Management information

Where to find SOHK's key financial stats

Key management informationOnce information is in Xero, budget controllers, senior management and Board members will need to see key information to make good financial and strategic decisions. There are a number of key reports and dashboards that SOHK maintains to help with this.Contents:Overall financial positionPerformance of regions and programmesRestricted fundsOverall financial positionSOHK's overall financial position can be measured in a number of ways, all within Xero. To access reports:

Go to Accounting> Reports (pro tip: you can click the star next to a report on the Reports page to pin it to the Accounting menu, for quick access)

The key reports are in the Financial section (starred above). Click on a report to run it. You can adjust the date range if needed to focus on a specific time frame e.g. a financial year, the position today, the position this quarter.

Budget VarianceThese reports are key. They show SOHK's performance against our expectations and can be split by programme, by region or across the whole charity. The default view is the charity's overall budget (all income and expenditure across SOHK), for the current month and the YTD (year-to-date):

What to look for:

Compare the actual and budget columns. Are we doing better or worse than expected? The column called Var GBP shows this with red where we have underperformed and green where we have overperformed; and the Var % column gives this as a percentage.

Using the YTD Budget and YTD Actual columns is often more useful, as it shows our performance over time. A one-month snapshot sometimes shows a large variance because one or two things didn't or did land in that time period.

Look closely at the Total lines, in bold (Total Income, Total Cost of Sales, Total Operating Expenses). These show how we are performing overall - so, for example, if our grant receipts are underperforming but our sponsorship is overperfoming, you will see red and green lines in the main report, but the Total Income line will show how we are doing overall (see below).

The other key line is the final one: Net Profit, showing our income minus expenses. If this is positive, we are probably in a good position! At various points in the year, however, we may be expecting to be negative (e.g. in August, before schools have paid us). To see if we are on track, compare the net profit figure in YTD Actual to that in YTD Budget. If the figures are the same, or the Actual is higher than than Budget, we are doing fine. (In the example below, we thought we would be at (£95837)... and we are actually at +£95680... so we are are £191k better off than we thought, which is GREAT!).

To see more information on a budget variance report, you can click on any figure in the Actual columns and it will show you all the transactions lying behind the figure. So, if your spending on freelance staff is higher than expected, you can see the individual invoices.

Other common reports on the overall financial position include:Profit & Loss (P&L): a summary of the charity's performance over a given time frame (e.g. a financial year, a quarter etc.). Everything that came in ('turnover'), minus everything spent to generate that money ('cost of sales'), minus organisational overheads ('administrative costs').Balance sheet: a snapshot of the charity's overall position showing assets (cash, fixed assets like equipment, money owed to the charity) and liabilities (amounts owed by SOHK for invoices received, pension and tax liabilities, loans)Performance of the regionsTo dig into how an individual programme or region is performing, look at two key reports. The first is the budget variance, as discussed above. Budget Variance for a Programme or Region

To see this for a specific region, load the budget variance report and click on 'Compare Periods' at the top, and then 'More Options'

You can then filter what you see using three options. To see a specific programme, click on 'Filter by Programme' and select what you want to see e.g. Wales Adult, England Schools; and then click 'Budget' and select the budget for that programme. When you click Update, you'll now see the same report but only for that programme, compared to the budget for only that programme. As above, use columns such as Var GBP to see how the programme's income and expenditure stacks up against our budget; and look at summary lines to see if the programme is paying for itself overall.

Budget SummaryOnce you have reviewed the performance of a programme, it is helpful to look at the next few months of budget for that programme. For example, you might see that a programme has overspent on Participant Away Days in one month, but that they have a budget for it the next month, and so the issue is only one of timing.To see a budget summary, click on Accounting>Reports>Budget Summary.

The default view is to show the overall budget for the full financial year. The structure is the same as the Budget Variance report - Income, minus Cost of Sales, minus Overheads.

You can filter this to view specific budgets and specific time frames.

Use the Budget dropdown to look at a specific budget e.g. Wales Schools

Use the From, Period and Number of periods to show drop downs to select the time frame. So, for example, to see the Overall Budget from June 2019, split monthly for 3 months, select From: June 2019; Period: 1 month; Number of periods: 3 periods and click Update. To see from July 2019 and see a summary for the whole 3-month quarter, select From: July 2019; Period: 3 months; Number of periods to show: 1 period.

To get an overall view of a region or programme's performance, compare their Budget Variance report with their next 3-6 months of budget predictions via Budget Summary