Building of data base
Julie Roberts did an outstanding job building our finance database. She was incredibly knowledgeable and demonstrated a clear understanding of our re…
Access Education Finance
Our cloud-based financial management software for schools helps you confidently manage your education finances and save money with Access Education's cloud-based financial management system.
Supporting features such as DfE automation and the new standard chart of accounts, our finance software for schools ensures thousands of schools across the UK are streamlined, up-to-date and making best use of their budget.
100% cloud-based with secure single sign-on through Access Evo, anytime, anywhere.
Stay worry-free with automatic compliance updates, ensuring your school meets all Department for Education requirements effortlessly using our school finance software.
We’ve worked with school finance managers and leading education figures to make our school and academy accounting software fit for purpose.
Electronic bank reconciliation made easy. Upload a CSV statement to auto-match transactions. Consistent Financial Reports (CFR) can be produced quickly and easily for submission to the local authority. Custom reporting now also available.
The fully customisable chart of accounts, ledger options and defaults allow you to accurately represent how your school or academy works, letting you record and report information as you need to. Our school management software gives you the freedom to manage transactions, payments, receipts and reconciliations quickly and accurately, with built-in double-entry posting, tolerance and transaction warnings.
Customisable user-access profiles allow you to delegate responsibility appropriately. Plus, customisable document templates and online document management means you can keep everything in one place with the added comfort of knowing it is securely, stored online.
Take our custom reporting tool product tourThe real-time information dashboard gives an up-to-date picture of your school’s financial performance quickly and easily. While detailed reports let you analyse your school’s finances to reveal critical trends.
You can create easy-to-understand monthly, termly and annual reports for governors and trustees and meet your regulatory responsibilities with simple-to-produce DfE returns.
Management reports can be run at the click of a button and you can easily access real-time information at a high-level by a ledger code group or detailed data through your ledger codes. The management report is built to the suggested DfE format, in our school management software.
As a UK-developed and hosted platform, it's compliant with DfE requirements, and you will be ready when tax goes digital.
Access Digital Tax retrieves relevant data from Access Education Finance ready for your review and submission to HMRC.
Straightforward set-up - Nothing to install and limited IT support needs means minimal disruption and the most up-to-date version every time you log in.
Access Education transforms how schools, academies, trusts, and local authorities operate – bringing financial management, people management, curriculum and assessment, and parental engagement together through Access Evo, our intelligent software platform. Data moves effortlessly, decisions happen faster, and complexity dissolves into clarity.
Start where it matters most, then expand as your needs evolve. Each solution delivers impact on its own. Together, they're unstoppable.
Manage your school's finances effortlessly with the Access Education Financial Management solution, combining Access Education Budgets and Access Education Finance into one intuitive system for schools, academies, and trusts.
Make it even easier with our new Access Education suite bundles:
Effortless, precise, and made for education - Access Education brings clarity to financial management.
Finance teams in maintained schools spend too much time chasing approvals, checking invoices and managing suppliers.
Access Education Purchasing makes the process easier. It automates invoice capture and approvals, helps prevent duplicate payments, and provides the audit trails that Local Authorities and auditors expect.
When used with Access Education Finance, it creates one connected system for budgeting, purchasing and reporting, giving you a complete view of your school’s finances.
Book a personalised demo to see how your establishment can streamline processes.
Discover how powerful finance software can help your school or MAT.
Explore the features of Access Education Finance in our short video.
We are dedicated to providing our customers with award-winning implementation and support to help them get the most out of their software.
Julie Roberts did an outstanding job building our finance database. She was incredibly knowledgeable and demonstrated a clear understanding of our re…
Julie Roberts was fantastic in her explanations and knowledge regarding details and specifics about the system. It was a very helpful training sessio…
I requested a bespoke training session, one on one to go through some queries & guidance for Access Education Finance. I wanted to better understand …
We started a large migration process some time ago which wrapped up over the year end of 26/27. Our situation was a particularly messy one. It would …
Julie Roberts is outstanding (A*)! She really knows the system and resolved my issue in under an hour. I had been waiting for this to be sorted since…
I was given a thorough introduction to the Access Finance system by Julie, who is clearly not just knowledgeable about the system itself, but has a v…
I recently attended a system training session ran by Julie Roberts, and it was excellent from start to finish. The trainer demonstrated a deep unders…
I had Central Bank Training delivered from Julie Roberts on Teams in August, and then a follow up meeting in October to see how I was getting on. On …
Discover valuable guides and resources to support your research and purchasing decisions. Our news and updates offer expert advice and industry trends to help you make informed choices for your education finance software.
