Dear School Business Manager,
When Devon County Council (DCC) introduced its new financial system, Unit 4, we needed to update the ledger and item codes we use. To minimise the impact for schools, we continued using the existing codes via an interface with Unit 4. Although this approach has generally been effective, it may lead to complications in instances where multiple FINEST codes are consolidated into a single Unit 4 code, for example.
We shared in previous Bursar Briefings the likely need to change schools’ financial codes once we had gone live with Unit 4. We now want to seek your preference on when you would like that to happen, choosing between either the start of the financial year April 2026 or April 2027. To ensure a consistent and manageable implementation, the code change will be applied simultaneously across all maintained schools at the start of the financial year. Due to system constraints, individual or mid-year implementation dates cannot be supported.
Please click on this LINK to select your preference by Friday 3rd October 2025. We want to base the timing of this change on a clear preference from School Business Managers’ feedback. Please take a moment to complete this short 2-minute survey to share your views.
Areas to consider to help inform your choice:
- Finance Code Interface: While the interface between school finance systems and Unit 4 is operational, some issues have arisen, as anticipated. These challenges are likely to increase over time as the two sets of finance codes continue to diverge.
- Alignment with iTrent: Standardisation is important, particularly as iTrent is already using the new financial codes.
- Familiarisation Requirements: Staff will need time to become fully familiar with the new financial codes and processes.
- Working with other departments in DCC: DCC are using Unit 4 codes already and moving schools into the same terminology will facilitate ease of working on both sides.
- Budget Setup: It is likely that Access budgets will remain on FINEST codes for 2026-2027. DCC will provide a method that will allow schools to convert Access budgets to UNIT 4 codes to upload the converted budgets into Bromcom ready for 2026-2027.
To reduce the workload for schools, the majority of tasks associated with updating the codes will be carried out by the School Finance Consultants on your behalf. To enable this support, DCC Education Finance Consultants will require remote access to your finance system. If access is not granted, the responsibility for setting up the new codes will rest with the school.
Many thanks
DCC Education Finance