This report helps trusts to prepare the figures required by the Department for Education (DfE), in the format expected in the online portal.

The BFR is updated automatically based on the most recent rolling forecast. The controller or functional manager can map ledger accounts to the BFR lines, after which the report is automatically populated. This article shows you how to set up the BFR report.

Budget Forecast Return

The BFR view includes several tabs that reflect the structure of the DfE’s BFR workbook:

Pupil numbers
Revenue
Capital
Three year forecast

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Each tab presents tables with relevant amounts. The numbers follow DfE formatting rules:

Amounts: rounded to thousands, no decimals
Pupil numbers: full integers
Percentages: up to 3 decimal places

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Pupil numbers

This tab shows pupil numbers per academic year. These values are automatically taken from the Anago funding module (Budget>Funding). No manual input is needed.

Revenue

This tab displays revenue income and expenditure, split by period:

September to March (7 months)
April to August (5 months)
Academic year total

Each academic year is presented in three columns. The tab includes:

Editable opening balance for revenue
Automatically calculated closing balance

Capital

Similar to the Revenue tab, this shows capital income and expenditure in three periods.

The tab includes:

Editable opening balance for capital
Automatically calculated closing balance

Three year forecast

This tab presents financial projections for the next three academic years. It includes:

Revenue and capital projections
Pupil numbers from the funding module
Balance opening/closing lines calculated per forecasted year