Guidance

Detailed user guide for automating the academies accounts return

Updated 3 August 2026

Applies to England

1. General information – automating the academies accounts return

This section includes:

 1.1 What this guidance covers

This is guide that assists trusts using the automation process to send data from their financial management system (FMS) to the Department for Education (DfE) for completing the 2025 to 2026 academies accounts return (AR)

This information may also be useful for trust auditors, although auditors are not currently able to send the automated data themselves.

If you are already familiar with the automation process, you may prefer to use our Quick automation guide.

1.2 Introduction to automation

DfE has developed automation technology to:

• help reduce the burden of submitting your financial information
• enable you to electronically submit your trial balance data directly from your FMS to DfE’s financial returns

This data is used to pre-populate a large percentage of your AR and the trial balance information needed for the trust’s financial statements. The data will also be used to pre-populate one third of the next Budget Forecast Return.

The pre-requisites for using automation are that:

• the trust has either adopted the academies chart of accounts (CoA) natively or is mapping to it via its FMS software provider – there is more information on adopting the academies chart of accounts
• the trust’s software provider has developed the automation functionality
• the trust has assigned and registered a ‘data transfer approver’ role within the trust on DfE Sign-in

1.3 Automation availability

Contact your FMS supplier to find out if they can automate your financial data.

The FMS software providers that can currently provide automation functionality to trusts are:

• Access
• ESS (FMS6 and SIMS)
• Hoge 100
• ION (Sage Intacct)
• Iplicit
• IRIS (Version 6 and 7)
• Solutions for Accounting (Sage 200, Sage Intacct for Education)
• TSG, including previous Dayta clients (Sage 200, Sage Intacct for Education)
• Xero for Education (previously provided via Thorne Widgery)

Action for trusts: if your trust is looking to upgrade its FMS software to take advantage of using the academies CoA and automation, you should review choosing a trust’s financial management system.

1.4 Guidance review date

This guidance is for the automation process for completing the AR 2025 to 2026 only.

The next review of this guidance will be in autumn 2026.

2. Getting started

2.1 DfE Sign-in registration and roles required

To send data from your FMS, all academy trust users will need:

• to be set up on DfE Sign-in
• to be assigned the relevant responsibility by the trust approver

Data transfer approver

All academy trust users sending data from their FMS need to be assigned a data transfer approver role for their trust.

A trust approver must assign or approve all requests for the data transfer approver role.

New trusts

All users will need to be set up, starting with the trust approver. This should be done at the earliest opportunity.

For further information, see DfE Sign-in.

2.1.1 DfE Sign-in user roles required for automation

You will need DfE Sign-in user roles for automation.

The trust approver is a mandatory role and they:

• can invite new users to register
• can allocate roles to already registered users within the DfE Sign-in registration system, including the data transfer approver role
• are administrative and only applicable to the DfE Sign-in registration system

The data transfer approver:

• can electronically submit your trust’s trial balance data directly from your financial management software to DfE
• is mandatory for automation, otherwise you will not be able to send data from your FMS to the AR

Action for trusts: ensure you set up a data transfer approver on DfE Sign-in otherwise you will not be able to send data from your FMS to the AR.

3. How automation works

This section includes:

If you are already familiar with the automation process, you may prefer to use our Quick automation guide.

3.1 Automation process   

DfE has developed an API which enables you to send data to DfE via your FMS. The steps taken during automation are:

1. Trusts send their financial data via an API to the DfE using the trusts FMS.
2. Data is entered into holding tables in the DfE database.
3. Academies AR form and the user is presented with 3 options: ignore, apply or reject.
4. Academies AR and draft FS are available from autumn 2026.

Apply = trust trial balance data appears in accounts return and draft FS report.

3.2 Sending your data

Trusts retain control over when their data is automatically shared with DfE. Data will only be shared with DfE when:

• the data transfer approver assigned by the trust chooses to send the trust’s FMS data
• the data is accepted into the online form when a user, designated by the trust, accepts it, as described in Applying submitted data to your AR 

To send your data to DfE, you should ensure that you have:

• registered for DfE Sign-in
• been assigned the data transfer approver role as described in DfE Sign-in registration and roles required

You must then:

1. Log in to your FMS to send your data to DfE.
2. Contact your supplier for detailed instructions on how to send your data to DfE from your FMS.

