Academy and Charity template updates — Release Bulletin 01/09/2023

Academy, version 18.
Charity, incorporated and unincorporated templates, version 14.

Academy updates for legislation

Responsibility of accounting officer relating to estates safety and management: included in Governance Statement, Review of value for money, Statement of regularity, propriety and compliance, and Statement of introduction templates.
Balance sheet rows
Net assets excluding pension liabilities
and
Defined benefits pension scheme asset/(liability)
now report as asset or liability for the respective years.
Notes to the accounts, the pension and similar obligations, local government pension scheme, and pension schemes 1 to 4, the paragraphs include the Department of Education's commitment on 21 July 2022 to fund outstanding pension scheme liabilities in the event of the academy's closure.
Report references are updated for the Academy Accounts Direction 2022 to 2023 and also the Academy Accounts Handbook 2022.

Academy data entry and report changes

In the
Information on governance and internal control
window on the
Disclosures
tab, there's a new
Description of the accounting officer
box to, in addition to the name of the accounting officer, which displays on the in the governance statement on the report.
The
Funds
category structure now has sub-categories for:
Values brought forward
,
Incoming resources
Resources expended
Transfers
Other recognised gains and losses
.
note
To ensure values display correctly on the reports, you'll need to reassign codes to the sub-folder of the funds folders in the
Funds
category structure on the
Import account assignment
tab.
The
Funds
note is redesigned to include the option of displaying values from postings where codes have been assigned within the
Funds
category structure.
Accounts assignment
window. You can still display the funds movement from the
Analysis of funds
data entry window on the
Disclosures
tab if a greater detail is needed.
Links are added to the report to help you open the data entry windows. You can also still use right-click, then
Enter data
.
Category B16 has been renamed to add the words "Defined benefit" to the existing name "Pension scheme liability", to provide greater clarity.
The consolidated academies accounts report has a new
Other restricted funds
column where
other restricted funds
and
pensions reserve
are added.
Due to updates within the balance sheet and statement of financial activities, you might get an
Out of balance
warning. If so, review the postings and accounts assignments to ensure that the accounts reconcile.

Charity features

There were no judgements made in the period
There were no key sources of estimation uncertainty in the period
.

The
Disclosures
tab
Basis of preparation
The
Judgements
tab
Key sources of estimation uncertainty
.

Known issues

If you want to export a report to Excel, you'll need to clear the
Contents
page template checkbox in the Report structure first.
If you export a report to Word, unless the report includes 3 or more signatories, use the vertical presentation otherwise the export will end at the signatories.
Following the changes to the rounding of values on the
Disclosure
tab, you'll need to check that the comparative period values haven't been rounded differently to those in the prior periods financial statements. If they have, you'll need to make a small posting to correct the rounding.

Install the templates

Sign in to Accounts Production Advanced as a user with administrator permissions.
Select
Tools
, then
Content download
where available updates are shown.
Select
Install
.