The Standard Financial Statement (SFS) is a landmark development for debt advice in the UK which delivers, for the first time, a universal income and expenditure statement, together with a single set of spending guidelines. For more information please visit: sfs.moneyadviceservice.org.uk
Key to the success of the SFS is absolute standardisation - no matter which software product generates an SFS the data and presentation must be consistent.
The Developer Toolkit is a set of resources aimed at helping software developers incorporate the SFS into their products. It currently contains:
- A Data Definition Specification
- Set of HTML templates for rendering the SFS
Please note: This toolkit it provided purely as a developer aid. It is not intended in any way to be a mandatory solution for outputting a SFS that would interfere with any implementation plans currently in place or in development
If you have any comments on the resources in this toolkit please contact malcolm@electricputty.co.uk
The aim of the DDS is to make the SFS a portable and system agnostic standard. By clearly defining the structure of SFS data, including specific criteria to determine compliance, it will be possible to
- Engender confidence in the SFS through consistency and transparency
- Eliminate redundancy (since all products reference the same specification)
- Provide standardization, making it easier and more efficient to create, modify, verify, analyze and share SFS data between products.
Schemas are available in XSD and JSON format and include:
- SFS Budget Summary Schema
- SFS Data Entry Schema
There are plans to update the SFS Data Entry Excel file to include an export feature. When developed this will output a DDS compliant XML file. Any compliant software would then, in principle, be able to import this data and continue managing the client’s budget with no need to re-key any data. The potential time saving and error reduction benefits are clear.
The XSD Schemas are written in XML Schema, and currently consist of the following files
The JSON schemas are written in JSON Schema, and currently consists of the following files:
The aim of these templates is to provide software developers an easy way to generate a presentationally compliant SFS from their data. Utilising these templates will ensure that:
- Fonts are correct
- Colours are correct
- The logo is correct
- The layout is correct (e.g. number of pages / data on the correct page)
These can be either rendered on screen or used to generate PDF files using a third-party HTML to PDF technology (e.g. wkhtmltopdf or PhantomJS).
Most HTML to PDF technology is system agnostic so can be used regardless of the technology a proprietary software product is developed in.
Current templates include: