To prepare for migration there are some steps you should consider completing.
For your information, Arbor Finance will migrate closing balances for a given period/month. You will be instructed on how to validate this - that it matches the data you submitted as your closing set of accounts. Then as the Finance lead in your school we will show you how to roll that closing position, to create an opening account in the subsequent period/month, in Arbor Finance.
Please note, prior/historic transactional data is NOT migrated. Individual transactional information should be archived electronically or manually by reporting out the details from your existing platform before the end of your incumbent contract.
What is migrated
It is important to note Arbor Finance will only migrate a balanced set of accounts relating to your MAIN school fund,* at the end of a specified month/period. The following will be imported for the CLOSING month/period.
Nett YTD balances.
- All Nett YTD transactions will be allocated to the 'School Fund/Centrally managed' bank account, with a balancing entry created for the B/F balance to ensure all figures balance. You must ensure all outstanding VAT is claimed before migration.
- All other bank accounts will be migrated with an opening cash book balance and unreconciled items only.
Ledger codes and Cost Centres.
- Your current coding structure will be migrated although the names of these will become Budgets and Analysis codes
- If CFR mapping is required this will be migrated
All data is validated as part of the migration.
What is not migrated
Commitments
- Commitments will not be migrated - please review any outstanding commitments, to ensure you have minimal commitments to re-enter on Arbor Finance.
Unprinted CHQs, BACS payments will not be migrated.
- Please ensure all payments have been processed prior to migration.
- It is really helpful if you can minimise the number of unreconciled items, unpresented cheques etc. It is of course possible to migrate this type of detail across, but it is a more manual process that we encourage you to avoid, by reconciling wherever possible.
Pending Accruals
- If you have any pending accruals our support team will discuss with you directly on how to migrate this information. In preparation, please review any Debtors and Accruals balance figures on your Balance & Reserves report, to ensure these are accurate and you have the necessary transactional information related to these balances.
Unreconciled Centrally Invoiced items
- You must ensure you have no transactions waiting in the centrally invoiced area of your balance and reserves report.
Budget Allocations
- Budget allocations will be imported as a post migration task
Contacts ( Suppliers, Income Sources, Alternate Payees & Customers)
- Contacts can be imported as a post migration task or added manually as you start using Arbor Finance.
We recommend extracting a list of the contacts in your current system. You can then decide if there are any that you no longer use and check you have the relevant information for the ones you want to keep. You can then prepare the spreadsheet for importing in advance. The Help Centre article for importing contacts can be found here.
What happens next?
Prepare yourself to complete the migration template by your migration date. Ensure you read the guidance here and watch the how to video before your migration date. Once you finalise month end in your current system you can begin to complete the migration process.
* NB: Your MAIN school fund will be associated with your school’s local bank account (or nominated LA central account). It may include other accounts or allocations of funds. For example, petty cash, procurement card, central fund for LA funds for payroll/rates etc. The balances of these accounts will be migrated into Arbor Finance.
If the school manages additional discreet funds,(not necessarily reported on to the LA) these can be migrated later. This incurs additional charges to set up the fund account and migrate data into Arbor Finance. Please email afmigration@arbor-education.com to discuss
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