ACCESS UK LTD

Access Education Budgets

Access Education Budgets is a cloud based budgeting and forecasting tool allowing Schools, Academies, MAT's and Local Authorities to accurately set their in year budget, forecast up to 5 years and create multiple scenarios supporting more informed, strategic decisions to be made.

Features

• Build accurate budgets based on CFR / ESFA reporting structures
• Links Dynamically with Access Education Finance
• Complex staffing calculations are made easy
• Consolidated reports for Multi Academy Trusts/LA's
• Wide variety of reports including the ESFA budget forecast return.
• Produce five-year forecasts with 'What if' scenarios
• Accurately calculate pay adjustments including maternity.
• Compare and monitor actuals against budget
• Extract data via export interface to 3rd party finance systems
• Payroll Reconciliation

Benefits

• Improve operational efficiency and save money.
• Quickly build budgets and 'what if' scenarios.
• Quickly access information for governors via the cloud
• Reconcile staff pay against what has been budgeted.
• Mobile and Tablet ready on IOS, Android and Windows.
• Reduces errors and duplication, saving time and money
• Fast adoption with minimal disruption.
• Helps users avoids deficit situations.
• Take control of staffing costs
• Quickly monitor budgets against actual spend

• Education pricing available

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

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 buyer.enablement@theaccessgroup.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 15

Service ID

542508414473819

Contact

Stacey Graham
0845 345 3300
buyer.enablement@theaccessgroup.com

About the service

• Service categories:
  • Application Development and Deployment
    • Analytics and business intelligence
      • Advanced and predictive analytics
        • Advanced and predictive analytics
• Multi cloud support: No

Service scope

• Software add-on or extension: Yes, but can also be used as a standalone service
• What software services is the service an extension to: Powered by Access Workspace for Education, Access Education Budgets has a dynamic link to Access Education Finance and third party links to other finance systems.; ; Access Education Budgets also links with our HR Product, Access Education People.
• Cloud deployment model: Public cloud
• Service constraints: None.
• System requirements: Internet access via supported browsers (html5 enabled)

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Yes
• Support response times: We use an automated ticket system to record customer case detail and an acknowledgement email is sent to the customer immediately upon receipt.
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: Yes
• Online ticketing support accessibility: WCAG 2.2 AA
• Phone support: Yes
• Phone support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• Web chat support: Yes
• Web chat support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• AI chatbot: Yes
• Web chat support accessibility standard: WCAG 2.2 AA
• Web chat accessibility testing: N/A
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: The Essential Success Plan is included as part of your Access subscription, and is there for you online anytime of the day or night with access to our Knowledge Base and Community.; The Standard Success Plan is a more reactive service including telephone support, speedy response times and access to our lovely customer success teams. You’ll also get the chance to be involved with exciting product updates and webinars from our team of experts. The Standard Success plan is 15% of the annual software cost per annum.; The premier Success Plan delivers a proactive service including your very own support contact and a customer success manager who will get you on the road to success and help you stay there. The Premier Success plan is 25% of the annual software cost per annum.
• Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: We believe wholeheartedly that the functionality that our software offers our customers is very important, but it is only half of the value equation - how the system is rolled out is critical if full value from your new investment is to be achieved. We also know that you may view new software implementations with some trepidation and many customers can find this period daunting. In fact for some customers, this may be the first software roll out they have managed. We recognise this and we have designed our implementation services to help ensure you have a great experience and are looked after along the way, so that the whole process is less daunting.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats:
  • HTML
  • PDF
• Documentation accessibility standard: None or don’t know
• How the documentation is accessible: Access Group's onboarding and offboarding documentation is accessible through the Customer Success Portal (https://access-support.force.com/Support/s/), which provides 24/7 online access to comprehensive resources including a knowledge base with FAQs, product guides, e-learning content, on-demand webinar recordings, feature release updates, and training materials that can answer most day-to-day user questions. All users can register for portal access regardless of their Success Plan level (Essential, Standard, or Premier), with additional support available through online case submission for all customers, telephone support for Standard and Premier customers, and dedicated resources like Customer Success Managers and Lead Technical Support Engineers for Premier customers, ensuring documentation and guidance is readily available throughout the entire customer lifecycle from initial onboarding through ongoing system use and any eventual offboarding scenarios.
• End-of-contract data extraction: Users can extract required data via a range of reports.
• End-of-contract process: As per standard contract agreement data is retained for 28 days past contract end. All data is then securely deleted and removed from the system.

