Executive summary

This annual update of the MCS Financial Statements adds the latest effective MCS presentation and disclosure requirements from the 2025-2026 MCS Standards to your MCS Caseware file. Notably the implementation of new National Treasury Excel AFS for 2025-26 as well as the new Item code AutoMap from the SCOA toning and BAS re-implementation are included in this release.

This update coincides with the full market release of Caseware Working Papers (Version 2025.00.091 Release 2) and Connector (Version 2025.00.00).

Contents

1.    MCS 2025.12.01

1.1.    Update to align Caseview AFS to the prescribe format "Departmental Specimen AFS 2025-26_Final September 2025":

1.1.1.    Notes to the appropriation statement
1.1.2.    Statement of financial position
1.1.3.    Statement of changes in net assets
1.1.4.    Cashflow statement
1.1.5.    Accounting policies
1.1.6.    Notes to the financial statements
1.1.7.    Annexures

1.2.    Update version of Excel AFS for 2025-2026

1.3.    Update to SCOA

1.4.    User requests and defects update

2.    Caseware Working Papers 2025.00.091 Release 2 

2.1.    Features
2.2.    Fixes

MCS 2025.12.01 

1.1.    Update to align Caseview AFS to the prescribe format "Departmental Specimen AFS 2025-26_Final September 2025":

For the Caseview AFS to align to this latest version of the MCS prescribe format the following sections are updated:

1.1.1.    Notes to the appropriation statement

• Added total column to the subnote "Per economic classification". 
• Added a new subnote Statutory appropriation.

1.1.2.    Statement of financial position

• Added a new line item for Voted funds receivable.
• Added a new line item for Statutory appropriation receivable.

1.1.3.    Statement of changes in net assets

• Added a new line item for "Transferred from CARA funds".

1.1.4.    Cashflow statement

• Update wording and link to notes for "Surrendered to Revenue fund".

1.1.5.    Accounting policies

The following accounting policies were updated to align to the latest specimen:

• "Appropriated funds".
• "Immovable capital assets".
• "Provisions".

1.1.6.    Notes to the financial statements

• Updated Aid assistance note by removing the column for "Add prepayments" for the prior year. 
• Updated Expenditure for Capital assets note by removing Intangible capital assets from subnote "Finance lease expenditure included in Expenditure for capital assets".
• Updated Prepayments and advances note by adding guidance to:
  • Subnote for Advances paid (Not expensed).
  • Subnote Prepayments (Not expensed).
  • Subnote Prepayments (Expensed).
  • Subnote Advances paid (Expensed).
• Updated Voted funds to be surrendered to the revenue fund note for "Received/(Paid) during the year".
• Add new note for "Statutory Appropriation to be surrendered to the Revenue Fund / (Statutory Appropriation receivable)".
• Updated Net cash flow available from operating activities note for reference to "Surrenderes to/ Received from the Revenue fund".
• Updated the Contingent liabilities and contingent assets note for reference to "Intergovernmental contingent liabilities".
• Updated Accruals and payables not recognised note by adding a breakdown to align to the new Annexure 5.
• Updated Employee benefits note by replacing with new reference to Annexure 5.
• Updated Lease commitments note with requirements relating to "material leasing arrangements".
• Updated Accrued departmental revenue note with requirement to include methodology applied to calculate impairment loss.
• Updated Principal-agent arrangements note description in headings.
• Updated Receivables note with new guidance notes.
• Updated Investment note with new guidance notes.
• Updated Accrual departmental revenue note with new guidance notes.
• Updated Intangible capital assets note by removing "Finance lease assets".

1.1.7.    Annexures

The following annexures are updated:

• Annexure 5 - INTER-GOVERNMENT CONTINGENT LIABILITES, ACCRUALS, PAYABLES NOT RECOGNISED AND EMPLOYEE BENEFITS (previously known as "INTER-GOVERNMENT PAYABLES") 

1.2.    Update version of Excel AFS for 2024-2025

National Treasury issued a new version of the Excel AFS named "Dept_Financial Statement Template_2025-26".

The update will add this new Excel version to the document manager named "Dept FS Template_2025-2026 v1".

The excel AFS has also been updated with the latest release patch from National Treasury "Patch 1 of 2025-26".

1.3.    Update to SCOA

On 1 April 2025, National Treasury send out communiqué regarding the SCOA toning and BAS re-implementation project. This project forms part of the budgeting and reporting reforms and resulted in comprehensive review of the SCOA codes used in BAS. The outcome of this review was a new SCOA version "Chart of Accounts - SCOA COR 6 02 25 26 30 June 2025" which was implemented on BAS and Vulindlela.

This resulted in all the Item codes to change and required an update to the Caseware Automap process.

However, the new codes only apply to the 2025/2026 financial year, as the "old" codes are still being used in the 2024/2025 year.

The Caseware import from Vulindlela has been updated to meet this requirement. Now if you import your data from Vulindlela for 2025/2026 the new SCOA codes will be used. If users import data for the 2024/2025 year, the "old" SCOA codes will be used. This is a massive change with about 3000 accounts that needed to be mapped.

1.4.    User requests and defects update

The following improvements requested by users are now included in this update:

1.4.1.    Departmental revenue note

Subnote "Gifts, donations and sponsorships received in-kind (not included in the main note or sub note)" are now linked to Annexure 1H 

1.4.2.    Annual appropriation note

Subnote "Conditional grants" are now linked to the correct column from the note "Statement of conditional grants received"

1.4.3.    Movable tangible assets note

Default for all the subnotes in this note is portrait but did not fit on the page. The default for the subnotes is now set to landscape.

1.4.4.    Clear current year balances

A new feature has been added to clear all balances (actuals, budgets, adjusted budgets, virements and shifting of funds) for the current year. This will ensure that on subsequent imports only balances as import will show. This feature is available under "Engagement|Import|Vulindlela|RESET CURRENT YEAR ACTUALS AND BUDGET:

Caseware Working Papers 2025.00.091 Release 2 

The following describes the features and fixes included in Working Papers 2025 and related products.

2.1.    Features

• Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) has been updated to version 131 to stay in line with the latest updates
• You can now export journal entry transfers to a format that is highly compatible with Xero, allowing for a more efficient import process
• CSS is now supported when printing to the iXBRL file format
• Installation - You will be required to fill in a username and email on installation
• The copy existing section method lets you specify if you want to insert the existing section before or after the relative section. This is only available to users when they have the firm template guide in their file. 

The cloud installer lets you self-serve and generate a silent install

The cloud installer now lets you add your customised firm template to the distributable for your firm

2.2    Fixes

• Published Working Papers engagements that are pending lockdown do not show the correct lockdown status (P) on Caseware Cloud
• The document modification time does not account for time zone differences, resulting in erroneous sync conflicts
• The multi-year view of the trial balance does not calculate prior year balances correctly
• Caseware AiDA occasionally fails to summarize the active PDF document
• A conversion error prevents Xero trial balance data from being imported into Working Papers
• The CaseView calculation editor does not display ampersands correctly
• Large values do not round correctly in certain graph types
• CaseView documents open slower if the engagement is published to an on-premises SmartSync Server

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