Does FMS cost more without SIMS

[robjduk]

Good morning all,

Has anyone got experience of moving away from SIMS but keeping with FMS? Do they put the price up because you leave SIMS?

 

I know i could talk to ESS but don't want to hear the "we are investing X million into it so please don't leave" speech again.

[PotNoodleTech]

Can't see why you'd want to keep FMS? It's literally from the 90s which is why it has a windows 3.1 interface. Upgrade to something more modern then dump SIMS?

[DrCheese]

From memory - If you try to buy it without SIMS they charge you full SIMS renewal price anyway.

[Scifigirl]

ours works out about £70 a year cheaper with just FMS - but we are hosted by ESS. Edited March 6, 2024 by Scifigirl

[TwistedHelixis]

Because we were going through our LA for SIMS & FMS, when we stopped using SIMS the LA still charged us the same amount :-(.

 

Moved over to Arbor finance, so that's all good now.

[DrCheese]

Yarp - They extract the urine. Sooner they get bought down a peg or two the better.

[6Foot2]

My last place of work did this. The Finance team hung on to FMS while other staff were saddled with Facility CMIS/ePortal.

 

I have heard that they have now moved to Sage as their finance management solution.

 

I can't recall what the costs were re: FMS only vs "the full package" but I get the feeling that there wasn't much difference, if any. With that in mind, it makes the choice they made seem pretty pointless when they were pressing departments on spending/waste at the same time..

 

[psydii]

Wow. That's a curve ball. Literally anything (including full manual, handwritten double entry accounting and an abacus) is better than FMS.

 

We ditched it and kept SIMS. I seem to recall this did not confer any reduction in fees from Capita either!

 

Of the alternatives:

 

 

Access (formerly HCSS) Finance easily implemented, and both simple enough for non-finance specialists, and powerful enough that an overworked underskilled finance team wont look back, and a skilled finance manager will also be very satisfied.

 

 

PFS needs huge amount more confidence and competence up front. However even though it is massively more powerful the most praise I've heard for it is: "its better than FMS"

 

Not looked at the offers from the other MIS providers so I'll leave that to others.

 

But really moving off FMS is the least disruptive cloud migration possible and transformative for managing, reporting and planning the schools finances.

Edited March 6, 2024 by psydii

[Dr_Zeux]

Good morning all,

Has anyone got experience of moving away from SIMS but keeping with FMS? Do they put the price up because you leave SIMS?

 

I know i could talk to ESS but don't want to hear the "we are investing X million into it so please don't leave" speech again.

 

We've moved away from Sims, but we're still using FMS. When we were using Sims, it used to be £2809, the following year it was £3075 (no longer using Sims) and this year it's £3281 - so I would say it's going up every year, almost in line with inflation and other indexes...

[russlp]

We're being told we have to keep FMS at the same full cost we're paying now for SIMS - as our LA doesn't accept Bromcom or Arbor finance - doesn't quite seem fair!

[synaesthesia]

We're being told we have to keep FMS at the same full cost we're paying now for SIMS - as our LA doesn't accept Bromcom or Arbor finance - doesn't quite seem fair!

 

In that position I'd be getting all the local schools together to force the LA's hand.

However, a lawsuit for 5 pence and a packet of ready salted crisps would be enough to bankrupt most councils currently and leave the schools with even less

Foul play from everyone involved.

[5tu]

We're being told we have to keep FMS at the same full cost we're paying now for SIMS - as our LA doesn't accept Bromcom or Arbor finance - doesn't quite seem fair!

 

Same here in Bucks :-(