About Locations in IRIS Financials
Within the system, locations identify the separate business units within the organisation (e.g. the separate academies within a MAT). Each academy will have their own location code. For a single academy, there is usually only one location (unless for example, a Sports Hall is hired out and run separately to the academy). For a Multi Academy Trust (MAT), each academy within the trust will be a separate location, together with an additional location for the Central MAT.
These are set up by IRIS Financials as part of the installation process. The locations are stored within the ACADEMY ledger as individual accounts. Each account will have a three-character code.
The following diagram demonstrates a typical MAT setup where each academy is added as a separate location account with a three-character location code.
Using the locations codes, academy specific data can be created including nominals, ledgers, cost centres, etc. This enables a further level of accounting and reporting.
Location specific ledgers are easily identified because they are preceded with the three-character location code. For example, Lillington Lane Learning academy’s salary ledger would be called LLL_SALARY. Ledgers available to all locations are not preceded with the location code, e.g. the PURCHASE-Purchase Accounts ledger. Location specific nominals can be identified in the same way.
For MATs with multiple academies, specific ledgers will usually have been created for each academy’s bank accounts, capital, cost centres, credit cards, salaries, trips, etc. – all preceded with their three-character location code.
