Data Collections Financial Accountability

There are no changes for this year’s FA collection.

The FA collection has 2 parts:

• the acquittal certificate
• the block allocation summary.

About the acquittal certificate

The acquittal certificate is an assurance declaration provided by an independent qualified accountant to:

• confirm the total amount of recurrent funding received by the approved authority from the Australian Government
• provide assurance that the funding was spent, or committed to be spent, for the purpose of providing school education.

About the block allocation summary

The block allocation summary is applicable where an approved authority operates more than one school. The block allocation summary reports the funding distributed to each school.

An acquittal certificate is required for all approved authorities that received financial assistance in a calendar year from the Australian Government under the Australian Education Act 2013.

Only an independent qualified accountant can submit a financial acquittal certificate for an approved authority. To be recognised as an independent qualified accountant, you must be one of the following:

• a qualified accountant as defined by the Corporations Act 2001
• a person registered (or taken to be registered) as an auditor under the Corporations Act 2001
• a person approved by the Minister for Education as a qualified accountant.

A statement about the qualified accountant’s independence from the approved authority is included with the acquittal certificate declaration.

Arrange for your new independent qualified accountant to:

1. register for a new SchoolsHUB account – skip this step if your independent qualified accountant already has a SchoolsHUB account
2. link their account to your approved authority with the independent accountant role.

An approved authority representative will receive an email to log into SchoolsHUB and action the outstanding access request. Your new independent qualified accountant will not be able to access your acquittal certificate until the access request has been approved.

A SchoolsHUB account is for individual use only. You cannot share access with anyone at any time. The Department of Education will assume that any transaction using your user ID and password was approved and authorised by the relevant approved user.

A block allocation summary is required for approved authorities who:

• operated more than one school in the last calendar year
• received financial assistance under the Australian Education Act 2013.

Only users with data reporter or authorised representative roles for an approved authority can access or complete the block allocation summary.

For step-by-step instructions on accessing, submitting and reviewing your FA reporting, refer to the FA user guides under the downloads section of this page.

Pursuant to section 34(c)(i) of the Australian Education Regulations 2023, the FA collection is due on 30 June each year.

All FA financial data must relate to the previous calendar year. For example, the 2025 FA collection refers to data from 1 January to 31 December 2024.

School education means relating to provision of school education (foundation to year 12) at a school. Please refer to the Use of Recurrent funding guide for further information.

Funds are spent when paid.

An approved authority commits to spend recurrent funding where:

• an authority has entered into a new legal arrangement under which the authority will be liable to pay an amount, or
• an amount will become due or payable under a liability under a law of the Commonwealth or a state or a territory that the authority is required to meet, and
• the payment is not yet payable.

Examples of 'spent' would include payments made in the year of funding for school staff salaries, school rent, internet charges or electricity. An example of a commitment to spend would be entering a new contract for stationery, but the stationery had not been delivered to the school by 31 December. The amounts spent or committed must relate to the provision of school education.

To find out more about Commonwealth financial assistance for schools, please refer to the Australian Education Act 2013.

To find out more about the reporting requirements for schools, please refer to the Australian Education Regulations 2023.

To find out more about schools funding in Australia, refer to the Funding for schools page on the Department of Education website.

You can save and print the acquittal certificate and block allocation summary after submission.

For step-by-step instructions to print or save, refer to the FA user guides for accountants and approved authorities in the downloads section of this page.

For step-by-step instructions about completing your FA reporting, refer to the FA user guides in the downloads section of this page.

For assistance with completing the FA collection, call the SchoolsHUB helpdesk on 1800 677 027 (select option 4 then option 1), available Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm (AEST).