The process may vary between software types.

You will be asked to confirm:

• your username
• your password
• that you are happy for the trust’s financial data to be transferred to DfE

In approving the transfer of data to the DfE, the user is authorising the DfE to use that data for the purpose of populating the AR form.

When the trust has logged into the accounts return with their data transfer approver role, a pop-up message headed ‘GOV.UK’ will appear. The user will need to click in the box next to ‘I agree to these conditions’ to confirm they are happy to send their financial data to the DfE. The user will then need to click the ‘continue’ button to send the data through.

3.3 Types of FMS data included in submission

Each supplier has different functionality set up, but your submission could include up to 4 data sets.

Data type	Area of AR populated	Populated for a single academy trust (SAT)	Populated for a multi-academy trust (MAT)
Trust trial balance	Fields within the ‘Statement of financial accounts (SoFA)’, ‘balance sheet assets’, ‘balance sheet liabilities’, ‘balance sheet funds and other disclosures’; and ‘transfers and conversions’.	Yes	Yes
Academies trial balance	The ‘academies’; area of the benchmarking and land and buildings sections.	No	Yes
MAT central services	The ‘MAT central services’; area of the benchmarking and ‘centrally held’; area of the land and buildings section.	No	Yes
Trust counterparty transactions	The ‘counterparty transactions with the academy sector’; area of the counterparty section.	Yes	Yes

See the Academies chart of accounts, ‘ACoA structures and mappings’ tab for a full breakdown of the mapping by data type for each account code.

3.3.1 The importance of trust status and data types

The data that the API sends is determined by the status of a MAT or SAT. If a SAT is setup as a MAT in the trust’s FMS, this results in some duplication of data within the AR once the API upload is accepted into the form.

Trusts should ensure that their FMS is set up with the correct MAT or SAT status before sending their automated data.

3.3.2 Trading subsidiaries

Your trust may have a trading subsidiary that is operating as part of the same legal corporate entity as the trust.

The API can only accept a single data feed into the AR.

We have provided guidance based on 3 different scenarios to describe whether your trading subsidiaries’ financial data can be included in the automated data upload.

Scenario 1

If the accounts for a trading subsidiary are recorded on a separate FMS, then it is currently not possible to include your data within the automation processes, unless trusts journaled all the data from the trading subsidiary to the trust’s main accounting system at the year end.

This is because the API can only accept a single data feed into the AR. However, if the FMS software provider for the trading subsidiary has adopted the CoA, the trust could also adopt the CoA on that system so that the information across the 2 systems is consistent and would improve efficiencies, such as mapping data to AR fields and making inter-company journals more transparent.

Scenario 2

If the trading subsidiary is simply set up on a separate cost centre on the same FMS, then there will be no problem in automating this data.

For the purposes of automation, this trading cost centre data would need to be tagged as ‘matOverview’ or ‘Academies’ by the FMS provider. Also, if the trading cost centre is specific to one academy only, then it should also be tagged with the local education authority (LEA) establishment number by the FMS provider for automation.

If the trust is a MAT, it is up to the trust to decide where to report the trading organisation on the benchmarking. It should be included within the relevant academy if the trading is solely related to that academy. To test this, consider if the trading subsidiary would also move if the academy were to move to another trust. However, if the trading organisation applies to 2 or more academies within the trust, it should be allocated to MAT central services.

Scenario 3

If the trading subsidiary is set up as a separate ‘entity’ on the accounting system, even though it is part of the same corporate legal entity, the trust will need to check with its FMS provider whether this data can be amalgamated with the trust’s main ‘entity’ to automate the data in one upload.

3.4 API validations

An API is a set of programming code that enables data transmission between your FMS and DfE. When you choose to send data to DfE in your FMS, your software supplier will call the API. The code in the API will then perform several validations on your FMS data submission and if your data meets the criteria, it will be successfully accepted into DfE’s database. It will be rejected for any of the following reasons:

• your trial balance does not balance
• there are non-numerical values
• it contains a number with more than 3 decimal places
• you have sent academy data identifiers that do not match the records that DfE holds for your trust - more information on this can be found in the validating your trust section

Your FMS supplier understands the validations that will be carried out on the submitted data and will be sending the data to meet these requirements where possible.

