08/09 09/10 10/11 11/12 12/13

Electronics (Digitisers)Current £91k £23k £69kRequested £91k £91k

MechanicsCurrent £50k £45kRequested £50k £10k £35k

Spreadsheet complexity

Spreadsheet ErrorsLack of experience with this spreadsheetMisunderstanding – use of column 4Misunderstanding – How to account for committed funds

Checks IntroducedGive confidence in figures

Finance Spreadsheet Template

Approved Transfers

(excluding contingency)

Actual spend to Sept 09

Projected spend this

year

Actual spend (2+3)

Projected spend

(2+4+5)

Actual (6-1-1a)

Projected (7-1-1a)

(1) (1a) separate columns

for each FY (3) (4) 2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 (6) (7)

University Staff Effort Costs*University 1 EffortUniversity 2 EffortUniversity 3 EffortUniversity 4 EffortUniversity 5 EffortUniversity 6 EffortUniversity 7 EffortUniversity 8 EffortUniversity 9 Effort

University 10 EffortUniversity 11 EffortUniversity 12 Effort

University Sub-Total1

STFC Lab Costs

RAL

Daresbury

STFC Lab Sub-Total

Equipment1

Travel

Other Directly Allocated costs (eg consumables)

University Estates CostsUniversity Indirect costs

Total (Excluding VAT and WA)

Working allowanceVAT

Total (including VAT & WA)

Contingency (Held by STFC)

1 Excluding Working Allowance and VAT

* The University staff effort recorded in this table should be the 80% amount STFC pays, including academic time

Use of columns:(1) = The amount approved by STFC (1a) = This column should be used to show any virements between headings, for example when Working Allowance is used, the amount should appear as a debit in the WA row and then credited to the relevant row(2) = The actual spend in previous financial years, by year (3) = The actual spend in the current financial year up to the most recent quarter(4) = The total projected spend for the current financial year, including any expenditure so far (ie actual spend this year plus predictions of remaining spend this year)(5) = Projected spend for the remaining years(6) = The actual spend so far(7) = Projected spend over the whole duration of the project (ie actual spend so far plus predictions of remaining spend to project completion)The variance columns show the difference between the actual and projected amounts and the approved amount.

Latest estimate of future requirement (5)

Example: Finance Summary (all figures in £k)

Total VarianceCurrent year 2009/10Actual spend in previous years (2)

One is required per workpackage

Difficult to work out allocations per workpackage.

Even with STFC data(STFC data generated by inputting figures into a database that generates output figures - difficult to replicate in spreadsheet)

Grant award given in years relative to grant start date

Staff years Translated into FY’s

Staff yearsTranslated into FY’s + index linked to salary

Estates and direct costs into FY’s + index linked to salary

Travel costs translated into FY’s and index linked

Yellow – students (no estate or direct costs)

Purple – funded through rolling grant

Blue squares used as link to master spreadsheet

Linked back to Salary/estates/Indirect costs spreadsheet

Complex spreadsheets required to simulate Database behaviour

Approved Transfers

(excluding contingency)

Actual spend to Sept 09

Projected spend this

year

Actual spend (2+3)

Projected spend

(2+4+5)

Actual (6-1-1a)

Projected (7-1-1a)

(1) (1a) separate columns

for each FY (3) (4) 2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 (6) (7)

University Staff Effort Costs*University 1 EffortUniversity 2 EffortUniversity 3 EffortUniversity 4 EffortUniversity 5 EffortUniversity 6 EffortUniversity 7 EffortUniversity 8 EffortUniversity 9 Effort

University 10 EffortUniversity 11 EffortUniversity 12 Effort

University Sub-Total1

STFC Lab Costs

RAL

Daresbury

STFC Lab Sub-Total

Equipment1

Travel

Other Directly Allocated costs (eg consumables)

University Estates CostsUniversity Indirect costs

Total (Excluding VAT and WA)