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Supported browsers:
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Chrome
• Application to install: No
• Designed for use on mobile devices: Yes
• Differences between the mobile and desktop service: Access Education Budgets is completely web based meaning the software can be accessed on any browser enabled device.
• Service interface: No
• User support accessibility: None or don’t know
• API: No
• Customisation available: Yes
• Description of customisation: Areas of the software can be customised to suit the school, academy, LA or MAT's requirements such as payscales, pay adjustment types, inflation factors job types and funding headings. This is depending on user access.

Scaling

• Independence of resources: Access Education Budgets is a load-balanced, multi-tenant service. The load balancer monitors the web servers continuously and will dynamically reassign requests if one of these servers crashes.

Analytics

• Service usage metrics: No

Supplier type

• Supplier type: Not a reseller

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Conforms to BS7858:2019
• Government security clearance: Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS)

Asset protection

• Knowledge of data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Data storage and processing locations: United Kingdom
• User control over data storage and processing locations: No
• Datacentre security standards: Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 4.0)
• Penetration testing frequency: At least once a year
• Penetration testing approach: ‘IT Health Check’ performed by a CREST-approved service provider
• Protecting data at rest:
  • Physical access control, complying with another standard
  • Encryption of all physical media
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Data sanitisation type: Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation / Secure Erase
• Equipment disposal approach: Complying with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v4.0, CAS (Sanitisation) or ISO/IEC 27001

Data importing and exporting

• Data export approach: All reports can be exported to Excel, CSV or PDF
• Data export formats:
  • CSV
  • Other
• Other data export formats:
  • PDF
  • XLSX
• Data import formats:
  • CSV
  • Other
• Other data import formats: XLSX

Data-in-transit protection

• Data protection between buyer and supplier networks:
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • IPsec or TLS VPN gateway
• Data protection within supplier network:
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • IPsec or TLS VPN gateway

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: We will use commercially reasonable efforts to make the SaaS available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, except for unavailability during emergency or routine maintenance.
• Approach to resilience: We operate a dual active-passive environment and all hardware components are provided at N+2 level or greater. More details are available on request.
• Outage reporting: Users can subscribe to email alerts giving updates on scheduled maintenance and outages.

Identity and authentication

• User authentication needed: Yes
• User authentication:
  • Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
  • Username or password
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: We operate role profile based Access Control - based on least privilege access. This applies to all our services
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least every 6 months
• Management access authentication:
  • Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
  • Dedicated link (for example VPN)
  • 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 contact the support team to get 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

Security governance

• Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
• Software Security Code of Practice: Yes
• Security governance certified: Yes
• Security governance standards: ISO/IEC 27001
• Information security policies and processes: All controls included within Annex A of the ISO27001:2013 standard. Statement Of Applicability (SOA) available on request.

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Complies with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v4.0 or SSAE-18 / ISAE 3402
• Configuration and change management approach: All change management is undertaken in line with ISO27001:2013 using JIRA for audit purposes.
• Vulnerability management type: Complies with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v4.0 or SSAE-18 / ISAE 3402
• Vulnerability management approach: Patched and audited by our patch management system. All non-critical OS patches are applied within one calendar month of release, first into pre-production and then into production, as part of the scheduled maintenance window. AV Updates - Signatures are updated hourly. / Rules are reviewed at minimum every 3 months. Logs are reviewed at minimum every 3 months. Access staff responsible for the maintenance of our hosting services subscribe to industry newsletters, belong to various security forums and we additionally receive notifications from our vendors.
• Protective monitoring type: Complies with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v4.0 or SSAE-18 / ISAE 3402
• Protective monitoring approach: We have traffic monitoring and content based alerting which alerts on changes to the site and/or traffic flows implemented at infrastructure and application level. We proactively monitor third party suppliers (hardware, OS, application/web and database server software) vulnerability reporting and security fix availability. Any vulnerabilities found and fixes provided by third party suppliers are patched by our infrastructure team in a timescale appropriate for their level of severity. Any penetration test findings are fixed by Development in a timescale appropriate for their level of severity. Our infrastructure response is within 1 hour in the SLA period 8am-8pm Monday – Friday.
• Incident management type: Complies with a recognised standard, for example, CSA CCM v4.0 or ISO/IEC 27035:2011 or SSAE-18 / ISAE 3402
• Post-quantum cryptography secure: No
• Incident management approach: We operate a robust incident management process in line with ISO27001:2013 Staff are encouraged to report all incidents using a pre-defined process using a form available on our Company Collaborate site Incident reports will be provided following forensics and closure