3.5 Validating your trust

Your supplier has set up your submission so that:

• trust-level data will include a unique identifier such as your company registration number or trust unique provider identification number (UPIN)
• your academy-level data will be sent with a unique local authority establishment number (LAESTAB) for each of the academies in your trust

When your data is sent, the API will cross check these identifiers with department records to validate your submission.

The submission will be rejected if:

• the trust UPIN or company number is not recognised
• the LAESTAB is not recognised as being associated with that trust
• the person trying to give consent does not have the correct role for that trust

You can send academy-level data for different academies within your trust. The LAESTAB must match our records for all the academies that you send data for or the whole submission will be rejected.

We will send all trusts their individual reference data along with an automation checklist in autumn 2026.

Once your data has been successfully submitted via the API, it will be transferred into DfE’s database.

3.6 Applying submitted data to your AR

When you next sign into your AR you will be taken to a data uploads page where you will be able to decide what to do with your data. This can only be accessed by users who have been assigned one of the following roles:

• AR trust preparer
• AR trust approver
• external auditor preparer

External auditor approvers are not able to select what happens to the submitted data.

If you are already logged into the AR when you submit the data via your FMS, there will be a ‘Data uploads’ link and a ‘Pending’ tag in the right-hand corner of the screen.  

If you select ‘Data uploads’, you will be taken to the data uploads page with a choice of actions of what to do with the data.  

Information is provided to ensure you recognise the submission, such as:

• ‘Initiated by’, which identifies who in your organisation sent the data from your FMS
• ‘Date and time’, which identifies when your organisation sent the data from your FMS

You must select one choice from a list of actions to leave this screen.

By choosing ‘Apply’:

• the data will pre-populate the trial balance cells in your AR
• existing data in these cells will be overwritten by this new data upload
• non-trial balance fields will not change
• you will receive a warning message before actioning your choice
• page statuses will update and validations will clear or trigger according to new data after an import
• further validations may trigger as you go on to complete each page

By choosing ‘Reject’, the data is deleted and will not pre-populate your AR. If you decide that you should have accepted the upload, you must resubmit the data via your FMS. You will receive a warning message to confirm this before actioning the rejection.

By choosing ‘Ignore’:

• the data will not pre-populate your AR 
• the data will be saved in the background so that you can return to this screen later to accept or reject it

If you submit more than one set of data without accepting or rejecting it:

• only the latest submitted data will be available
• you will lose your previously ignored uploaded data

You can access this ignored data through the ‘Data uploads’ link on the top right-hand side of every screen.

The data uploads page will keep track of your data acceptance and rejection history. You can see this at any time in the ‘Activity history’ section on the bottom right-hand side of the index screen. 

4. Data transformation 

This section includes:

4.1 Data transformation – AR

The data sent in the  FMS  submission is formatted to meet the  AR  requirements. This includes 4 main activities:

• sub-totalling of CoA codes to  AR  field level following the mapping described in Academies chart of accounts: user guide 
• the sub-totalled values are rounded to the nearest £000 
• the residual values left after rounding are allocated to certain  AR  fields throughout the form, listed in the table below
• the signage of the values is flipped on certain account codes, for example your income and liability codes are likely to contain negative values in your FMS but the  AR  may require you to report them as positive values

Type	Rounding approach	AR field allocated to	AR table
Trial balance	Net all residual values from asset codes	DEB110-A	Other debtors
Trial balance	Net all residual values from liabilities codes	CRD060-A	Other creditors
Trial balance	Net all residual funds codes	RGF080-E	Other gains, losses and transfers
Trial balance	Net all residual values from expenditure codes	OEX010	Other expenditure
Trial balance	Net all residual values from income codes	INC010	Other income
Benchmarking – academies	Net all residual values from academy level expenditure codes	BAE280-A	Other expenditure
Benchmarking – academies	Net all residual values from academy level income codes	BAI080-A	Other income
Benchmarking – central service	Net all residual values from central services expenditure codes	BTE280	Other expenditure
Benchmarking – central service	Net all residual values from central services income codes	BTI080	Other income
Counterparty	Net all residual values from Asset codes relating to counterparty fields	CPD050	Debtors under one year – other debtors
Counterparty	Net all residual values from liabilities codes relating to counterparty fields	CPL050	Liabilities less than one year – other creditors within one year
Counterparty	Net all residual values from expenditure codes relating to counterparty fields	CPE070	Purchase of goods and services
Counterparty	Net all residual values from income codes relating to counterparty fields	CPI100	Other income

Data transformation (AR) – worked examples

Here are 2 worked examples of how data is transformed from what you submit through your FMS to how it is displayed in the AR. There are further examples in the calculated fields section for opening balances and funds.

