Improvements to production of budget statements

03 Sep 2018

Making finance more efficient and effective

In the coming financial year budget holders at the University will begin to see some improvements to the way budget statements are received.  A set of automated reports will be shared each month to help improve the visibility of financial information in every area of the University. The advances are part of a planned programme of improvement to help us to be more efficient and effective in delivery of finance support. 

Stephen Dauncey, Director of Finance said: “This is a real step forward. We know that budget holders are receiving inconsistent and infrequent budget statements and finance teams are currently spending large amounts of time producing spreadsheets but still only reaching a small number of budget holders.  By introducing automation we can deliver a frequent and more consistent reporting service to all of our budget holders whilst freeing up finance time for other added value support.”

From January 2019 a standard suite of reports will be emailed directly to all budget holders every month, and non-project budget holders will receive their monthly reports earlier, beginning in October 2018. 

These reports are designed to help for better monitoring of expenditure against budget and checking available funds.  Budget holders also have the opportunity to conduct more productive and structured discussions with their finance teams, assisting with budget management and to update forecasts for the coming year. 

The new automated reports will replace all reports currently provided by finance teams.  By freeing up valuable time finance teams will now have greater capacity to train and support budget holders to use the new standard reports, as well as to respond to any queries.

Non-project budget holders who are part of the October roll out will be contacted by their School finance teams in September to arrange for training and on-going support once the reports are introduced.