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 v4.0)

Public sector networks

• Connection to public sector networks: Yes
• Connected networks: Joint Academic Network (JANET)

Pricing

• Discount for educational organisations: Yes
• Free trial available: No

Discount percentage by annual call-off contract value (excluding VAT)

• Less than £250,000: 5%
• Between £250,000 and £500,000: 6%
• Between £500,001 and £1,000,000: 12%
• Between £1,000,001 and £2,500,000: 15%
• Between £2,500,001 and £5,000,000: 18%
• Over £5,000,001: 25%

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: Yes
• ISO/IEC 27001 accredited by: Alcumus ISOQAR
• ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: Saturday 4 January 2014
• What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover: Nothing is excluded from the standard certification.
• ISO 28000:2022 certification: No
• ISO 9001 certification: Yes
• ISO 9001 certification accredited by: BSI
• ISO 9001 accreditation date: Friday 1 September 2023
• What the ISO 9001 doesn’t cover: The scope covers the design, integration, maintenance and hosting of managed information systems and software applications, consultancy, user training and support for the Health, Education, Social Care and Local authorities. Excluding all other products that fall outside of this scope.
• Quality management systems (QMS): Yes
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber Essentials Certificate Number: 88f162a5-ea3c-4f9a-83d5-42769c7d8459
• Cyber essentials plus: No
• Cyber Essentials Alternative: You do not have a current and valid Cyber Essentials Plus certificate, or will not have in place within 12 months of the date of award but have an IASME certified equivalent.
• Other security certifications: Yes
• Any other security certifications:
  • ISO 42001
  • ISO 27701

Social value

• Mission: Kick start economic growth:

  To secure the highest sustained growth in the G7 - with good jobs and productivity growth in every part of the country making everyone, not just a few, better off.

  Policy Outcome 1: Fair work: That offers fair wages and good working conditions. Help people get a job, stay in work, and progress in their careers, with good employment opportunities across the country. Notes: Where there is a large proportion of labour costs in the contract, commercial teams should consider MAC in Outcome 1 as a priority

  • Monitoring of employee engagement rates (by protected characteristic) and, where necessary, the development of actions to ensure all voices are heard across the diversity of the workforce
  • Employment contracts that reflect actual hours worked; steps taken to ensure employees understand their contracts and have the ability to review and adjust them if actual hours regularly exceed contracted hours
  • Activities that support an environment where staff are educated about, and feel empowered to, address their physical wellbeing
  • Activities that support an environment where staff are educated about and feel empowered to report and address bullying and harassment
  • Offer a pay and leave entitlement to all eligible staff who become kinship carers, ideally equivalent to statutory adoption pay and leave
  • Payment of more than the National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage (as appropriate) to the contract workforce
  • Monitoring and reporting of gender and ethnicity pay gaps and plans to address them where necessary
  • Entitlement to sick pay for the contract workforce, with provision in place for any staff who do not meet the earnings threshold for statutory sick pay, payment of sick pay from day one of absence and payment of staff on the contract workforce who are off sick a replacement income of 100% of their usual earnings for as long as possible
  • Understanding of the modern slavery risks and issues affecting the market, industry, sector or country (of origin or of source) relevant to the contract, and the workforce in the supplier’s own organisation and those of its key subcontractors

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

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 buyer.enablement@theaccessgroup.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.