DIGITA ACCOUNTS PRODUCTION ADVANCED TEMPLATE UPDATES

We are pleased to announce the release of the following template updates:

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

Academy updates for legislation changes

• Within the "Governance Statement", "Review of value for money", and also within the "Statement of regularity, propriety and compliance", "Statement of introduction" templates, the text has been updated to include the responsibility of the accounting officer in relation to the estates safety and management.
• The text on the balance sheet row "Net assets excluding pension liabilities" and the "Defined benefits pension scheme asset/ (liability)" has been amended to report as asset or liability as appropriate for the respective years.
• In the notes to the accounts the pension and similar obligations, local government pension scheme and also within the pension schemes 1 to 4, the paragraphs have been extended to include the Department of Education's commitment as of the 21st of July 2022 to fund outstanding pension scheme liabilities in the event of the academy's closure.
• The report references have been updated for the academy accounts direction 2022/23 and also the 'Academy accounts hand book 2022'.

Academy data entry and report changes

• In the disclosures tab, 'information on governance and internal control' window, a new data entry box has been added to record the 'description of the accounting officer', this is in addition to the name of the accounting officer which displays on the report. In the governance statement.
• The funds category structure has been enhanced with the addition of sub-categories for values 'brought forward', 'incoming resources', 'resources expended', 'transfers' and 'other recognised gains and losses'. In order to ensure values display correctly on the reports, codes will need re-assigning to the appropriate sub-folder of the respective funds folders as found in the import account assignment tab, 'funds' category structure.
• The funds note has been re-designed so that users now have the option of displaying values from postings where codes have been assigned within the accounts assignment window, funds category structure. There is still the option of displaying the funds movement from the disclosures tab, analysis of funds data entry window if a greater level of detail is required on the breakdown.
• Hyperlinks have been added to the report to enable users to open up data entry windows. These have been added to complement the option of right clicking over parts of the report to select '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 column 'other restricted funds' to which the 'other restricted funds' and 'pensions reserve' has been added.
• Due to updates within the balance sheet and statement of financial activities an "out of balance" warning may be seen. In this situation it will be necessary to review the postings and accounts assignments to ensure that the accounts reconcile.

Charity feature enhancements

The accounting policies for 'judgements' and 'key sources of estimation uncertainty" now have the option to confirm that "There were no judgements made in the period" and "There were no key sources of estimation uncertainty in the period". This information is entered via the disclosures tab, basis of preparation, 'Judgements' tab and also 'key sources of estimation uncertainty'.

Known issues

• Where reports need to be exported to Excel, it will first be necessary to untick the "Contents" page template within the report structure tree.
• When exporting the report to Word, unless the report includes three or more signatories, use the vertical presentation otherwise the export will stop at the signatories.
• Following the changes to the rounding of values on the Disclosure tab, it will be necessary to check that the comparative period values haven't been rounded differently to the values presented in the prior periods financial statements. If they have, a small posting will be required to correct the rounding.

Template installation

Template updates can be downloaded by logging in as a user with administrator permissions. Select the 'Tools' menu, 'Content download' option where available updates will be presented. The templates are then installed by clicking on the 'Install' button.

For further guidance on how to use the Automatic Content Updater please see our Hints and Tips document.

Distribution

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