Worked example for AR field CAD010

FMS data received:

CoA account	CoA description	Value (£)	AR mapping
612100	SF: Teachers: Wages and salaries	1,754,099.62	CAD010
612200	SF: Teachers: Employers national insurance	189,572.10	CAD010
612300	SF: Teachers: Employers pension contribution	291,189.84	CAD010
615100	SF: Teaching Assistants: Wages and salaries	150,279.51	CAD010
615200	SF: Teaching Assistants: Employers national insurance	9,970.56	CAD010
615300	SF: Teaching Assistants: Employers pension contribution	20,726.34	CAD010
		£2,415,837.97

Transformation steps:

#	Step	Value
1	Sum FMS CoA values to AR field level	£2,415,837.97
2	Round value to nearest 1,000	£2,416
3	Calculate residual value
	i. Divide total FMS value by 1,000	£2,415.84
	ii. Minus rounded value calculated in step 2	£2,416.00
	iii. Residual rounding to be assigned	(£0.16)
	iv. Assign to allocated rounding account	OEX010
4	No signage flip required	£2,416
	Result: CAD010 AR value	£2,416

Worked example for AR field OTA030 (showing signage flip)

FMS data received:

CoA account	CoA description	Value (£)	AR mapping
530400	IN: Trading Income: Sale of uniforms	(170,056.63)	OTA030
530500	IN: Trading Income: Income from clubs	(51,121.00)	OTA030
530600	IN: Trading Income: Income from music	0.00	OTA030
		(£221,177.63)

Transformation steps:

#	Step	Value
1	Sum FMS CoA values to AR field level	(£221,177.63)
2	Round value to nearest 1,000	(£221)
3	Calculate residual value
	i. Divide total FMS value by 1,000	(£221.18)
	ii. Minus rounded value calculated in step 2	(£221.00)
	iii. Residual rounding to be assigned	(£0.18)
	iv. Assign to allocated rounding account	INC010
4	Apply signage flip	£221
	Result: OTA030 AR value	£221

4.2 Data transformation – draft financial statements

The data transformation of the trust’s FMS into the draft financial statements is a simpler process because:

• values are rounded into £s
• there is no rounding reallocation

Positive and negative balances are displayed as per the trust’s published financial statements.

5. After accepting the FMS submission – AR

This section includes:

5.1 Overview updates

The ‘overview’ section of the AR has 4 tables. All 4 tables must be completed to proceed with the rest of the AR form. You can accept the FMS submission but until you complete all 4 of the tables in the overview section, you will not be able to see your data.

Many of the AR tables, data entry rows, columns and fields displayed within the AR form are dependent on information provided in the 4 tables. The FMS submission that trusts send will populate certain answers within these tables depending on the data sent.

5.2 Academy information – transfers and conversions

In the ‘Academy information table’, the trust needs to confirm the status of each academy school within the trust on the academy information page. This is done by selecting the correct status from the drop-down list below the DfE recorded status. 

If a trust sends an FMS submission containing data against in-period transfer-in, in-period transfer-out or newly converted member CoA codes within the academy trial balance dataset, then the form will automatically select the relevant status in the drop-down list for that academy (ACI040). This will: 

• display additional fields relating to this type of transfer or conversion within the AR form
• activate the ‘transfers and conversions’ section 

If there is data against the above at trust level and not academy level, the form will not be able to automatically make this selection, and the form user will have to complete this information manually by: 

• reviewing the list of academies on the academy information page 
• updating the transfer status in line with the data which has been submitted – for example, if the FMS submission contained data for in-period transfer-in and newly converted member, the form user would need to select these statuses in the drop-down list (ACI040) for the relevant academies before the page can be marked as complete 

These scenarios will lead to the status of the academy information page being reset to ‘in progress’ after accepting the FMS submission. 

There will be no change to the page status if: 

• the form user has already completed the academy information section 
• the data imported from the FMS submission does not contradict the information input 

Action for trusts: check academies have the correct status.

