1.0 Introduction

The Finance Work Group (FWG) is an entity within the Ed-Fi Governance structure

and intended to enhance the educational finance community’s engagement in, input into, and use of Ed-Fi data and technology standards.  The FWG’s main purpose is to represent the perspectives of the financial community (SEAs, LEAs, vendors and thought leaders) to the Ed-Fi Governance processes with the purpose of making the Ed-Fi data and technology standards more widely adopted and used.  The FWG may make recommendations through the Ed-Fi Governance processes about investment in the Ed-Fi product roadmap and business strategies. 

2.0 Goals

FWG members will work together to develop and share financial knowledge, best practices, tools, and analytics that are based on or derivatives of the Ed-Fi data and technology standards.   Therefore, the goals of the FWG are to:

1. Provide a structure for education agencies, vendors and industry thought leaders to discuss Ed-Fi data and technology standards and share feedback with the Ed-Fi Alliance.
2. Establish venues for FWG members to vet and collaborate around the practices and lessons learned from their use of Ed-Fi in the financial arena.
3. Develop and advance ideas (proposals) for how to improve and/or expand the Ed-Fi data and technology standards to better meet the needs for managing financial data in education agencies.

3.0 Work Products and Contributions to Ed-Fi

The following, as related to the Ed-Fi data and technology standards, may be within the scope of the FWG efforts:

1. Sharing of finance data management policies and procedures required for operations and/or agency compliance.
2. Sharing of data privacy practices and policies relevant to finance data roles and users.
3. Sharing information architectures and principles that are useful in financial data discussions and decision making.
4. Sharing of designs, business rules and analytics (artifacts) around key finance use cases.
5. Convening of subgroups within a finance data category to develop artifacts.
6. Providing feedback to related complimentary education data standards bodies (e.g., CEDS).
7. Recommending an organizing framework for finance data management that is shared by members. The framework shall include a glossary, data model and standards.

4.0 Initial Focus Areas

The initial use cases for the FWG to consider in the area of finance data may include:

1. Address open questions related to Ed-Fi finance data and technology standards. These may include:
   • FWG Interstate Financial Reporting Requirements/Alignment
   • CEDS/Ed-Fi Financial Data Mapping and Alignment
   • Necessity/Frequency of snapshot data aligned to reporting and compliance requirements
   • API definition and development
   • Definition/extension of core Ed-FI financial data model supporting ESSA requirements
2. Audit capability of the current finance model
3. Program effectiveness mapped to financial expenditures
4. Budget versus Actual expenditure alignment
5. Alignment across different chart of accounts