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The ultimate MAT financial management toolkit
Running a trust is complex. Managing its finances shouldn’t be. When data lives in different systems, you chase numbers instead of shaping strategy. With Access Education, everything sits in one place — your centralised MAT command centre. Real-time reporting. Central control. No version chaos.
Your essential guide to best practice in MAT financial management
Running a Multi-Academy Trust today is about more than compliance—it’s about strategy, foresight, and resilience. This guide shows you how to strengthen financial control, improve planning and make confident, data-driven decisions.
Inside, you’ll discover:
- Best practices for budgeting and reforecasting
- How to link curriculum planning to financial sustainability
- Ways to centralise purchasing without losing flexibility
- The principles of financial maturity for long-term success
Download your free guide now and start building a smarter, stronger trust.
The four building blocks of better financial management
Finance
Keep the day-to-day running smoothly. Automate reporting, stay compliant with DfE and ESFA requirements, and turn month-end from a marathon into a quick check-in.
Budgets
Plan ahead with confidence. Build five-year forecasts, adjust instantly, and use reforecasting to see how every decision impacts your trust’s future.
ICFP
Connect your curriculum plans to your finances. Model staffing, resources, and class structures so you can align educational goals with financial reality.
Purchasing
Bring procurement under control. Automate invoice approvals, cut out manual admin, and use bulk buying to save money where it matters most — in the classroom.
Tools that take your insight further
Analytics
All your trust’s financial data — clear, connected, and easy to act on. Spot patterns, benchmark performance, and make decisions based on facts, not instinct.
Copilot & Evo
Your intelligent assistants for faster insights. Use AI to analyse trends, highlight risks, and surface what needs your attention before it becomes a problem.
Centralisation and agility, built in
Access Education helps MATs bring everything under one roof without losing local autonomy.
Your central budgets hub lets you plan, monitor, and adjust budgets across every school. Reforecasting tools make it simple to respond to funding changes, staffing updates, or shifting priorities, keeping your trust financially confident all year round.
One bundle, every capability
The Financial Focus Bundle combines Budgets, Finance, ICFP and Purchasing, giving your trust a single, connected financial foundation.
From long-term planning to daily transactions, it’s all there, working together.
How Access Education compares
People often ask how we compare to popular solutions on the market, like IMP. Both aim to help trusts manage their finances, but they take very different approaches. Access Education Suite presents a comprehensive, integrated platform that spans finance, budgeting, HR, payroll, communications, curriculum planning, curriculum and assessment and analytics. IMP, by contrast, offers a focused financial management solution tailored specifically for trusts.
Here’s how they stack up:
Why MATs love our financial management suite
We could’ve phased it, but we went full beans, paperless from day one. It’s worked. We’ve reduced costs, stopped printing, and eliminated duplication.
What stood out for us was how familiar it felt. Simple drop-down menus, straightforward processes, clear buttons for each function—it just made sense. There wasn’t a steep learning curve, and that made all the difference.
Each school can manage its day-to-day financial operations, but as a trust, we have full visibility of everything. This balance is critical for building trust and ensuring consistency.
I’ve looked at other budgeting tools but haven’t found one that quite hit the mark for what we need—especially when it comes to things like term-time percentage calculations and last-minute fund profiling.
Get in touch
Bring clarity, control, and confidence to every financial decision across your trust. It’s everything you need, all in one place.
Further resources
Explore more practical guides and insights to help your trust strengthen financial control, improve forecasting, and plan with confidence.
View all resources
Why is the Access Education suited to MATs?
Balancing school autonomy and central oversight
Best financial software for schools and trusts
A guide to building education tenders