5.3 Questionnaire

Most trusts will not have disclosures for every table in the return. Completing this questionnaire tailors the return to the tables, assets and investment types that are relevant to them.

When the AR online form accepts an FMS submission by the trust, it will check if there is any data related to the optional tables which can be made available through a questionnaire selection. If there is, the online form will:

• choose the selection on the questionnaire according to the data sent from the FMS
• make available the corresponding table so the user can have all the values populated in the form
• override any previous questionnaire responses
• change the status of the questionnaire page from either ‘not started’ to ‘in progress’

The AR preparer will still need to complete some of the questions manually before completing the table.

The status of the page with revert to ‘In progress’ each time a new set of data is imported.

The questionnaire responses will be completed based on the latest upload applied, and the user will need to manually re-enter responses to the questions not automatically answered by the trusts uploaded data.

Trusts can change the answers to questions at any time before the form is approved. Trusts should be aware that doing this would also remove any associated data in the form, including data that has been:

• imported through the FMS submission
• manually entered.

Trusts may find that certain responses are pre-populated and in a read-only (greyed out) format. This is because of the closing balances disclosed in the trust’s previous AR. You will not be able to change the response to these questions.

Action for trusts: review and confirm the questionnaire, updating where necessary. 

5.4 Calculated fields – opening balances

Opening balances are:

• pre-populated fields using the data submitted as the closing balance in the previous year’s AR
• read-only and you cannot modify them

The steps for opening balances are:

#	Step	Value
1	Sum CoA values to AR field level	£4,025,277.95
2	Round value to nearest 1,000	£4,025
3	Calculate residual value
	i. Divide total FMS value by 1,000	£4,025.28
	ii. Minus rounded value calculated in step 2	£4,025.00
	iii. Residual rounding to be assigned	£0.28
	iv. Assign to allocated rounding account	DEB110-A
4	No signage flip required	£4,025
	AR pre-populated opening balance in TFC010-A	£4,500
5	Calculate difference between AR and FMS opening balance	(£475)
	Result: TFC020 AR value	(£475)

When an FMS submission is accepted, the pre-populated opening balances figures are deducted from:

• the brought forward figure sent through the FMS
• any remaining figures posted to the relevant adjustments made to opening balance line

The field-level tracking label will default to ‘Modified’ rather than ‘Automated’ because these fields are showing the result of a calculation rather than the imported FMS value.

Worked example for AR field TFC020-A

FMS data received:

CoA account	CoA description	Value (£)
110100	FA: Freehold Land: Cost brought forward	400,000.00
115100	FA: Freehold Buildings: Cost brought forward	3,625,277.95
		£4,025,277.95

Transformation steps:

#	Step	Value
1	Sum CoA values to AR field level	£4,025,277.95
2	Round value to nearest 1,000	£4,025
3	Calculate residual value
	i. Divide total FMS value by 1,000	£4,025.28
	ii. Minus rounded value calculated in step 2	£4,025.00
	iii. Residual rounding to be assigned	£0.28
	iv. Assign to allocated rounding account	DEB110-A
4	No signage flip required	£4,025
	AR pre-populated opening balance in TFC010-A	£4,500
5	Calculate difference between AR and FMS opening balance	(£475)
	Result: TFC020 AR value	(£475)

5.5 Calculated fields – funds

Within the CoA, the funds trial balance codes represent the total funds balance for the year. When this information is passed from the FMS to DfE to be populated in the AR, a calculation is required. The AR already pre-populates the opening balance with the closing balance submitted in the previous year’s AR. As the funds balance contains the opening balance within its figure:

• the AR form deducts this opening balance from the funds balance
• the remainder is added into the ‘Other gains, losses and transfers’ line in the funds table

You need to manually modify the funds tables in the form to give the breakdown of the fund balance as the trial balance codes do not provide further detail.

You may also need to amend some fields in the benchmarking section, as BOB030 (Benchmarking totals > Closing balance) is auto-populated with the value mapped from CoA account codes 420100 and 460100. The fields are:

• BAB030 – Benchmarking academies > Closing balance (Restricted and Unrestricted Funds) for each applicable academy
• BTB030 – Benchmarking MAT central services > Closing balance (Restricted and Unrestricted Funds)

Using the benchmarking field guidance in the AR form, overwrite the automated value in line with the adjustments made to the ‘Funds’ tables for restricted and unrestricted funds.