Working allowanceVAT

Total (including VAT & WA)

Contingency (Held by STFC)

1 Excluding Working Allowance and VAT

* The University staff effort recorded in this table should be the 80% amount STFC pays, including academic time

Use of columns:(1) = The amount approved by STFC (1a) = This column should be used to show any virements between headings, for example when Working Allowance is used, the amount should appear as a debit in the WA row and then credited to the relevant row(2) = The actual spend in previous financial years, by year (3) = The actual spend in the current financial year up to the most recent quarter(4) = The total projected spend for the current financial year, including any expenditure so far (ie actual spend this year plus predictions of remaining spend this year)(5) = Projected spend for the remaining years(6) = The actual spend so far(7) = Projected spend over the whole duration of the project (ie actual spend so far plus predictions of remaining spend to project completion)The variance columns show the difference between the actual and projected amounts and the approved amount.

Latest estimate of future requirement (5)

Example: Finance Summary (all figures in £k)

Total VarianceCurrent year 2009/10Actual spend in previous years (2)

All for 1st column.Similar spreadsheet generated for columns 4 and 5For 8 work-packagesCheck introduced to allow comparison with actual grant figures

Yellow – students (no estate or direct costs)

Purple – funded through rolling grant

Blue squares used as link to master spreadsheet

Green – input values that may be changed with plan

Linked back to different Salary/estates/Indirect costs spreadsheet to allow for changes to these costs from prediction.

Column 4 originally generated from previous spreadsheet to compare estimated expenditure with actual - misunderstanding.

Committed costs – Money accounted for but not yet spent –misunderstanding of use of column 4 allowed error to be compounded.

Insufficient cross-checking meant error undetected.

cross-checking added to Workpackage spreadsheets

Spreadsheet sums vertically

Crosscheck sums horizontally

cross-checking added to Workpackage spreadsheets

Level of checking within the spreadsheets been improved

Approved Transfers

(excluding contingency)

Actual spend to Sept 09

Projected spend this

year

Actual spend (2+3)

Projected spend

(2+4+5)

Actual (6-1-1a)

Projected (7-1-1a)

(1) (1a) separate columns

for each FY (3) (4) 2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 (6) (7)

University Staff Effort Costs*University 1 EffortUniversity 2 EffortUniversity 3 EffortUniversity 4 EffortUniversity 5 EffortUniversity 6 EffortUniversity 7 EffortUniversity 8 EffortUniversity 9 Effort

University 10 EffortUniversity 11 EffortUniversity 12 Effort

University Sub-Total1

STFC Lab Costs

RAL

Daresbury

STFC Lab Sub-Total

Equipment1

Travel

Other Directly Allocated costs (eg consumables)

University Estates CostsUniversity Indirect costs

Total (Excluding VAT and WA)

Working allowanceVAT

Total (including VAT & WA)

Contingency (Held by STFC)

1 Excluding Working Allowance and VAT

* The University staff effort recorded in this table should be the 80% amount STFC pays, including academic time

Use of columns:(1) = The amount approved by STFC (1a) = This column should be used to show any virements between headings, for example when Working Allowance is used, the amount should appear as a debit in the WA row and then credited to the relevant row(2) = The actual spend in previous financial years, by year (3) = The actual spend in the current financial year up to the most recent quarter(4) = The total projected spend for the current financial year, including any expenditure so far (ie actual spend this year plus predictions of remaining spend this year)(5) = Projected spend for the remaining years(6) = The actual spend so far(7) = Projected spend over the whole duration of the project (ie actual spend so far plus predictions of remaining spend to project completion)The variance columns show the difference between the actual and projected amounts and the approved amount.

Latest estimate of future requirement (5)

Example: Finance Summary (all figures in £k)

Total VarianceCurrent year 2009/10Actual spend in previous years (2)

VAT why required? – Not claimed back

15% - 17.5%To what categories should VAT be applied?Equipment/Directly Allocated costs/Travel