In many schools, financial systems do not work well and the following problems are experienced:

• Schools do not know whether the income they have received to date is above or below what has been budgeted for.
• Schools do not know whether expenses being incurred are within budget or exceed this.
• Schools do not know whether there is a problem with parent’s paying fees and there is a downward trend until this is too late.
• Accurate, up-to-date data in a user-friendly format is not available for School Management Teams (SMTs) and School Governing Bodies (SGBs).
• A lack of current data means that SMTs cannot effectively manage finances and SGB’s can not provide financial oversight.

The School Finance Tracker (SFT) aims to address this situation by enabling school finance staff to capture income and expenses at the schools to generate reports that provide a clear indication of the school’s financial status.

The SFT generate the following tables and graphs:

• Actual income against budgeted income
• Actual expenses against budgeted expenses
• Actual income, expenditure and margin

These reports can be produced on a monthly basis and shared with the School Management Team and the School Governing Body.

Clear tables and graphs in the SFT report enable school finances to be readily understood and problems picked up early and dealt with.

The SFT is a, therefore, a valuable tool in helping ensure that a school is financially sustainable and makes prudent use of the funding provided to it by parents, government and other parties.

The School Finance Tracker tool and a short course on its application are available. Contact us for more information.