Worked example for AR field RFF080-A

If the following data was submitted at CoA level through an automated FMS submission:

CoA account	CoA description	Value (£)
430100	FD: Restricted Fixed Asset Fund: Fund balance	70,000.00
470100	FD: Revaluation Fund: Fund balance	30,000.00
		100,000.00

Transformation steps:

#	Step	Value
1	Sum CoA values to AR field level	£100,000.00
2	Round value to nearest 1,000	£100
3	Calculate residual value
	i. Divide total FMS value by 1,000	£100
	ii. Minus rounded value calculated in step 2	£100
	iii. Residual rounding to be assigned	£0
4	No signage flip required	£100
	AR pre-populated opening balance in RFF010-A:	£10
5	Calculate difference between AR opening balance and FMS closing balance	£90
	Result: RFF080-A AR value	£90

Using the worked example, when the trusts data is first imported, the table would look as shown in table 1. You should then manually allocate these values as appropriate so the form will look like the example shown in table 2:

Table 1 and 2

Worked example for AR field RGF080-A

FMS data received:

CoA account	CoA description	Value (£)
420100	FD: Restricted General Fund: Fund Balance	967,724.08

Transformation steps:

#	Step	Value
1	Sum CoA values to AR field level	£967,724.08
2	Round value to nearest 1000	£968
3	Calculate residual value
	i. Divide total FMS value by 1,000	£967.72
	ii. Minus rounded value calculated in step 2	£968.00
	iii. Residual rounding to be assigned	(£0.28)
	iv. Assign to allocated rounding account	RGF080-E
4	No signage flip required	£968
	AR pre-populated opening balance in RGF010-A:	£1,000
5	Calculate difference between AR opening balance and FMS closing balance	(£32)
	Result: RGF080-A AR value	(£32)

Using the worked example, when the trusts data is first imported, the table would look as shown in table 3. You should then manually allocate these values as appropriate so the form will look like the example shown in table 4:

Table 3 and 4

CoA codes affecting gross transfer between funds will map into the gross transfer between funds line and affect the closing balance.

Action for trusts: update funds table pages.

5.6 Non-automated data

Data can only be automated if it is held within your FMS and therefore part of the trial balance. There are several non-trial balance CoA codes, which all start with 9. These will not be sent across from your FMS and so fields within the AR, which relate to non-trial balance data, will have to be completed manually.

There are several tables within the AR which only contain non-trial balance information. These tables will need to be completed manually. They are:

• academy transfer in
• academy transfer out
• agency arrangements
• amortisation periods
• average staff numbers (full-time equivalent (FTE))
• capital commitments – contracted
• capitalisation thresholds
• contingent liabilities
• depreciation periods
• exit schemes
• finance lease commitments
• fixed-asset financing
• fund analysis
• intangible fixed assets – asset financing
• loan analysis
• loss of office payments
• losses and special payments
• newly converted member
• non-cancellable contracts
• off payroll arrangements
• short term or low value leases
• pension breakdown
• pension – employer contribution
• pension life expectancy
• pension major assumptions
• pension plan assets
• pension sensitivity
• pension surplus deemed irrecoverable
• permanent employees – gender analysis
• private finance initiative (PFI) commitments
• provisions (ageing)
• related party transactions
• staff costs
• staff emoluments
• staff sickness – days lost
• trustee remuneration

Fields that must be completed manually are called non-automated fields. Sending data from your FMS will have no impact on these non-automated fields. For example, where you have manually entered data into the non-automated fields and then need to import or re-import data from your FMS, these non-automated (manual) fields will not be overwritten.

Action for trusts: manually update non-trial balance cells.

5.7 Checking and tracking your data

You will need to check your data upload is correct after you have accepted your data upload into your AR. The pre-populated cells from your finance system have been tagged with ‘Automated’ so they can be easily identified.

If you manually change the data by over-typing in the field:

• the tag will change to ‘Modified’
• the cell outline colour will change from grey to blue

If you decide the original pre-populated value was correct and you change it back:

• the tag will revert to ‘Automated’
• the cell outline colour will be grey again

Where fields are calculated using data provided from your FMS, such as opening balances or funds, if the calculation results in a different number to the one sent from your FMS, the field will be tagged with the ‘Modified’ label.

