FMS Support Service
Our SIMS FMS Support is provided by a group of highly experienced customer focused SIMS professionals based within our Systems Team, all of whom have substantial knowledge of supporting Schools with their financial management information systems. This means that we can fully appreciate the pressures school users face, and the essential requirement for you to receive a prompt and efficient response to your SIMS FMS-related issues and enquiries.
As part of Coventry City Council local authority and through a longstanding working relationship with the Local Authority finance team and Education Software Solutions Ltd (ESS) SIMS staff, means we are well placed to understand the demands upon schools, not only from a software perspective but also from wider education finance policy affecting schools and academies.
Through our partnership with ESS we regularly attend regional and national meetings and update seminars, we keep abreast of their software developments, updates, and plans.
We are part of the SIMS Midland User Group, where we have established relationships with other SIMS support providers meaning that we are able to utilise our collective power and expertise to learn about best practice across the education sector and to feedback to software vendors and other bodies regarding common queries and issues along with enhancements that schools would like incorporated into future software releases.
We understand that having a robust and fully supported financial management system is key to the operation of a modern school. This service provides full support of the SIMS FMS product suite, including advice, guidance, and technical support.
This service is complimented by our Training and Events service which provides full training and support for these products.
Getting the best out of FMS
Your FMS System is one of the most complex and expensive systems within your school not to mention it contains the financial data which is the very life blood of your school. This means getting the best out of it is essential to improve the outcomes of your school along with getting the most out of your investment.
As part of the FMS Support service, we can offer a free of charge visit to school to discuss your individual challenges. Please contact us to arrange a free meeting.
We also offer training, workshops, webinars, and seminars to help you get the most of out of the service.
We provide this service by:
- Telephone and remote support
- On site visits where necessary
- Documentation on our website
- Face to face Training, online courses, webinars, and events
Support for FMS Modules
- Accounts Payable
- Accounts Receivable
- BACS Processing
- Budget Management
- Budget Planning
- Cheque Processing
- Equipment Register
- Finance Reporting Suite
- Finance Reports
- General Ledger
- Non-Invoiced Income
- Personnel Links
Support for Statutory and Critical School Processes
- End of Year for Academy Schools
- Better Financial Reporting Return to ESFA (Academy Schools)
- End of Year for Maintained Schools
- Consistent Financial Reporting (Maintained Schools)
Technical Support
- Deployment of SIMS FMS software on specific workstations using Solus 3.
- Upgrades via Solus 3 with upgrade documentation, release notes and ‘What’s New’ webinars.
- Database patches and fixes (where necessary).
- Database migrations between SQL Servers and SQL Server versions.
- Disaster recovery – restoration of the SIMS FMS database onto appropriate hardware.