Contents
Summary
With the Data Standard v4.0-a release, a number of changes were introduced to the Finance Domain.
Use Cases
The architecture covered by this model of data exchange is intended to serve the following SEA, LEA, and CMO use cases.
SEA Use Cases
The SEA use cases center on data exchange with LEAs related to state and federal finance reporting requirements. These use cases include:
- SEA publishes yearly a Chart of Accounts (COA) for LEA reporting purposes and loads the COA into a datastore such as the Ed-Fi ODS / API. The COA can be read by LEA financial system vendors via the Finance API. This eliminates the need for the SEA to publish spreadsheets, and enhances reliability.
- LEAs develop their local accounts for the new fiscal year and map their local accounts to the state-level COA. An LEA vendor can use the Finance API to validate new local accounts as they are created.
- LEAs develop budgets for a new fiscal year and assign a budget to each local account. The Finance API ensures that invalid account dimension combinations cannot be loaded by enforcing referential integrity of the local-to-SEA COA mappings.
- SEAs may update the SEA COA during a given year either via bulk update (XML) into a backing datastore or directly to the Finance API. LEA financial system vendors can read the updated COA information from the SEA via the Finance API.
- LEAs may amend their budget throughout the year by updating local codes. These amendments can be posted in their entirety or by updating changed accounts into the Finance API hosted by an SEA.
- SEAs may take snapshots of data for loading into a data warehouse or for other date-based LEA reporting.
- LEAs may submit actual financial information to an SEA, typically at the end of a fiscal year. These are collected in an LEA financial system throughout the year with validation, reasonability checks, and audits to ensure accuracy of the data. The LEA can provide their reviewed actual information to an SEA via the Finance API.
ESSA (or other) financial reporting by a district can be generated by an SEA. The SEA maps the state-level COA to the various categories used for ESSA reporting, identifying the various dimensions and/or granular COA accounts for each ESSA category. The SEA and LEAs review the data for correctness and approve the data. The SEA publishes the ESSA reports to the public.
CMP Use Cases
The same general use cases are applicable for charter management organizations to receive financial budgets and actuals from the schools in their network.
LEA Use Cases
In regions where there is no Finance API at the state level, an LEA may find the Finance API useful for its own purposes. For example, an LEA can load the SEA-defined COA into a backing datastore, map its own local account codes, and directly generate reports for the SEA. The data exchanged via a Finance API also supports an LEA’s analytics and reporting (e.g., to link financial data with student outcomes and school operations information).