View all resources
Education finance panel discussion 2024
School financial year-end: everything you need to know
Empower your school or LA with tailored finance reporting
What is the best financial accounting software for schools?
The ultimate guide to education finance software
Software support when you switch to Access Education Finance
Yes, Access provides a range of standard and customised reports to meet all your MAT/academy’s needs. Read more about finance for MATs.
Yes, as part of the project our consultants work with you to ensure the implementation covers all training your requirements. We’d be happy to talk to you about these, please do get in touch.
It depends on your size, structure, and reporting needs. The DfE’s latest comparison matrix lists the systems that support automation and the academies Chart of Accounts (CoA).
We’ve broken this down in detail in our Best financial software for schools and trusts guide.
Access provides telephone support, account management and online support. You can pick up the phone and speak with a member of our team when you need assistance.
We can build you a new Chart of Accounts structure, copy/amend your current structure, or work with you to establish a uniform CoA structure which can be rolled out to all academies.
According to the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA), reliability and compliance are the top two priorities for school finance teams.
In independent feedback, Access Education Finance scores above the industry average for user satisfaction and support quality, supported by our Trustpilot rating of 4.6/5.
Finance and accounting software for education is solution that helps people within local authorities or academy trusts conduct various accounting and bookkeeping tasks. More commonly known as school finance software, the terms ‘accounting software for education’ and ‘finance software for education’ all refer to the same kind of software packages used to manage a school or trust’s finances.
The software tends to be suitable for use by those without a formal accounting background, such as school business managers and headteachers who manage school’s finances alongside their other responsibilities.
School accounting software helps to simplify and streamline finance process in schools and Trusts. Often integrated with other software, it allows schools to become scalable and grow in a more efficient manner due to the ability to centralise resources.
Providing detailed insights in a secure manner, school accounting software can also help schools in their mission to become paperless and provides remote, easy access to real time data and reporting in line with school requirements. The primary benefit schools see when implementing school accounting software is time savings. Take a look at some comparisons of accounting software for schools, academies & MATs.
Schools using Access Education Finance typically report measurable time and cost savings.
On average, schools process month-end accounts 45% faster, save up to £12,000 per year in administrative costs, and experience 60% fewer reporting errors across their trusts.
Most customers tell us the software pays for itself within the first year.
Access works with over 3,000 UK schools and trusts, giving us unique insight into how finance teams operate across the education sector.
This real-world experience shapes every update we make — from DfE compliance tools to multi-academy trust reporting features.
We build specifically for education, not as a generic accounting add-on.
Want to see how we compare to IMP? Click here.
There are many providers of accounting systems to schools, including but not limited to Iris, Orovia, IMP, Sage and more – as well as Access Education Finance. Providers offer a range of packages for schools and trusts with different functionality suiting your unique requirements. When investing in a new accounting system it is important for schools and trusts to consider a range of factors including price, compliance, flexibility and more. Take a look at guide to choosing the right financial system for your school or trust.
School finance software helps schools, academies and trusts track and report on the financial status of their educational establishment. The school’s financial management system is in place to increase visibility across the site as well as reduce administration.
Connecting people, processes and data in one intelligent system.
Access Education transforms how schools, academies, trusts, and local authorities operate – bringing finance, budget, operations, teaching and parent communications together through Access Evo, our intelligent software platform. Data moves effortlessly, decisions happen faster, and complexity dissolves into clarity.
Start where it matters most, then expand as your needs evolve. Each solution delivers impact on its own. Together, they're unstoppable.
Giving schools, academies, and multi-academy trusts (MATs) a single, joined-up view of their finances. Access Education’s Financial Management suite brings together:
Access My School Portal simplifies school-parent engagement by centralising key tools into one secure, mobile-first experience.
Access GCSEPod online teaching resources helps save teachers time and encourages students to learn independently.
Centralise staff data, streamline recruitment, reduce HR admin and manage payroll across your school or MAT.