Star Accounts

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I correct data issues in the Staff Monitoring Report?

Please Note: This helpsheet is intended for guidance purposes only. If you have any concerns about the Staff Monitoring report, and the data held within it, please contact your Finance Support Officer.

General Notes:

1.  Where a staff member appears within the staff monitoring report is driven by the subjective code assigned to that staff members’ budget within the Budget Planner software. For Teaching Staff this will be 04800, however, for Support Staff the subjective code is driven by the ‘Type’ selected for that staff member. Please refer to Section 4, Page 10, of the Budget Planner User Guide for a full list of the subjective codes linked to each type.

2.  Any member of staff listed within Star Accounts as “NT” that does not have a corresponding budget within the support staff forecast exported into the Budget Planner software will be assigned to subjective code 09650, and will therefore appear under CFR category E03 within the monitoring report unless the subjective code has been amended within Star Accounts (see Section 5 of the Star Accounts User Guide for Details).

3.  Budgets will only be shown for members of staff within Star Accounts that have a matching forecast within the forecasts exported from the Budget Planner software. The Budget Planner will print a list of unmatched budgets when exporting the budget into Star Accounts. This report should be used in conjunction with the Staff Monitoring report (if applicable).

4.  Only ‘Direct’ employee actual costs will be shown within the detailed records of this report. This means salary costs linked to the subjective codes shown under CFR categories E01, E03-E07 and E31. Other costs may be downloaded or coded to staff members that will appear on the ‘Employee Report’ which will not appear here. For example, costs may be downloaded against subjective code 35770 (Car Allowances) for a staff member, which will not appear on this report as it is linked to CFR category E08.

What does each staff record show me?

Staff Code, Staff Name and FTE: These details all come from the staffing details listed within Star Accounts, and therefore may not match the records within the Budget Planner software precisely (Name / FTE).

Budget: The budget figure shown is a calculation of the budget to date for the staff member shown, as exported from the Budget Planner software. This is not a straight 1/12th of the staff members budgeted salary as factors such as inflation, pay awards, FTE and terms worked are taken into account.

Please Note: If the current months download has been completed the budget will be shown as at the current month, if it has not the budget will be shown as at the previous month, i.e. if the accounts are in P3 and the P3 download is missing the budget as at P2 will be shown.

Actual: This is cumulative total of all transactions (downloaded or otherwise) that exist within Star Accounts where the current staff code has been applied.

Variance: This is the cash value of the difference between the ‘Budget’ and ‘Actual’ amounts. If the figure is negative the budget is lower than the actual costs, and if the figure is positive the budget is higher than the actual costs.

% Variance: This shows the variance amount as a percentage of the budgeted costs. This will show either an actual percentage figure (50.25%, 100.00% etc), or one of three error codes:

This error code means that the record for the current staff member has no ‘Budget’ assigned, and also no associated ‘Actual’ costs.

+++ This error code means that the record for the current staff member has no ‘Budget’ assigned, but does have ‘Actual’ costs associated.

XXX This error code means that the record for the current staff member does have a ‘Budget’ assigned, but does not have any ‘Actual’ costs associated.

Actual Analysis: Beneath the bold highlighted line for each staff member is a summary of actual costs. This shows a cumulative total for the year to date summarised at subjective code level.

If this line has an asterisk (*) against it this indicates that the actual costs relate to a different CFR category from the section it is listed against (point C below).

What does the reconciliation summary show me?

At the end of each CFR Category within the Staff Monitoring Report is a reconciliation summary. The details shown within this section are:

A – Actual from CFR Summary: This is the cumulative total of all of the ‘Actual’ amounts shown within the staffing details of the current CFR category. This includes any amounts shown in Section C.

B – Actual from BCR: This is the ‘To Date’ amount from the BCR for the current CFR category.

C – CFR Miscodings: This figure shows the cumulative total of ‘Actual’ costs where the budget has been assigned to the current CFR category but the actuals have not (e.g. the CFR category is E03 but the actual costs relate to E07).

D – CFR Miscodings from Other CFR Groups: This figure shows the cumulative total of ‘Actual’ costs for the current CFR category that appear under another CFR category. This is the total of ‘Actual’ costs shown under Section C of other CFR categories that relate to the current CFR category (e.g. the costs shown within E03 – E07 where the actuals are coded to E01).

E – Staff Code Errors: This is the cumulative total of transactions within Star Accounts coded to the current CFR category where the staff code used does not match a record in the staff list.

F – Transaction Errors: This is the cumulative total of transactions within Star Accounts coded to the current CFR category where no staff code has been used.

G – Supply Staff: This is the cumulative total of transactions within Star Accounts coded to the current CFR category where the staff member shown has been assigned to the “Supply” type within the Staff Details list.

What issues should I be looking for?

% Variance Errors

Error “” – No Budget, No Actual Costs

If you have not budgeted for a person listed within the Star Accounts staff list, and they have not had any associated costs during the current financial year, check your schools HR records;

·  Is this person still employed at the school?

·  Has the staff code become invalid?

If the answer is yes to either of these the staff code should be deleted from the Star Accounts datafile (see Section 5, Page 3, of the Star Accounts User Guide for instructions).

·  Is the staff member ‘Supply’ staff? Supply staff members are paid under CFR category E02, which is not included in this report, therefore ‘Actual’ costs may exist against the staff code (meaning they cannot be deleted) but those costs will not appear here.

