Home 
 1. Overview 
 What is Financial Management? 
 How Financial Management works 
 What does Financial Management cost?  
 Relationships with other processes  
 2. Implementation guide 
 Define what needs to be done 
 Prepare to implement  
 Implement 
 Review the implementation  
 Implementation resources 
 3. Operations guide 
 What needs to be done  
 When does it need doing? 
 Who does it?  
 Operational resources  
 4. Toolkit  
 Examples  
 Templates 
 5. Roles and responsibilities  
 Financial manager  
 Financial administrator  
 6. Review of Financial Management 
 Recap of Financial Management 
 Checklist 
Implement
Create an expenditure record Record expenditure
This section describes how to set up a simple expenditure record and track ICT costs.
Create an expenditure record
You can create an expenditure record using an accounts book or spreadsheet software.  We recommend that you start with our expenditure record template, which we have created in Excel.  You may download and customise it as you wish.  The cost columns are not exhaustive and you can add to them to suit your own requirements. 

Remember, though, that our motto is 'keep it simple' to start with.  If you are not recording costs at the moment, a very general breakdown will be an improvement and it will be easier for you to manage than if you add lots of columns to start with.

The template we have created has just one worksheet for one ICT budget.  You may want to add worksheets if you charge ICT costs directly to the budgets of other departments.

You will notice that there is a small overlap of content in this spreadsheet with the content of the configuration- management database that we have recommended. Your ultimate aim should be to have only one record to cover the needs of both.  At the beginning, though, it is easier to maintain the data separately than it is to create the process interface.

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Record expenditure
You must first create an expenditure record.  When you have done this, the financial manager should use it to record all ICT- related expenditure in the budgetary period. We have created some guidelines for completion of the columns in our template and there is also an example expenditure record to show you some of the items that you might include. 

Don't forget that the cost of ICT is not just the cost of hardware and software alone. There are other costs that should be taken into account such as the cost of support, consumables, maintenance, upgrades, and so on.  This area of financial management is covered in more detail by Becta's  which advises schools on ICT procurement and 'total cost of ownership'.  It is this aspect of financial management that will help you to ensure that your budget covers everything you need to keep your ICT functioning.

If you assign the role of financial administrator in your school, it may be appropriate to give them an edited version of the template to use that excludes sensitive data. This can then be used to cut and paste content into the master spreadsheet to save time. We have created one for you to use if you wish - Expenditure record template

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Guidelines for completion
Item
Enter in this column all expenditure relating to ICT.  Break down the costs by column to enable you to monitor what your money is being spent on.  This may mean splitting up an invoice by, say, hardware, delivery and installation.
Date
Enter the date on the invoice so that you can track down the full details if necessary and establish in which financial year a cost was incurred.
Purchased for
Enter the name of the department the item was purchased for as an indication of where the requirement came from.  Note that the template is intended to record costs against the ICT budget.  You should add worksheets for other budgets if appropriate.
Software
Enter costs for all software here.  This includes software for specific users or departments and software for general use such as server operating systems.  Indicate specific use in the 'Purchased for' column.
Hardware
Enter costs for all hardware here.  This includes hardware for specific users or departments and hardware for general use such as shared infrastructure items.  Indicate specific use in the 'Purchased for' column.
Mice
It may be useful to record this separately if there is a perceived high turnover of mice.  If you do not need to see this cost you may prefer to include mice in the 'Hardware' column.
Cables
Enter costs for all types of cables here, such as printer cables, patch cables, network cables and so on.
Consumables
Enter costs for all consumables here.  This should include items that are shared between departments or used specifically by individuals.
Contract charges
Enter in this column any annual or periodic charges for contracts such as third-party support, maintenance or servicing of any kind.  You should enter all charges for the budgetary period covered by the spreadsheet.
Ad hoc supplier charges
Enter in this column any supplier charges over and above contract charges, such as delivery charges or other charges for services not covered by a contract.
Staff
Enter staff costs in this column.  Note that it would be inappropriate to give staff other than the financial manager access to this information.  For general use we have therefore created an expenditure record template, which excludes this item.
Accommodation
Enter costs for accommodating the ICT equipment in this column - if accommodation charges are allocated to the ICT department and this cost is incurred.
Miscellaneous
Enter details of items not covered by the other cost columns.

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