code transfers to move money from short codes to a General / Reserves account. (I then change the Full name of the short code from SKI2014 to ****CLOSED SKI2014 to indicate that the account has been cleared and close, by editing in Accounts Maintenance)
3. Pick a date for your last banking of the financial year.
Everything relating to March must be banked with a date of March - do not make the mistake of banking items in April with a March transaction date, or your balance sheet will be out of balance at year end. It makes sense to say that a banking will be done on say Wed 30th March or Thursday 31st March and that will be the end of transactions for the financial year. Do not enter any other receipts until you get to 1st April and do these into the new financial year, dated accordingly.
What the system does at year end
It takes the Closing Balance for each short code and makes it the Opening Balance for the new financial year.
Clears all transactions from the short codes, leaving only the opening balance. (Although transaction can be seen on the Reports By Account – Audit Trail for Short Code button, or by viewing the year end archive.)
Clears all reconciled transactions from the Bank Statement area, leaving only unreconciled items.
Allows short codes that were used in the previous financial year, but will now not be needed, to be deleted.(Period End–Delete)
Allows students, responsible people, suppliers, classes etc to be deleted if no longer required.( Period End – Delete)
The Importance of DATES!!!!!
The date is particularly important when processing batches of receipts where the money is received at the end of the financial year but not banked until the start of the following. In this situation YOU MUST either enter a date for banking before the year end, or change the receipt date for each transaction to after the year end. If you do not, then at the year end point your BALANCE SHEET will not BALANCE. Therefore, receipt date and banking date must be within the same year.
Year End Sequence
1. Take a Pre Year End backup using Period End - Archives - enter something like Pre YE 2022-23
2. Perform final bank reconciliation for year (if you want to) - you can leave this till new year.
3. Make sure that the preparation steps have been completed (ie clear unreconciled items of old / incorrect showing as an unreconciled item and clear old short codes down to zero)
4. Go to Period End – Year End – select the year end date on the right, or select a date of you choice from the calendar. Click on PREPARE FOR AUDIT.
Prepare for Audit
This report ensures that the internal control areas of PFM are in balance. It indicates whether the 3 key reports – Summary Balance Sheet, Income and Expenditure report and Bank Reconciliation are in balance as they should be. If they are not, it tells you, and you can then investigate.
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Balance sheet in balance – if it is not this will be either a future dated transaction or a missing date.
Go to Screen Enquiries and change the TO date at he top to 31/12/9999. Now run the Summary balance sheet. Is it in balance now? If so, you will have done a banking AFTER year end that included some transactions from before year end, OR you have done a banking BEFORE year end that had transactions dated beyond year end. Look back through your Paying In printouts to locate then reverse (we recommend giving Support a call for the reversal)
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The Excess of Income over Expenditure figure (Suspense a/c) should be zero - if it is not an Excess will be shown. This is usually due to short codes with balances being deleted.
If it does report a figure, you must investigate and clear. Go to Screen Enquiries and click on EXCESS OF INCOME HISTORY. This will tell us exactly what has gone into this account and you can then use Transfers to clear the figure.
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I&E equals Balance Sheet, If it does not, go to Accounts Maintenance - Click on Current Short Codes – locate any with a Cost Centre of Null. Now close the report and change the Cost Center from Null to None.
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Bank Reconciliation = Balance Sheet. If the Bank Statement is reporting a correct balance, but this is different from the Summary Balance Sheet figure for the bank, create a adjustment short code and enter an opening balance for the difference.
If the report states that all is in balance, print the page and then go onto print reports below.
5. Print all Year End Reports required from Period End - Year End Click PRINT AUDIT REPORT
NOTE – The Audit Trail will be VERY LONG – we recommend you untick this, and produce from archive only if requested.
6. Print an Unpresented Items List for each bank account in Transaction Entry – Bank Statements - select bank account at the top left and click on PRINT UNRECONCILED ITEMS. Choose the year end date for the report. The CASH BOOK BALANCE should be the same figure for each bank account as on the Summary Balance Sheet.
7. Print Summary Statements in Reports by Account for budget holders/trip leaders if required
8. Take a Year End Archive BEFORE closing the year down in Period End - Archives. Call it something like Final Year End 2013 14
9. Close the year in Period End – Year End. Check Year end date is at the top of screen. Tick to confirm you have taken an archive. Click on CLOSE PERIOD. It will ask if you wish to change the start date for the new financial year - say YES.
10. Go to Period End – Delete – say Yes – then delete short codes no longer required from far left hand column.
Academic Year End
Download printable word document for Academic Year end
Before starting, take an archive, using Period End - Archives - Backup Current Data. Click in the white box and enter the name BEFORE IMPORT. Click on CREATE BACKUP.
Pupil record daily synchronised link
This feature automatically updates PFM with student information from Sims on a daily basis.
Go to FILE - Sims.net Auto Link
At the top of the screen it should have a path to Sims - something like C:\Program Files\Sims\Sims.net\Pulsar.exe. If this is correct you will not need to change it.
