RM Finance
RM Finance is an intuitive and straightforward online financial management system for administering school finances and budgeting. Please refer to onboarding and offboarding section for exit plan details.
Features
- Accounts payable transactions
- Cash management
- Purchase orders
- Sales Invoicing
- Budgeting
- Payroll monitoring
- CFR return
- 24/7 access
- Automatic backups
- Comprehensive reporting system
Benefits
- It’s easy to use and saves valuable time
- It meets strict accounting and audit requirements
- It has straightforward transaction processing
- Powerful and flexible reporting
- Accessible from anywhere with an internet connection
- Secure data storage with automatic backup is also available
- No formal financial background is required
- Links with your MIS via the budgeting package
- Remote support is available
Pricing
£810.00 to £1,365.00 a licence a year
- Free trial available
Service documents
Request an accessible format
Framework
G-Cloud 13
Service ID
7 8 4 3 4 7 2 1 5 2 7 5 7 0 4
Contact
RM Education Ltd
RM Education Ltd
Telephone: 08450 700300
Email: tendersteam@rm.com
Service scope
- Software add-on or extension
- Yes
- What software services is the service an extension to
- RM Unify
- Cloud deployment model
- Private cloud
- Service constraints
- Requires an internet connection.
- System requirements
-
- Internet browser
- Supports Firefox, Chrome, Microsoft Edge
- Internet
User support
- Email or online ticketing support
- Email or online ticketing
- Support response times
- During working hours within a day. No response outside of this.
- User can manage status and priority of support tickets
- No
- 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
- We have 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th line support. Support costs are included in the price of the software. No technical account managers or cloud support engineers are provided.
- Support available to third parties
- Yes
Onboarding and offboarding
- Getting started
-
RM Finance is simple to use. As part of the initial sale we provide onsite training. We can also offer online training.
A comprehensive help system is provided with the product. - Service documentation
- Yes
- Documentation formats
-
- HTML
- End-of-contract data extraction
- The data can be exported to csv or printed on reports.
- End-of-contract process
-
We send the customer a reminder at least 1 month before the end of the service to let them know it will end and how to renew.
There are no additional costs to decommission the service.
At the end of the contract, access to the service is lost and the data is deleted 60 days later. The end of contract process is managed to let the customer know what is happening at each stage of the process.
Using the service
- Web browser interface
- Yes
- Supported browsers
-
- Microsoft Edge
- Firefox
- Chrome
- Application to install
- No
- Designed for use on mobile devices
- Yes
- Differences between the mobile and desktop service
- The service will work on internet connected Tablets that support modern browsers. It does not have a user interface suitable for mobile phones
- Service interface
- Yes
- User support accessibility
- None or don’t know
- Description of service interface
- RM Finance is a web based application that has been structured intuitively to enable users to complete tasks within the application. It is designed to be easy to navigate, understand and use.
- Accessibility standards
- None or don’t know
- Description of accessibility
- RM Finance works with browser zoom to enable users to navigate the full page when in zoom. Users can use the keyboard to complete actions. There is no requirement for transcript as there is no audio. RM Finance does not currently use alt text.
- Accessibility testing
- No testing done.
- API
- Yes
- What users can and can't do using the API
-
Users can configure the API within RM Finance using a unique code obtained from RM Integris. This allows RM finance and RM Integris to be linked through the RM Finance budgeting module.
Users are then able to import staff data from RM Integris into RM Finance and use this data within the budgeting module. - API documentation
- Yes
- API documentation formats
- Other
- API sandbox or test environment
- No
- Customisation available
- Yes
- Description of customisation
- The system can be customised to suit the user. This includes, cheque printing layouts, transactional options, levels of access to different areas and the Chart of Accounts. There are also Local Authority reports.
Scaling
- Independence of resources
-
The product is hosted in Microsoft Azure and is able to auto-scale according to service utilisation. The monitors are able to react within 30 minutes.
We monitor and report on user APDEX scores to ensure that the service is fast and responsive for customers.
Analytics
- Service usage metrics
- Yes
- Metrics types
-
We monitor the service using Azure monitoring tools.
For end users there is a full audit log of activities carried out in the program. - Reporting types
-
- Regular reports
- Reports on request
Resellers
- Supplier type
- Not a reseller
Staff security
- Staff security clearance
- Staff screening not performed
- Government security clearance
- None
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
- No
- Datacentre security standards
- Supplier-defined controls
- Penetration testing frequency
- At least once a year
- Penetration testing approach
- Another external penetration testing organisation
- Protecting data at rest
- Physical access control, complying with SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
- Data sanitisation process
- Yes
- Data sanitisation type
- Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
- Equipment disposal approach
- Complying with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v.30, CAS (Sanitisation) or ISO/IEC 27001
Data importing and exporting
- Data export approach
- Users can print, export to CSV/Excel or PDF.
- Data export formats
-
- CSV
- Other
- Other data export formats
-
- Excel
- CSV
- 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)
- Data protection within supplier network
- TLS (version 1.2 or above)
Availability and resilience
- Guaranteed availability
- No fixed SLA though we do aim for >99.5 % uptime
- Approach to resilience
- Available on request
- Outage reporting
- Internal monitoring, email alerts and a public Status dashboard.
Identity and authentication
- User authentication needed
- Yes
- User authentication
- Username or password
- Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
- RM Finance uses a custom Roles based permissions system for management and support teams.
