1. T r u s t
t h e
E x p e r t s
Integration of Supply Chain Management (SCM)
and Financial Accounting at GSB (FA)
Abaan Hassan the CTO of the Gulf Sabah Bank was in a quandary. The project to integrate Supply Chain Management
(SCM), with Financial Accounting (FA) through the Oracle ERP system was not shaping up according to plan.
He had plumbed for Oracle, wishing to streamline GSB processes for a greater control
over SCM. This would result in accurate daily balance sheets as demanded by the
management. Risks had to be reduced and managed through a hierarchical approval
process, guarding against erroneous execution of contracts, leading to diligent
monitoring of costs.
He was now under pressure from his CFO to bring the project back on track and he
realized that only way forward was to look for an independent pure-play testing
service with the requisite track record
Tedious as it may prove out to be, Abaan decided to float a tender of sorts. He sent
out a Request for Proposal (RFP) to known testing vendors who operated in the
Middle East and Asia region.
The Gulf Sabah Bank
(GSB) is a commercial
bank established by the
local investment council,
responsible
to
the
government of the country.
It complies with the Islamic
Sharia
principles
and
regulations and operates
with an authorized capital
of AED 5 billion and a paid
up capital of AED 1.5 billion

2. System Requirements
Keeping in view the developments in the
banking technology and IT infrastructure space,
the chosen vendor had to ensure that the
Oracle ERP system was well integrated with the
bank’s core banking solution (CBS) and card
processing system.
The integrated system had to facilitate: • Monitoring and control of the expenses of various
departments and branches
• Budgetary control
• Management of Fixed Assets
• Posting of accounting entries
• Distribution of inventories (stationary, toners, cartridges etc)
to various branches/departments
• Integration of Oracle General Ledger (GL) with the CBS and
HPS Card Processing System
• Integration of Accounts Payable module with cross functions
viz., employee invoice integration for employee expenses
payments and vendor payments
• Sub Ledger Accounting (SLA) that enables parallel
accounting with advanced journal line/account derivation
rules which helps in deriving the profit and loss of the
branches/departments
• Generation of customised reports based on balancing
segments
• Defining the Chart of account segments keeping in view the
futuristic requirements of the bank. This would bring in: o Centralized reporting in GL to provide a single
consolidated, consistent and dynamic accounting view in
Oracle ERP
o Simplified financial operations and availability of
information at any point of time to monitor the P&L and
balance sheet of the organization
Ordering
Goods Received Note
Request Quotation
Vendor Selection
Purchasing
Stock Taking
T24 / HPS Interface
Journal Creation
F
A
H
Sub Ledger
Accounting
General
Ledger
Inventory
Stock Control
Stock Transfer
ERP
Invoice Generation
Invoice Payment
Employee Payments
Accounts
Payable
Fixed
Assets
Asset Creation
Depreciation
Asset Revaluation
Asset Retirement
Legend: T24 = Teminos Core Banking Solution, HPS = Card Processing System from the Morocco based HPS Power Card, FAH =
Financial Accounting Hub
Selected testing vendor: After a diligent screening process that lasted over a fortnight, Thinksoft Global Services Ltd (TGSL) was
chosen on the basis of their superior score on the following parameters
Gulf Sabah Bank - Oracle ERP Case Study