Error “+++” – No Budget, with Actual Costs

If you have not budgeted for a person listed within the Star Accounts staff list, and they have associated costs during the current financial year, check your schools HR records;

·  Should the staff member shown be budgeted for? In which case the relevant ‘Year1’ forecast within the Budget Planner software should be amended to include the staff member, and then be re-imported into Star Accounts.

·  Does a budget exist on a similar staff code without any actuals? For example, staff code 999999-1 has no budget, but does have actual costs, and staff code 999999-0 has a budget but no actual costs. If this is the case it is likely that the staff forecast in the Budget Planner software has been linked to the wrong staff code and needs to be amended to pick up the correct staff code. Please Note: Only the last digit of the staff code should be different for this to be a valid scenario.

·  Is the staff member listed supply staff? Supply Staff are not budgeted for within the Budget Planner software and are also not required to be entered into the Star Accounts staff list (unless the school wishes to do so for reporting purposes). Staff members listed in the staff list with the ‘Supply’ type will be ignored within this report; therefore supply staff records should be amended to select the ‘Supply’ type (see Section 5 of the Star Accounts User Guide for details).

Error “XXX” – Budgeted Costs, without Actual Costs

If you have budgeted for a person listed within the Star Accounts staff list, and they do not have associated costs during the current financial year, check your schools HR records;

·  Does the person still work for your school? If not they should not be budgeted for within the Budget Planner software. If they do still work for your school please consult HR Direct to ensure that their salaries are not being incorrectly coded to a different school.

·  Is there a similar staff code listed within “Section E”? For example, staff code 999999-0 has been budgeted against and staff code 999999-1 appears within the Section E error summary. If this is the case it is likely that the staff code entered into Star Accounts, and used within the staffing forecast in the Budget Planner software, has been entered incorrectly. If this is the case a new staff record will be required, which the staff forecast should be linked to. Please Note: Only the last digit of the staff code should be different for this to be a valid scenario.

·  Does the staffing forecast within the Budget Planner software contain the correct details? For example, if a member of staff commences employment in September and appears on the Period 5 (August) monitoring report it is likely that the FTE for the Summer term has been incorrectly completed within the Budget Planner Staff Forecast, and needs to be removed.

Section C / Section D Errors – CFR Miscodings

A summary of CFR Miscodings will be shown if Section C does not equal £0.00.

This shows a summary, per CFR category, of all transactions that are included within the cumulative total of Section A (Actual from CFR Summary), which will not be included within Section B (Actual from BCR) – as they relate to the ‘To Date’ amount of a different CFR category. This means Section A is overstated for the current CFR category by the amount shown in Section C.

If an amount is shown within Section D (CFR Miscodings from Other CFR Groups) this shows the cumulative total of the amounts shown for the current CFR category that exist within this report on all other CFR category summaries.

Section C and Section D should be used in conjunction with each other to identify and resolve issues.

For Example: Within the reconciliation summary of CFR category E01, section D shows a CFR Miscoding of £3,146.50.

Within the Section C summary of CFR category E03 a cumulative total of £3,146.50 can be seen listed against E01.

Looking through the data held within the E03 CFR category highlights that staff member Suzanne Rushbrook is listed with all of her actual costs assigned to E01. This record also has no budget figures (as highlighted by the +++ error code).

As E03 is a Support Staff category, not Teaching (E01), her staff record should be checked to ensure she is listed as a teacher (T) not Support Staff (NT).

As shown above Suzanne Rushbrook is indeed listed as NT (Support Staff) – this record must be amended to show that she is a teacher (see Section 5 of the Star Accounts user guide for details). Once the ‘Type’ has been changed Suzanne’s details will be shown within the E01 category of the report.

After making the necessary amendment the Reconciliation Summary for E01 will show £0.00 for Section D, and Section C of E03 will be adjusted to take into account the changes made:

E01:

E03:

This resolves the CFR miscoding issue only. Suzanne still has no budget assigned – please refer to Error Code “+++” details above for tips to resolve this issue.

In the above example, the amounts related to one staff member making the reconciliation of the amounts very simple to do. In reality the amounts shown within Sections C and D could be interlinked over several CFR categories and several members of staff.

Please Note: Not all CFR Miscodings can be resolved by amending the data held on the Budget Planner and Staff List within Star Accounts. If payroll costs are incorrectly coded at County Hall and downloaded to the schools accounts they will show as an error on this report, even if the Budget and Actuals are coded to the correct CFR category.

For example, if a Premises Staff member has a budget assigned to E04 and costs are downloaded against subjective code 10060 (Education Support Staff – O/T – linked to E03) these costs will be shown as an error in both E03 and E04 whenever the report is created.

If this is the case the school can either complete a journal to move the costs (ensuring that the correct staff code is selected within the journal screen – see Section 11 of the Star Accounts User Guide) or request that a journal is completed at County Hall to move the costs to the correct subjective and staff code. This will then be included in a subsequent download to correct the issue.

E03 – Support Staff CFR Miscodings

Prior to version 1.07 of the Budget Planner Software / Version 5.50 of Star Accounts, when budgets are imported into Star Accounts all budgets are reset to 0 and the subjective code changed to 04800 for Teaching (T) or 09650 for Support Staff (NT). This subjective code would then be updated for staff records that have a corresponding budget.