- Access restriction testing frequency
- At least once a year
- 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
- Certification Europe
- ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date
- 24/10/2019
- What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover
- Commercial functions
- ISO 28000:2007 certification
- No
- CSA STAR certification
- No
- PCI certification
- No
- Cyber essentials
- Yes
- Cyber essentials plus
- No
- Other security certifications
- No
Security governance
- Named board-level person responsible for service security
- Yes
- Security governance certified
- Yes
- Security governance standards
- ISO/IEC 27001
- Information security policies and processes
-
RM has the following security policies:
RM Group Security Policy.
Acceptable Usage Policy and Security Guidelines ("AUP").
Backup Policy.
Data Classification and Handling.
Data Protection.
CCTV Policy & Guidelines.
Cryptographic Policy.
Incident Reporting Management & Forensic Readiness.
Legislative Compliance (Security) Policy.
Physical Access.
Protective Monitoring.
Vulnerability Management Policy.
All staff are required to read and acknowledge the AUP on an annual basis, as well as having security clauses in their contracts.
All staff must complete information security training when they join RM and annually thereafter.
Core functions, e.g. IT and HR, are subject to regular internal and external audit.
There is a network of Local Security Officers and the Group Security and Business Continuity Committee monitors compliance with polices.
Operational security
- Configuration and change management standard
- Supplier-defined controls
- Configuration and change management approach
- All deliverables are logged and tracked in Change Control tickets with implementation steps, an approval workflow, priority and rollback information where required. Issues affecting the security of the platform are peer reviewed by the Operations team and CAB.
- Vulnerability management type
- Supplier-defined controls
- Vulnerability management approach
- All public-facing IP addresses are subject to 3rd party vulnerability scanning on a quarterly basis. The results of these scans are reviewed by the development team and patches installed, the timescale of which will be governed by recorded priority.
- Protective monitoring type
- Supplier-defined controls
- Protective monitoring approach
- Operational service monitoring is undertaken through quarterly vulnerability scanning from an independent CREST approved vendor. Each issue is then tracked and given an appropriate priority by the Operations Manager. High priority issues will be reported within hours and dealt with as soon as possible, ie hours or days. Medium or Low priority issues will be prioritised within weeks.
- Incident management type
- Supplier-defined controls
- Incident management approach
- All security incidents are reported on an internal logging system. The log records nature and impact of incident, as well as potential preventative measures. All reported incidents are reviewed by senior management and evaluated at either divisional or Group security forums. Major security incidents would be managed according to a defined major incident management process.
Secure development
- Approach to secure software development best practice
- Supplier-defined process
Public sector networks
- Connection to public sector networks
- No
Social Value
- Fighting climate change
-
Fighting climate change
When Di Booth joined RM to support us looking at our sustainability agenda, she was amazed by how much had already been done. Our New Product Development team were already introducing alternatives to virgin plastics that have a smaller ecological footprint and are bio- or waste-based. We have already reduced our carbon impact by 67% since we stopped our manufacturing business in 2014. In Harrier Park, our purpose-built new site in Nottinghamshire, we are installing solar power which will also result in a further 13% carbon reduction.
After seeing what was already in place, we brought together people in the business who are passionate about the environment to help create an environmental management and sustainable procurement management system that will seek certification to ISO 14001 in 2022. Through this we have developed an ambitious action plan that includes initiatives such as our RM Resources Quality and Procurement Team focusing on packaging on 36,000 products to reduce packaging to an absolute minimum and only use recyclable materials, RM ESI
researching how we can make our software lower carbon in use and Software Product Development trialing a new offsetting approach to their own carbon impacts which if successful will be offered to our customers. We are also working with HP on their Take Back Service where HP take back old devices from customer schools and give a credit so that they can be recycled. As a result, in the last year schools have received over £100,000 in credits.
Working with our Executive, we have now also launched a Sustainable Development Governance Panel and Monique Louis, the Managing Director of RM Resources, appointed as Chair. The Panel reviews our progress against plans, objectives and targets, carries out the management review of the management system, develops new strategies and reports to the Executive quarterly. - Equal opportunity
-
Equal opportunity
Here at RM, our purpose is to enrich the lives of learners worldwide. We are committed to reflecting the diversity of the customers and learners we serve, encouraging and supporting our people to be their true selves, to grow and thrive at work.
We are to creating an inclusive and flexible workplace where all our employees can be themselves and succeed on merit.
Without diversity of thought, we cannot continue to innovate and grow.
Earlier this year we completed a D&I audit, to help us understand how diverse and inclusive RM is today and to promote a culture of valuing diversity and inclusion where our employees could bring their whole selves to work. In response to the audit findings, employee volunteers from our D&I Advocates group have created a number of new employee networks to provide peer support and represent marginalised groups in RM by building communities that provide a safe space to be honest about the challenges they face in the workplace. The groups are led by employees who are part of the identity/identities the network represents, and they are used to not only provide peer support to marginalised employees but also to take group ideas, solutions and concerns to improve policies and practices and implement changes to the organisational culture.
Understanding that there are groups in society that are disadvantaged for reasons beyond their control and wanting to do something to address the inequality in our society is an important part of building a diverse and inclusive organisation.
Alongside the Women’s Network other networks are starting to grow, including a LBGTQIA network, the People of the Global Majority Network, and the Neurodiversity Network which is chaired by your bid lead Kevin Brooks.
Pricing
- Price
- £810.00 to £1,365.00 a licence a year
- Discount for educational organisations
- No
- Free trial available
- Yes
- Description of free trial
- We can provide full access to the system to try it out for up to 3 months.