3. • Specialized capability in financial software testing
• Expertise in testing leading core banking products B@NCS,
T24, Flexcube, Finnacle, MidasPlus etc
• Domain focused test methodologies
• Disciplined test management system
• End-to-end test planning and execution including testing of
interfaces
• Ability to conceptualize and strategize testing in sync with
the business functionalities
Early Diagnosis: From a preliminary study, it was obvious to
TGSL that the system was being fouled by the following
factors:
• Manual updating of the system by the finance control dept.
• Monitoring the financial aspects of the bank not being under
one roof resulting in administrative delays. Consequently,
when an invoice was rejected by the approver no notification
was received by the initiator regarding the rejection in his
work-list
• Delay in daily reporting of corporate balance sheet
information as it had to be extracted from the Core Banking
Solution – T24
Need for rigorous testing: Considering the variability of user
requirements that was permitted, it was soon evident that the
Oracle ERP Application would have to be rigorously tested on
the following:
• Various customizations which were being frequently
addressed in accordance with the request of the client.
• The functional statement generators being used for
generating the customized reports
• The need for control at the system level, towards
streamlining back-dated posting of journals in the books of
accounts
• The need for monitoring the concurrent programs and end of
day operations, for consolidated reporting of financial
information
• The large number of day-to-day transactions being
transferred from the Sub-Ledger accounts to Oracle General
Ledger from T24 & HPS through the Financial Accounting
Hub
The Thinksoft Methodology: TGSL approached the
assignment along the following lines:
• Carrying out a comprehensive study of existing business
processes at the Bank
• Selection of wrong GL codes by branch users during the
posting of accounting entries. Consequently, on creating
purchase requests for say ‘Project Forms’, at the final
approval level, the user receives the notification "Failed to
reserve funds for Purchase Requisition". Instead of this the
notification should be at the initiator level
• Designing a comprehensive test strategy in consultation with
concerned stakeholders; factoring in the complexity and
availability of functional modules and the project deadlines
• Non-Integration of the payments module in Oracle ERP with
the CBS -T24
• Using real time business transactions in the testing process
to ensure the software readiness
• Stocks had to be physically maintained in the absence of a
financially validated daily stock report
• Putting in place a robust defect management process
Early hurdles and insights: On proceeding further, TGSL
soon realized that they had to deal with: -
• Having the testware reviewed by subject matter experts
(SMEs)
• Executing a rigorous Risk Based Testing (RBT) process
• Orienting all stakeholders to the use of test management
tools to ensure that they were in sync with the defect
management process. This helped in the speedy
dissemination of information relating to progress in testing
and quick turnaround of clarifications and defect fixes
• Inadequate documentation of functional specifications,
especially at the Financial Accounting Hub (FAH), where the
T24-CBS and HPS Card Processing System are to be
integrated with Oracle ERP
• Ensuring timely escalations of problems, supported by
detailed and relevant metrics
• The Chart of Accounts segment values were being
added/modified periodically which resulted in revisiting the
journals according to the new segment values
• Walking the business users through the Oracle ERP and
defects encountered during test execution
• Generation of customized reports in the requisite GSB
formats
• Updating of existing Fixed Assets details
Gulf Sabah Bank - Oracle ERP Case Study
• Carrying out a functional analysis, to assess the application
readiness that helped the bank to decide on ‘go-live’
• Designing test cases and test conditions in such a way that
even the new business users could test the critical
functionalities with the objective of increasing the
effectiveness and efficiency of testing

4. Modules Tested
Unique
Common
• Financial Accounting Hub (FAH)
• Oracle
Learning
Management
(OLM)
Integration with Purchasing
• Payment Integration with T24
• Self Service Human Resource integration with
Accounts Payable
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
E Procurement
Procurement contract
Purchasing
Inventory management
Accounts Payable
Fixed Assets
General Ledger(Chart of Accounts)
Value Additions:
• Identifying critical gaps in various areas, such as functional
requirements and business workflow, leveraging TGSL’s eye
for detail and knowledge of business practices
• Accommodating the frequent changes made in the Project
execution approach
• Owing to the flexibility in process and approach, by Reduced
cost of rework, owing to early detection of defects enabled
through Thinksoft test management process
• Improved product capabilities through suggested process
changes and new features
• Highlighted the organization in- built mechanism to handle
the resource movements and resource expenses by
identifying the workflow notification errors
T r u s t
t h e
Execution statistics: TGSL deployed a team of 11 from the
beginning to complete the assignment in 3 months. Abaan and
his CFO were then more than pleased to also award the UAT
contract also to TGSL
E x p e r t s
For more details, visit www. thinksoftglobal.com
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Gulf Sabah Bank - Oracle ERP Case Study