School Business Services

SBS Financial Planner

SBS Financial Planner is a cloud hosted budget planning and forecasting software, by School Business Services, developed for MATs, SATs, maintained schools and local authorities.

Our budgeting and financial planning software is used by 200+ MATs,2 2,000+ schools across 145+ local authorities.

Features

  • Financial planning
  • Scenario modelling
  • HR, Finance & MIS integration
  • Real-time, bespoke reporting
  • MAT level consolidated reporting
  • Payroll reconciliation
  • Financial forecasting
  • Bespoke remote access profiles
  • Full audit reporting
  • ICFP

Benefits

  • True integration delivers time savings and improves accuracy
  • Access on the go via any device
  • Drive accountability to increase staff performance
  • Provides agile budget decision making
  • Deliver consistent reporting to stakeholders
  • Business continuity via first class support provision
  • Accommodates all operating models

Pricing

£99 to £1,499 a unit a year

  • Education pricing available
  • Free trial available

Service documents

Request an accessible format
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at sales@schoolbusinessservices.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 13

Service ID

3 8 9 6 4 6 4 1 9 6 8 6 0 3 2

Contact

School Business Services Niall Balmer
Telephone: 0345 222 1551
Email: sales@schoolbusinessservices.co.uk

Service scope

Software add-on or extension
No
Cloud deployment model
Private cloud
Service constraints
N/a
System requirements
Access to internet via any web browser

User support

Email or online ticketing support
Email or online ticketing
Support response times
Service desk is active Monday to Friday 8 - 5. Responses are immediate, with a commitment to respond within a timeframe no longer than 30 minutes.
Outside of these hours tickets are logged and responded to when the service desk reopens.
User can manage status and priority of support tickets
Yes
Online ticketing support accessibility
None or don’t know
Phone support
Yes
Phone support availability
9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
Web chat support
No
Onsite support
Yes, at extra cost
Support levels
First line Service desk support is Free of charge.
Second and Third line support is Free of charge.
Training may be billable, this starts from £99 per hour.
Support available to third parties
No

Onboarding and offboarding

Getting started
We take care of full implementation, migrating information from the existing solution to ours.
We provide training on the customers own data.
Training can be delivered onsite or offsite, depending on the preference of the customer.
We have a dedicated module (SBSAssist) which includes video snippets and user guides to supplement the training.
Service documentation
No
End-of-contract data extraction
All data can be extracted to excel or PDF by the user.
End-of-contract process
Standard recurring cost is the software subscription which includes service desk support.

Potential additional costs:
Training & implementation

Using the service

Web browser interface
Yes
Supported browsers
  • Internet Explorer 11
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari
  • Opera
Application to install
No
Designed for use on mobile devices
Yes
Differences between the mobile and desktop service
Consistent across any device, some sizings may differ
Service interface
Yes
User support accessibility
None or don’t know
Description of service interface
An online budgeting software with various pages, taking the user through the process of building, reporting and monitoring budgets
Accessibility standards
None or don’t know
Description of accessibility
Accessed via any web browser with the option to activate MFA.
Accessibility testing
Each release is thoroughly tested at UAT and regression. Testing is conducted over all browsers to ensure compatibility and minimal impact to existing and future customers.
API
Yes
What users can and can't do using the API
Integrate with MIS, Accounting, HR and Payroll solutions
API documentation
No
API sandbox or test environment
Yes
Customisation available
No

Scaling

Independence of resources
We have a dedicated Dev Ops engineer who maintains and monitors a series of performance dashboards to ensure any hikes in volume are catered for by increasing server space before they become an issue.

Analytics

Service usage metrics
Yes
Metrics types
We have a dedicated audit module available to the customer who can see every move any user has made within their software.
Reporting types
Real-time dashboards

Resellers

Supplier type
Not a reseller

Staff security

Staff security clearance
Conforms to BS7858:2019
Government security clearance
Up to Security Clearance (SC)

Asset protection

Knowledge of data storage and processing locations
Yes
Data storage and processing locations
European Economic Area (EEA)
User control over data storage and processing locations
Yes
Datacentre security standards
Supplier-defined controls
Penetration testing frequency
At least every 6 months
Penetration testing approach
Another external penetration testing organisation
Protecting data at rest
Encryption of all physical media
Data sanitisation process
Yes
Data sanitisation type
Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
Equipment disposal approach
In-house destruction process

Data importing and exporting

Data export approach
Via excel from within the software
Data export formats
  • CSV
  • Other
Other data export formats
Excel
Data import formats
CSV

Data-in-transit protection

Data protection between buyer and supplier networks
Legacy SSL and TLS (under version 1.2)
Data protection within supplier network
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • Legacy SSL and TLS (under version 1.2)

Availability and resilience

Guaranteed availability
99.5% uptime
No refund agreement
Approach to resilience
Available upon request
Outage reporting
Email alerts

Identity and authentication

User authentication needed
Yes
User authentication
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Username or password
Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
There is a central administration module managed by either our support desk or a dedicated person within the customer account.

