4. Improvement of Accounting at
WGUK
A strategic analysis of Finance processes and Systems
Development at WGUK
5. Finance Principles (1)
•Finance systems (Projects) should be based on some important principles.
•People: Get the right people involved from the beginning. Ensure that they
have the experience and knowledge.
•Training: Make sure all people on these projects have adequate training
and understand their responsibilities.
•Scope: Make sure the scope includes everything that the business needs to
be successful. Workshops that gather all the requirements from the SME’s
will need to be held.
6. Finance Principles (2)
•There is plenty of help on the web. Checklists are very useful.
Information on projects that have been successful and failures also.
Look at both types.
•Design: Make sure the design fulfils everything in the scope.
•Testing: Test the system to its limits. There are many levels of testing
including, stress, integration, unit, end to end and UAT ( User
Acceptance Testing ). Many systems go live before being tested
properly. This has happened at WGUK. That is why we have systems
here that do not work and have led to the business to where we are
today.
7. Finance Principles (3)
• Stubbornness/Persistence. Being stubborn or persistent in a project
can be very valuable. You may be simply be told things that you
don’t understand and make you uncomfortable. If you feel yourself
in a situation where you have asked a question and not got a
satisfactory answer, don’t give up until you are satisfied. Don’t be
fobbed off by delaying tactics used by many involved. Get answers
that you understand and make sense.
• Documentation. Ensure all documents, requirement, design,
process, training etc. etc. are available on the shared drive.
• Post go live support. Make sure someone that understands the
systems and processes is available to support users.
8. WGUK – Current Infrastructure
•Meter Point – Reads consumption of customer.
•GMS - Compiles meter information.
•GTE – Calculation of energy
•GASX – Production of invoices and source of accrual
data.
•Endur – Trade Capture - Price (un)fixings of
customers.
•SAP Germany – Customer information including
invoice data from GASX.
•SAP UK – All data from SAP Germany plus manual
invoices. All finance data and reports.
9. Current situation at WGUK
•Meter Point; Doubts on accuracy of Meter Reads.
•GMS; Doubts on GMS data accuracy due to doubts at Meter Point.
•GTE; Cannot be confident of Energy Calculation due to source of
data.
•GASX; It has been proven that we cannot rely on some reports or
invoices produced from GASX for accuracy.
•ENDUR; Trading is working with Sales to be able to provide a clean
system which will allow us to generate reports. We are acting blind
until this exercise is completed.
•SAP Germany; Cannot validate data exported to M11 as no
validation process was introduced.
•SAP UK; Data used for all purposes in doubt as all systems have
data validation problems. This includes data for credit control, monthly
reporting, basically everything that we use SAP for is in doubt.
10. Solutions ( 1)
•We have to understand what has been discussed in the previous slides. Do not
take any actions until we fully understand the problems. Taking corrective actions
before understanding the problems in depth will only make matters worse.
•There is always pressure from various sources that will try and make you cut
corners to save time or money. The more you deviate from your plan, the more
problems you will incur later.
•You will come up against people that will try and put you off making changes. If you
make your arguments foolproof and back up all your proposals with documents that
cannot be disproved you can convince anyone that your proposals must be correct.
•Start at the beginning, at the Meter Points. Get the Meter Reads accurate then
move on to GMS and so on. If this is not possible it may be necessary to start further
down the chain and go back to the Meter Points later.
11. Solutions ( 2)
• Introduce Validation processes at every integration point.
• Test everything. Write test scripts that include results you
would expect from a live system. If the test results are not to
your satisfaction say so. Do not sign off any tests that do not
meet your expectations.
• WGUK can win contracts that have a 150% margin and
management fees worth tens of thousands of pounds, but if
the systems are not in place and we cannot be confident we
are billing our customers accurately, what’s the point? We
will just continue to make losses.
12. x Processes to introduce immediately
•Plan properly: Identify your problems and what changes have to be
made to solve them. Plan for them properly. Realistic timeframes, if
you don’t allow enough time to complete the project you will rush at the
later stages and deliver a substandard solution. Involve people that
understand the principles we have discussed. Cost the project
accurately.
•Concentrate on making points succinctly and clearly. Do not spend
hours on over elaborate presentations just to make them look pretty.
Use your time wisely.
•Confidence: Have confidence in yourself, in what you are doing and
the people you work with. If you can back up everything you are doing
with evidence, you can work with confidence and answer any
questions that are put to you.
13. Processes to introduce immediately
• Training: Make sure all staff are trained to do their jobs. Establish
knowledge gaps and who needs further training. Once staff are
confident they can answer any question on their work, train them on
what processes outside their own daily roles has an impact on what
they do. In time they will be able to understand the business from top
to bottom and this will improve their job satisfaction and
performance.
• Budgets: Accurate budgets have to be established for 2011. Budget
to actual variance analysis is an important tool for every business.
• SAP – Condor: There is a project called Condor in the pipeline run
by BASF. It is very important that WGUK is represented in this
project to ensure that we get a finance system that works for us.
• Process improvement long term: Additional new processes have to
be introduced over 2011. This will be developed and covered in a
later presentation.