This field-level tracking functionality will be turned on as a default when you accept data into your form. You can turn it off and on using the display tracking button on the right-hand side of the index screen. This button, as well as the field-level tracking:

• is only visible after you have accepted an FMS submission
• can then only be seen by those with the AR trust preparer, AR trust approver and the external auditor preparer roles

5.8 Report showing mapping between FMS and AR

The FMS mapping report can be found on the right-hand side of the index screen once you have accepted a data upload. This report:

• will not be visible before this point
• shows which academies’ CoA codes have been fed from your FMS into each AR fields
• will show the original values submitted from your FMS and how they have been transformed to meet the AR requirements per the data transformation steps

5.9 Amending your data

If you need to make amendments to the pre-populated cells, you can either:

• change the data manually by deleting the automated figure and typing in your own. This will change the field-level tracking tag for those cells from ‘Automated’ to ‘Modified’
• make the adjustments in your finance systems and upload a new set of trial balance data

Trusts should be aware that option 2 will overwrite all automated cells including those you may have previously changed manually (fields that are completed manually will be unaffected as they cannot be automated).

For SATs, where possible, the form will use data submitted in the SoFA to auto-populate cells in the benchmarking section. This will be read-only data and you will not be able to amend these fields.

5.10 Cut-off for data uploads

Uploads from your finance system will only be possible up to the point the form is sent through the approval cycle. After this, no more uploads will be accepted, even if the form is sent back to preparer stage.

You will need to make changes manually after this.

5.11 AR review, approval and submission

Before following the approval process, you should:

• complete your return
• check your data and confirm this by selecting ‘mark as complete’ on each page
• clear any validations

Then you should:

• follow the normal approval process
• submit the AR to your trust and auditor approvers

More information on this can be found in Academies accounts return: guide to using the online form.

Action for trusts: check data and confirm using the ‘mark as complete’ button on each page and send for approval. 

Visit the Quick automation guide to review the post automation checklist.

6. Further help and information

You can find further information about completing the AR online form.

If you are having issues with automation:

• approach your FMS provider help desk in the first instance if the query relates to sending your data to DfE
• many FMS providers offer ‘How to’ guides and videos in their help centres on preparing your data for automation in your finance software
• for queries after your data has been accepted into the AR form and not addressed by our guidance, you should contact the customer help portal and add reference ‘Automation’ and provide an explanation of the issue and an accompanying screenshot, where possible
• for urgent queries, you should contact us on Finance.API@education.gov.uk)
• trusts that are members of the FD Forum as also able to contact us on the Academies CoA channel

Support category	Support available and where to find it
Further information on completing the AR	Academies accounts return: guide to completing the online form, Further help and information.
Academies chart of accounts	Trusts should use the 2025 to 2026 version to complete their trust’s financial returns for 2025 to 2026, which can be found on Academies chart of accounts and automating the accounts return.
Pre-automation support: preparing your data for automation	A checklist is available in the Quick automation guide. We are also sending trusts their individual reference data for automation along with the checklist in early November. Many FMS providers offer ‘How to’ guides and videos in their help centres on preparing your data for automation in your finance software. Your FMS provider may deliver joint training sessions with DfE to show the end-to-end automation process.
Post-automation information: once data has been accepted into the AR form	For automation webinars, see our DfE academies CoA collection on Eventbrite and book onto a session. This checklist is available in the Quick automation guide. The checklist can also be found in AR review, approval and submission.
Help with automation queries	Approach your FMS provider help desk in the first instance if the query relates to sending your data to DfE. For queries after your data has been accepted into the AR form and not addressed by our guidance, you should contact the customer help portal and add reference ‘Automation’ and provide an explanation of the issue and an accompanying screenshot, where possible. For urgent queries, you should contact us on Finance.API@education.gov.uk. For automation dial-in sessions, see our DfE academies CoA collection on Eventbrite and book onto our Q&A sessions.
Help with academies CoA queries	For automation dial-in sessions, see our DfE academies CoA collection on Eventbrite and book onto our Q&A sessions. Any questions not addressed in the above tools and guidance should be addressed to the customer help portal and add reference ‘Academies chart of accounts’ and provide an explanation of the issue and an accompanying screenshot, where possible. Trusts that are members of the FD Forum as also able to contact us on the Academies CoA channel.
For more information about FMS software	See Choosing a trust’s financial management system (FMS).