Report the impact of COVID-19 on your budget in 7 easy steps
This blog refers to SBS Budgets, our budget planning software accessed anywhere via SBS Online.
Need to accurately report the impact of COVID-19 on the school budget?
Start your new financial year with confidence with accurate reporting on projected cost implications of COVID-19. SBS Budgets enables you to create a bespoke analysis tag for COVID-19, in order to plan for COVID-related expenses.
In summary
Create accurate reports by assigning the COVID-19 analysis tag to a percentage of:
- Staff contracts (new cleaning contracts)
- Expenditure Budget entries (cleaning products, postage for work sent to pupils at home, subscriptions for remote learning, IT equipment for home learning, PPE and free school meals during lockdown)
- Income Budget entries for grants or funding as a result of COVID-19
To fully assess what impact COVID will have on the school budget, you can then assign any COVID-related income and expenditure against the tag.
These reports can then be taken to meetings to analyse how COVID-19 has impacted your budget this financial year and prepare for additional expenditure as a continued consequence of COVID-19.
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Guidance for users
Accurately report the impact of COVID-19 on your school or MAT budget in 7 easy steps
SBS Budgets enables you to create a bespoke analysis tag for COVID-19, in order to plan for COVID-related expenses.
1. Go to the analysis tags section of your settings tab and click on the pencil icon in the top right-hand corner to add a new tag.
2. Give the tag a name and description and select your colour choices for the background and text as shown below and hit save. It will now appear in your list of analysis tags.
To fully assess what impact COVID will have on the school budget, you can then assign any staff contracts and COVID-related income and expenditure against the tag Staff contracts (e.g., new cleaning contracts)
3. Click on the relevant staff contract and select the pencil icon to edit.
4. Select the COVID-19 analysis tag from the drop-down list, N.B you can have multiple tags against one contract or budget entry
5. Once you have saved this, go back into the contract and select ‘adjust’ next to the tag and enter the correct percentage of the contract that is associated with COVID-19 expenditure
Budget entries (e.g., cleaning products, postage for work sent to pupils at home, subscriptions for remote learning, IT equipment for home learning, PPE and grants or funding as a result of COVID-19).
6. Follow the same initial process as the staff contracts, by clicking the edit pencil and selecting the relevant analysis tag from the drop-down list and adjusting to the correct percentage.
SBS Budgets will then collate this information in the reporting suite where you can run a COVID-specific report in a summarised or detailed view to accurately analyse the impact this will have/has had on the budget.
7. Once in your chosen report, select the COVID-19 analysis tag from the drop-down list as shown below.
The report will then pull through all data relevant to the analysis tag and give you a customised report, showing a breakdown of the income and expenditure of COVID-19 and flagging up any overspending.
As with all reports, this can then be exported out of the system into excel, pdf or printed off. The reports can then be taken to meetings to analyse how COVID-19 has impacted your budget this financial year and prepare for additional expenditure as a continued consequence of COVID-19.
Contact us
If you have any questions or requests please contact us on 0345 222 1551 • Option 5 or email hello@schoolbusinessservices.co.uk
You may be interested in our Wednesday budgeting webinars
1 hour sessions designed for school staff with any level of budgeting experience, whether you use SBS Budgets or not!
