Presentation on “Benefits of FMIS”

By: admin | Tags: | Comments: 0

On 11^th, February, 2015 at 3:00PM in the big meeting room, main building of Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), the FMIS working group (FMWG) of Information Technology Department (ITD) of General Secretariat of MEF, conducted a presentation on“Benefits of FMIS” for senior leaders of MEF.

The presentation was graced by the Minister of MEF and attended by Secretary and Undersecretary of States of MEF, representatives General Secretariat Steering Committee (GSC) of Public Financial Management Reform, two ITD’s Consultants, and FMIS contractors (FIS-LG Joint Venture).

The presentation was divided into two parts. First part was presented by Mr. Chheang You, Deputy Director of ITD, focused on an overview of the FMIS implementation including implementation stages, project’s progress, and change impact analysis; and the second part focused on “FMIS Demonstration” along with benefits of the FMIS, which was shown by Mr. Mao Satya, Chief of Office, ITD. The main objectives of the presentation are 1. Mobilize support and strengthen the participation of the leaders for implementation of change management, 2. Present a testimony to the progress and real result of FMIS’s implementation, 3. Display the ability to address key problems of budget execution and management through FMIS system demonstration, 4. Indicate the benefits of FMIS through sectional management of MEF leaders, 5. Collect comment and recommendation from the MEF’s senior leaders as an input and a path to continue implementing FMIS successfully.

Key Details of the Presentation

Stages and progresses of FMIS implementation

Today, FMWG and the contractor (FIS-LG CNS Joint Venture) are working closely to develop FMIS system using Oracle PeopleSoft Financial software. The progress of the FMIS project is based on the project plan and timetable as defined in the Master Plan between FMWG and the Contractor by the end of 2014. The FMIS project is divided into 5 phases; the first phase (FMIS Project Plan) and the second phase (To-Be Business Process and Change Management Strategy) are 100% complete. Currently, the FMIS project implementation is executing the construction phase, which has completed 51% with a focus on building the system by using the To-Be Business Processes, on change impact analysis, and master data collection for system development. For the transition and production phases, both have been starting with 6% and 2% complete respectively, which focus on system training, system testing, and phase-by-phase FMIS roll-out.

Current status of FMIS’s implementation with 4 segments

1. Technology

•  The development of Data Center and Discovery Data Center are complete
•  The FMIS’s Networking is being established

2. Software

• To-Be processes are being finalized as Software System Models for approval Chart of Account and Coding are complete
•  The system configuration has commenced and is over 40% complete

3. Change Management

• Change Management focus is now on software design and use with the contractor team.
• A series of presentations and a demonstration of FMIS and its impact are being developed.
• FMIS website regularly updated.

4. Training

•  Training Programmed has already commenced for technical staff and will now be incorporating on-the-job training
• The training course for functional team of ITD and FMWG is being prepared with the contractor

However, the project implementation plan will be adjusted to officially start in July 2015 and all functions are to be up and running in November 2015. The Capital-Provincial treasuries will implement the system during December 2015 and February 2016 and the Operational Acceptance Test will be finished on 31 March 2016.

Requirements for internal control

For the effectiveness o f the internal control in FMIS:

•  Select the right existing human resources with skills, ability and responsibility (accountability)
•  Separate the function of master data maintenance, operation, and approval
•  All payments must be made through FMIS system

The Change Impact

Based on the June 2014 meeting on the the To-Be Business Processes there was a confirm by Minister that only two steps in the system, Add (data or information input, data verification, budget check, data adjusting and saving) and Confirm (Approve). Furthermore, all the payments have to be made through the FMIS system. This is to ensure the best practice of the FMIS’s implementation as countries in the region and globe. Meanwhile, for the phase one, the working process still implement both inside and outside the system (the check and approve which manually implement outside of the system are kept); however, the job that process outside the system will be rationalized by senior leaders of MEF, Director of General Departments, and the General Secretariat Steering Committee Public Financial Management Reform. Through the primary analysis on the current and To-Be Business Processes, some changes will be occurred such as the modification of business processes, the roles/responsibilities and workload, and the general departments’ structure in order to accommodate the FMIS system. Obviously, there are modifications and changes of roles and processes for budget allocation (BA), account payable (AP) and purchasing (PO) functions.

These modifications and changes will require further analysis on training both inside and outside of the FMIS system and on new and modified policy or regulations.

For the phase two implementation, policy and procedure changes are inevitably required, and most of them need to be changed in order to streamline the business processes and to gain maximum benefit from the system. For instance, power delegation, law or legislative amendment, government official impact analysis, internal restructuring of the general departments in the MEF, and other reforms that need additional functionality to enhance the FMIS system.

The functional design in the phase one is avoiding as much as possible restrictions on the scope of phase two.

The benefits of the system and FMIS demonstration

FMIS system will provide many benefits to both users and senior leaders of MEF in managing public finance, including rapid availability of up to date information;internationally compliant statements; reporting capability will increase as the Data Warehouse is implemented; showing all responsibilities for budget execution of relevant general departments; monitoring budget execution (the senior leaders can track all transactions implemented by relevant general departments); ability to access real time data for analyzing; and capability to manage staff performance; and cash payment forecasting. Obviously together with these, FMWG of ITD demonstrated the FMIS system to Minister as well as the senior leaders of MEF on security control, budget control, cash control, online query and reporting available to all authorized users, standard PeopleSoft Reports, and custom reports available to the needs of users and senior leaders.

Inputs from senior leaders of MEF

After the presentation, the senior management of MEF provided inputs to the FMIS team as below:

1. Developing the system with the international standard to ensure the best practice by divided the To-Be Business processes into two big steps, Add and Confirm, and temporarily maintain the manual tasks in the current business process together with In and Out Approach of To-Be business processes for checking and the other challenges will be continuously addressed while putting FMIS system into practice. Also, all the revenue-expense will be made through the FMIS system as well as the financial statements reports.
2. FMIS system must have tracking system (Track Change System and Internal Control) to ensure security, adjustability and upgradeable, and ability to interface with other external system.
3. Maintenance and troubleshooting need to build capacity of ICT team to ensure effective management and maintenance of FMIS system in MEF.

Finally, the MEF Minister gave an encouragement for hardworking and valuable recommendations to the FMWG team as below:

1. Have to consider FMIS as a fundamental to prepare ICT master plan which highlights the requirement and phase for future development and implementation
2. Need to build capacity of IT team
3. Require to have other presentations for senior leaders focusing on both IT and To-Be business processes before go-live in July, 2015
4. Set up troubleshooting center (Help Desk) at relevant general departments and central site (ITD) to facilitate implementation of the system effectively and smoothly
5. Need to have regular FMIS training for focal technical officials at every relevant general departments and departments
6. Request each general department to establish their own internal working group in order to train their staff on how to use FMIS.

The presentations and discussions ended at 5:00 pm with friendship and solidarity.