On 23rd July, local government confirmed that the national support staff pay award for 2025–26 has been agreed. Staff on NJC contracts will receive a 3.2% pay increase, backdated to 1 April 2025.

The agreement also confirms that Spinal Column Point 2 will be permanently removed from April 2026.

Our help guide will take you through making the changes to pay scales and how to navigate the upcoming removal of pay point two.

If you have any questions, just drop us a line at support@impsoftware.co.uk - we're here to help.

The DfE has published updated guidance regarding the proposed SURPs funding rate for September 2025 to August 2026.

This is a reminder to review your assumptions within IMP Planner to ensure your figures accurately reflect the published allocations.

To assist with your budget calculations, you may wish to use our SBSG calculator tool and reflect the revised SURPs rate, along with any other updated Trust assumptions:

Our friendly support team is here to help - just drop us a line at support@impsoftware.co.uk. Or, if you’d prefer to explore on your own, our Help Centre is packed with useful guides, FAQs, and articles to walk you through the latest features.

As a valued customer, your experience with IMP means everything to us. So we’d love to know what’s working for you, and importantly, what we can do better. That’s why we’re inviting you to take our Summer Term Survey 2025. It’s quick (less than ten minutes!), and every response is guaranteed to be read.

👉 Take the survey

As a thank you - on completion of the survey - you’ll be automatically entered to win one of these exciting prizes:

Your feedback drives our growth and ensures that we continue to build the MAT finance software you need. We’re truly grateful for your time and opinions - they make all the difference.

Our friendly support team is here to help - just drop us a line at support@impsoftware.co.uk. Or, if you’d prefer to explore on your own, our Help Centre is packed with useful guides, FAQs, and articles to walk you through the latest features.

On 8th July 2025, the Department for Education (DfE) released an important update to the School’s Budget Support Grant (SBSG). This update confirmed the April to August 2026 funding rates for Academies and outlined how values will be rolled into the National Funding Formula (NFF) for 2026/27.

We have released a revised calculator and guidance which includes the confirmed rates for the April to August 2026 period.

It is recommended you calculate the numbers for the SBSG grant using the updated calculator and revise your IMP budget rows where there are any differences to the assumptions you previously made for this period.

Our friendly support team is here to help - just drop us a line at support@impsoftware.co.uk. Or, if you’d prefer to explore on your own, our Help Centre is packed with useful guides, FAQs, and articles to walk you through the latest features.

To support you with your BFR 2025 submission, our updated BFR template and step-by-step guidance are now live!

No problem—today’s session with Warren and Rebecca is now available within the BFR 2025 guidance. They cover everything you need to know to complete your return with confidence, including:

✅ What’s new in the 2025 BFR requirements

✅ Changes to the Chart of Accounts

✅ How to check and update mappings in IMP

✅ How to use our easy-to-follow BFR template

📅 Submission deadline: 28th August 2025

Our guidance walks you through the process, but if you have questions, our friendly support team is here for you at support@impsoftware.co.uk.

Don’t forget to explore our —packed with FAQs, articles, and system feature guides.

Our friendly support team is here to help - just drop us a line at support@impsoftware.co.uk. Or, if you’d prefer to explore on your own, our Help Centre is packed with useful guides, FAQs, and articles to walk you through the latest features.

We’ve enhanced the Multi-Year Custom Report (Forecasting) to give you greater flexibility in how data is grouped.

Previously, you could choose between a summary or detailed view, with the detailed option offering a more granular breakdown. However, the row groupings themselves were fixed.

With this update, you can now customize the row groupings directly in the report parameters. By default, the first four groupings are pre-set (matching the original summary view), while the fifth grouping is now configurable. You can choose from finance code, department, activity, or leave it unset if not needed.

This means the new version of the report no longer has the 'detailed' or 'summary' options.

To make the transition seamless, any of your saved favourites have been automatically redirected to this updated version.

If you still need access to the previous version, it will remain available for a limited time in the ‘Deprecated’ folder.

Exciting news — our new Benchmarking Wizard is now available for you to submit your benchmarking data for 2025! Get your data in by 31st July to secure your own individualised report and toolkit, comparing your trust and schools to their peers.

We’ve expanded the scope this year, giving you richer comparisons and deeper analysis to help you plan with confidence.

Need help? Follow this guide for step-by-step instructions on how to prepare and submit your data — and don’t forget to watch our webinar launch video for extra tips.

Please contact support@impsoftware.co.uk if you have any questions regarding any updates made to the system. Alternatively, please visit our Help Centre which contains guides, FAQs and articles on features within the system.

Please be advised that system maintenance will commence at 12:00pm on Saturday 28th June and continue until 1600 on Saturday 28th June,

During this period, IMP Planner, IMP ICFP and IMP Purchasing may be intermittently unavailable.

Should you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us at your earliest convenience.

Please contact support@impsoftware.co.uk if you have any questions regarding any updates made to the system. Alternatively, please visit our Help Centre which contains guides, FAQs and articles on features within the system.

The certification from 9ine - a globally recognised education-sector consultancy specialising in data protection, cybersecurity, and AI governance - earlier this month underscores IMP’s commitment to meeting rigorous international standards.

Through an independent expert assessment of its products, policies, and technical controls, 9ine has verified that IMP Software aligns comprehensively with regulations such as GDPR, FERPA, COPPA, the EU AI Act, and industry cybersecurity benchmarks including OWASP standards.

Achieving 9ine certification means schools, and the wider MATs they are part of, can confidently trust that IMP’s solutions have been independently vetted for compliance. This certification reduces complexity and accelerates procurement by eliminating the need for lengthy internal reviews, helping schools deploy IMP’s solutions more efficiently and safely.

Please contact support@impsoftware.co.uk if you have any questions regarding any updates made to the system. Alternatively, please visit our Help Centre which contains guides, FAQs and articles on features within the system.

With the 2025/26 DfE Chart of Accounts now released – and IMP Planner already updated to reflect the changes – it’s time to join Warren Porter and Rebecca Lyndon for our upcoming BFR webinar.

They’ll walk you through what’s new, how to update your mappings, and what to expect from the final BFR template.

As always, we’ll make sure you have everything you need to complete your return with confidence – from a fully updated template to step-by-step guidance and expert-led support.

Don’t miss out – register now and save your place.

Please contact support@impsoftware.co.uk if you have any questions regarding any updates made to the system. Alternatively, please visit our Help Centre which contains guides, FAQs and articles on features within the system.