Accounting for Academies and Education

Academy Schools & Further Education

At PKF Francis Clark we’re proud to work with many educational organisations in our region, from academy trusts (of all sizes), further education and independent schools.

We have the in-depth knowledge of this complex sector that you want from a trusted partner.

We offer the full suite of services you’d expect, along with offering:

A personable, friendly and helpful approach
A safe pair of hands with extensive experience and insights in education. We remain focused on delivering personal, tailored services to each organisation and we firmly believe that ‘one size does not fit all’
The latest updates on sector developments – we continually invest and train our education team and adapt where necessary to stay ahead of a rapidly-changing compliance environment

We tailor all of these services to educational organisations including:

Audit and Assurance

Our audit and assurance services are carefully planned so that we can perform a risk-focused audit. This ensures that our team have a real understanding of the figures.

Tax and VAT

We can help you manage employment taxes and corporation tax. These are some of the taxes which are usually most relevant to clients in the sector.

Even if your organisation is not in a tax-paying position, HMRC will periodically request that a corporation tax return is submitted – which (depending on trust size) may or may not need the statutory accounts to be ‘tagged’.

Our award-winning tax team is experienced in advising educational organisations and can support you with all tax compliance matters.

Our VAT team has extensive knowledge of the issues that academy schools and other educational organisations face.

VAT on school fees

Labour have pledged that should they win the General Election, they will introduce VAT on private school fees, with significant impact on parents’ pockets, and thus on how schools deal with these potential changes.

It is important to note that this only affects fees for children of school age, and currently there is no intention that this should change the status that academy schools, pre- schools or universities currently have.

What can be done to help mitigate or reduce the VAT payable?

Schools should now review the impact any change in VAT status will have, ideally by considering their current (and potential future) income streams, expenses and capital projects in order to analyse their potential VAT recovery. This will enable them to calculate how much they can absorb and mitigate the onward increase in fees, thereby reducing the VAT payable by parents.

Read more in our VAT on school fees blog here

We provide advice on a wide range of areas including registration, partial exemption, treatment of grants and property transactions – all focusing on helping you and your organisation manage VAT accurately and efficiently.

“The VAT team have provided expert advice to Canford on structuring and construction developments undertaken by the school. By explaining the requirements and options in plain English, we have minimised irrecoverable VAT while meeting our VAT compliance requirements. The team are very knowledgeable and have been really helpful whenever we have needed their assistance.”

Tim Brown, Director of Finance
Canford School

Accountancy support

Our accountancy support covers almost any area of finance including:

Academies Accounts Returns
Teachers’ Pensions End of Year Certificates
Budget Forecast Returns (BFR)
Land and Buildings Collection Tool
Other ad-hoc returns and general assistance

Cyber security

Our specialist cyber security team works with organisations across the UK, identifying vulnerabilities, minimising risks, strengthening security and training staff. We tailor our approach to match the specific requirements of the education sector in order to help clients make better, more informed decisions across every aspect of their digital and IT systems.

Academy Schools

Our specialist services for academy schools include our free annual academy update seminar. This provides a valuable opportunity for our clients to hear sector updates from a range of expert speakers.

We are also delighted to offer:

Internal scrutiny service

To help you comply with the requirements of the Academy Trust Handbook, we can develop a bespoke program of work with you and to then carry out the required procedures. This enables us to evaluate the suitability and level of compliance of your financial and non-financial controls. We can offer advice and insight to the board as to how they can best address weaknesses in these controls and ensure that all types of risk are being adequately identified, reported and managed.

Conversion support

We understand the unique issues facing academies and in particular assisting schools as they undergo their transition to academy status. We provide much-needed support through the conversion process and beyond, with our dedicated conversion support service.

Due Diligence

Multi Academy Trusts (MATs) are growing as schools continue to join. As such ‘due diligence’ becomes an increasingly important focus area – for the school considering conversion, the school considering joining a MAT and the MAT considering new joiners. We have a highly skilled team ready to assist you with this process.