This module controls exactly what each user can see and edit within the software
Access restriction testing frequency
At least every 6 months
Management access authentication
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Username or password

Audit information for users

Access to user activity audit information
Users have access to real-time audit information
How long user audit data is stored for
At least 12 months
Access to supplier activity audit information
Users have access to real-time audit information
How long supplier audit data is stored for
At least 12 months
How long system logs are stored for
At least 12 months

Standards and certifications

ISO/IEC 27001 certification
Yes
Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001
British Assessment Bureau
ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date
Renewed 23/02/2022
What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover
N/a
ISO 28000:2007 certification
No
CSA STAR certification
No
PCI certification
No
Cyber essentials
No
Cyber essentials plus
No
Other security certifications
No

Security governance

Named board-level person responsible for service security
No
Security governance certified
Yes
Security governance standards
ISO/IEC 27001
Information security policies and processes
ISO27001

Operational security

Configuration and change management standard
Supplier-defined controls
Configuration and change management approach
All development is thoroughly tested prior to release.
This is following careful specification.
Testing is conducted in a dedicated sandbox area, across multiple browsers.
New and existing functionality is tested - UST and regression.
All releases are tested to safeguard against performance degradation.
All releases are performed out of operating hours to minimise impact to customers.
All releases are communicated days in advance to customer base.
Vulnerability management type
Supplier-defined controls
Vulnerability management approach
Our dedicated Dev Ops engineer' key responsibility is to continually safeguard against threats. The process involves continual monitoring and development of monitoring and safeguard controls.
Information regarding threats can come via multiple channels such as our ICT support, market analysis and our own monitoring dashboards.
Patches can be deployed same day if threat is deemed significant enough.
Protective monitoring type
Supplier-defined controls
Protective monitoring approach
Potential compromises are identified via our Dev Ops engineer monitoring of the network. This will more often than not ensure that we are able to deal with a potential compromise before it becomes a reality. As we have a dedicated Dev Ops engineer, this is given highest priority and dealt with immediately.
Incident management type
Supplier-defined controls
Incident management approach
Incident management in terms of infrastructure is addressed on a case by case basis, however, root cause analysis will always be conducted to ensure we prevent reoccurrence.
If the threat causes operational impact we will report in our CAPA as part of our ISO27001 documented controls process.

Secure development

Approach to secure software development best practice
Independent review of processes (for example CESG CPA Build Standard, ISO/IEC 27034, ISO/IEC 27001 or CSA CCM v3.0)

Public sector networks

Connection to public sector networks
No

Social Value

Fighting climate change

Fighting climate change

We have been proud to have held the ISO 14001. This ISO standard for Environmental Management, required us to set, regularly review and achieve or exceed targets and objectives across many environmental aspects. Our ultimate business goal is to make decisions which are not detrimental to the environment and ultimately reduce our carbon footprint.
Covid-19 recovery

Covid-19 recovery

We continue to operate and encourage remote services where possible for the peace of mind to customers and staff.
Tackling economic inequality

Tackling economic inequality

SBS will make allowances where possible for schools suffering real economic hardship and endeavour to find a solution which ensures that schools get back more value from our software than they invest. This will often include reduced subscription fees initially.
Equal opportunity

Equal opportunity

SBS is an equal opportunities employer, recognising and celebrating diversity.
Wellbeing

Wellbeing

The physical and mental wellbeing of our staff is our priority, and we support our colleagues in a variety of ways, including:

- Mental Health First Aiders
- Employee Assistance Programme
- Buddying
- Flexible working

We foster a supportive culture, reinforced through regular informal catch-ups, an open-door policy at all levels and a strong ethos of openness, positivity and honesty.

Pricing

Price
£99 to £1,499 a unit a year
Discount for educational organisations
Yes
Free trial available
Yes
Description of free trial
A limited version of the software is available for a 3 month free trial period

Service documents

Request an accessible format
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at sales@schoolbusinessservices.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.