SIMS Financial Management System (FMS)

Maximise your financial budget

SIMS FMS provides a comprehensive overview of your school’s finances, enabling busy finance staff to complete day-to-day financial tasks quickly.

With our ICAEW-accredited solution, you can manage your budget effectively and meet all your stakeholders' reporting requirements.

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Accurately calculate staffing costs

Automatically reconcile payments against individual members of staff, by linking SIMS FMS with SIMS Personnel.

Save time and money on financial processes

Orders can be sent electronically via supplier portals. School invoices can be authorised and paid via BACS.

Keep track of your school equipment

Items can be assigned to a staff member or room. Detailed audit trails can be generated. Academies can establish asset registers.

FMS Reporting

FMS Reporting is set to transform how leaders and finance teams prepare and share operational, management, and audit reports across schools and school groups. It will significantly reduce the workload associated with report generation, introducing innovative features for saving and exporting data in widely used formats.

Key benefits for all schools:

Cloud-based - flexible, secure, anytime, anywhere access
Export in popular file formats – XLS, PDF and CSV. Improved formatting options for greater clarity
Efficient data access – drill down into individual reports for more information
Historic financial views – view multi-year reports in a single report
Customisation – tailor, modify and save reports for future re-use
Data visualisation – highlight trends and visualise data with charts and graphs

Next Generation FMS

We’re building on our market-leading solution, FMS6 to offer an integrated cloud-based finance solution to LA maintained schools along with new functionality for Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs).

This next generation of FMS in the cloud, will streamline school budget management and simplify statutory reporting for all schools.

Key benefits:

Cloud-based technology - flexible, secure, anytime, anywhere access
Intuitive user interface – places essential functions at your fingertips
Retained database structure – a straightforward migration path without the need for retraining
Seamless integration - with SIMS Next Gen, FMS Reporting, and a wide range of third parties, consolidating your financial management into one cohesive Management Information System (MIS)

In addition, MATs will benefit from

Centralised banking – maintain debtors and transfer money between schools
Inter-school journals – manage recharges and apportion costs across schools within the same group.
Centrally managed suppliers – ensures consistency in supplier data across all schools within a MAT or school group
Authorisation hierarchy and the ability to allow multiple authorisers will reduce bottlenecks and ensure the right people to be involved in the approval process at the right stage

Coming soon

Exciting upgrades are underway to enhance our financial management system for increased efficiency and simplicity.

Both FMS reporting and Next Generation FMS will be entirely cloud-based.

"I needed the confidence that everything in the system is accurate, up-to-date and centralises different figures for external reporting. SIMS FMS was the system we decided was up to the job. In fact, we trialled another system just to be sure and then we reverted back to SIMS FMS as it was the most efficient option."

School Business Manager, primary school

“There’s no paper trail to go missing. The full financial picture is to hand at a moment’s notice. It saves time, money and makes us more efficient, so we can concentrate on providing the best business practice. By utilising existing facilities within the system and looking to expand the possibilities it offers, we hope to enhance our practice further”

Schools Programme Development Consultant for Cambridgeshire County Council

That’s just the start

As well as our next generation of FMS products, we're investing £40m in SIMS Next Gen - our management information system for the cloud.

A multi-year programme of innovation which will be complete by the end of 2026.

View our roadmap to see what’s available now and what’s coming.

View roadmap

Want to learn more about SIMS FMS?

Find out how your school can start using our powerful financial management tools, let us know how you would like to be contacted and we will connect you with an expert.