Enter your SIMS username and password
Tick to remember password
Choose if you want Legal or Familiar name imported (if you choose Familiar you MUST have the Sims file called PFM2014Familiar in Sims)
Tick how often to update. Tick to say you are using the 2014 reports.
Click on SAVE AND CLOSE to save this information, then straight back into FILE - Sims.net autolink
Click on UPDATE NOW to test the link. It will take a while especially if you have lots of students. After a few moments the student names should start to whizz by on screen.
If you do not receive a message saying the Update has been done, please click here for troubleshooting.
Click on Save and Close.
If this is the start of a new academic year, you may now wish to delete the old leavers. See section 4 below. If not, the link is now complete and you can close. From now on this will be automatically synchronised at the frequency you have chosen.
Manual Update of Students
This option does not use the Auto link, This is a manual update process. Only use this if some reason you are unable to set up the Sims link (eg Sims is not available from your computer)
Summary of steps - see below for detail -
1. Check for students with no admission number
2. If there are none, go to SIMS.net and run PFM Pupil report - save file.
3. Go to PFM - Setup tab - choose to Upload Student Names - select file saved in step 2 - Click on Save Details into Database
4. Delete leavers in Setup Tab by using the CLEAN UP button at bottom of screen.
1. CHECK FOR STUDENTS WITH NO ADMISSION NUMBER
It is important that all students have an admission number as this is the unique item for each one. Without an admission number, students imported from SIMS will be duplicated if any item has changed, such as their class. To check for any students without an admission number, go to the SETUP tab - first sub-tab STUDENTS, then click on ‘Students Without an Admission Number’.
If you DO have students without admission numbers, and they are NOT expected (eg parent names, pupils from other schools etc) please go to END of this document for details on what to do
2. RUN STUDENT REPORT IN SIMS
Now we know there are no students without an Admission Number, we are ready for the new list of students. Go to SIMS.net – REPORTS – RUN. Then select FOCUS – STUDENT. Scroll down to the report called PFM2010. (If you do not have this on the list, email us on info@istekuk.com)
Click ‘Run’ - Make Sure The Date Showing Is Today.
The report will be generated for the whole school. This may take a moment.
Click on BROWSE, choose a folder and NOTE IT DOWN, then save as an XML file, with a different name every time you do it, for example PUPILSSEP2010.XML
Close SIMS.net
3. IMPORT STUDENT LIST INTO PFM
In PFM go to the SETUP tab – UPLOAD STUDENT NAMES.
All the students should appear on screen. Scroll down the list and make sure that the right information is in the right column all the way to the end. If they are not, syou have probably NOT saved as an XML file, so please return to Sims and repeat.
Click on Save Details into Database button. Rather than confirming every student in turn, click on the Accept All without showing this screen tick box at bottom left
Please BE PATIENT and do not click or move anywhere else on your system while this is running. It may take a couple of minutes..
4. DELETE LEAVERS
When you run the import from SIMS.net, the system now checks for any students that are on PFM but not on the new SIMS list, and also students that are on the new SIMS list but set as Deleted in PFM.
Students showing as deleted on PFM, but clearly current students on SIMS.net, are reset as undeleted
All students that are on PFM but that don’t appear on the latest SIMS list, are considered leavers and made available for deletion if required.
To view these students, click on STUDENTS NOT UPDATED. A list appears, which should be students who have left the school. If this is correct generally, you can then click on CLEAN OUT. If there are certain students you wish to merge with others you can tick/untick these and MERGE as detailed above. Any leavers can simply be DELETED by clicking on DELETE TICKED.
How to deal with students without admission numbers
If any students are showing without admission numbers, you have 4 choices of how to deal with them :
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If they are not duplicated anywhere else on the system and have no transactions, you can safely DELETE them as they will be added correctly when you run the SIMS upload.
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If they are a duplicate of another student name with an admission number, you need to MERGE
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If they are not duplicated, and do have transactions posted to them, you must ADD the admission number.
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If they are not current students, simply DELETE them.
To check for duplications go to Period End – CLASS CHANGER – select the class required.
Then return to SETUP – and use the Students without Admission Number Clean Up.
1. Delete students with no transactions - if they have no transactions at all, then it is best to simply delete them, as they will be imported from SIMS once we link, if they are still in the school -
- Tick the students to delete
- Click Delete those without Transactions
2. Merge Students who are duplicated - if a student is duplicated, then merge the two records to combine the transactions.
- Tick students to merge. Click on Merge Ticked Students.
- Enter some search text to identify student to merge with, click name and click on MERGE.
- Next student to merge will appear – continue.
3. Add admission numbers - If there are current students without an admission number, who are not duplicated anywhere on the system, you will need to provide an admission number, as follows.
Setup - Students - Click on View/Amend/Add. Select student using pull down arrow. Type in SIMS admission number into STAR REF box. Click on SAVE.
4. Delete used but unwanted students
- Tick students to remove and click on Delete Ticked Students.