CFR Imbalance

There is no need to worry if your school’s Consistent Financial Reporting (CFR) return does not balance or reconcile at the end of the year, there are several common reasons why this might occur.

In Arbor Finance, a CFR imbalance typically arises due to issues related to the mapping of budgets or analysis codes. For instance, a budget or analysis code might have been incorrectly mapped, which means it has been assigned to the wrong CFR code. Alternatively, some codes may have been left unmapped altogether, causing discrepancies in the financial reports. Additionally, it is possible that a year-end transaction has affected the cashbook balance in a way that distorts the figures, leading to an imbalance in the CFR return.

Before submitting your CFR, it is important to thoroughly review several aspects to ensure that the figures align with the expected outturn. Carefully checking these elements can help identify any discrepancies or errors that might affect the accuracy of your submission. Taking the time to verify each point will contribute to a more reliable and precise CFR, reducing the likelihood of revisions or queries later on. Here is a list of factors to examine if you find that your CFR does not correspond with the anticipated outcomes prior to submission.

Unmapped and New Ledger Codes

• Check unmapped codes: Go to Reporting > CFR. Ensure any new Analysis or Budget Codes created during the year have been mapped to their corresponding DFE CFR codes (e.g., I01, E02).

• If codes have been mapped but the total has been manually over-typed, this would cause the figures to be distorted.  This is easily identifiable by checking the override column in either the expenditure or income screen on the CFR reporting page

• Look for double mappings: Ensure no single Analysis/Budget Code has been accidentally mapped to two different CFR codes, which artificially inflates your totals.  You can check for codes which may have been under or over allocated or not allocated at all by using the filters on the CFR mapping pop-up box filters.  You can find this on the CFR reporting screen and by clicking into any code which has been mapped

Capital vs Revenue (CFR B01 & B02)

• Separate the pots: Your revenue balances CFR lines must balance independently of your capital lines.

Opening Balances and Brought Forward Figures

• Verify that your opening balances (OB01, OB02, OB03) exactly match the closing balances (B01, B02, B03, B05, B06) submitted on the previous year's return.  This can be easily checked by running the previous financial years CFR summary from the archives via Reporting > CFR

• Check that your system hasn't omitted uncommitted or committed revenue funds from earlier periods, has your brought forward balance been posted?

• Reconcile your figures against the All-Transactions Report, ensuring you select all bank accounts and accruals when choosing your report filters.  This will give you expected income and expenditure figures which can then be checked against your CFR balances (OB01, OB02, OB03).

• When running the All-transactions report to check your income and expenditure totals the report will also show any prepayments, creditors, receipts in advance and debtors.  All these figures will affect your total balance.  For example, if you have a Prepayment & Creditor balance this would affect the Expenditure figure i.e. if the prepayment total were a positive balance this would need to be added on to the expenditure total figure.  If the receipts in advance or debtor show a balance this would affect the Income figure and will need to be accounted for i.e if the debtor balance is showing as a minus figure this would need to be added on to the income figure.

• Check, what is the difference between your CFR and the All-transactions income and expenditure balance.  This could be a good indicator of what may be distorting your figures.  It would be a good idea at this point to check the BvAvC report to see if this figure is showing and could be a good indicator if a code has been mis-mapped.

Transaction and Posting Errors

• Clear Pending or Unposted Transactions - If transactions get stuck in a pending state, meaning they've hit your budget but haven't fully committed.  Check your Purchase Orders and ensure there are no outstanding items waiting for electronic approval. Everything must be fully posted/authorised for the financial year before running the final CFR.

• Check for accidental negative values entered in standard positive-only income or expenditure lines.  This could happen if you have posted an expenditure code against a budget/analysis code mapped to an income CFR code such as I01 for example. The CFR negative signage is a simple fix, you change this manually via  
  Reporting > CFR > Income/Expenditure > then by clicking on the mapped tab's, these can be manually change from + to -.  This would need to be done for each individual code which has incorrect transactions posted against them.