Testing and management of migration to a new accounting system

SUMMARY

Avantage Reply assisted a Finance department of a well-known private bank in their migration to a new accounting system and in the early post-migration phase. The project covered a wide range of activities such as:

• Conduct multiple User Acceptance Tests (UAT) with both on- and off-shore teams,
• re-design accounting, treasury and procurement reports using the low / no code tools,
• formalisation of a new procurement process with operational procedures,
• assistance to accounting and procurement teams in their production tasks during the first months post-migration.

Equally, Avantage Reply ensured PMO role to represent the Finance department within the broader migration program engaging various functions of the bank.

CUSTOMER GOALS

The main goal of our client was to ensure that all activities of the Finance department - treasury, accounting and regulatory reporting, invoicing and planning and management control – will be fully operational post-migration to the new accounting system.

CHALLENGES

The key challenges encountered during the project were:

• Limited availability of the internal resources (engaged in the production activities) to perform the UAT or to conduct the in-depth analysis of the identified gaps,
• multiple delays in the releases of the new system which compressed the time available for the Finance department to conduct necessary testing,
• heavy security limitations due to bank secrecy policies, e.g. availability of the new system to production teams based in the Center of Excellence.

SOLUTION

Avantage Reply mobilised senior resources with mixed, business and project management skills, to successfully conduct the pre- and post-migration phase. The key activities performed during the project were:

• Execution of multiple iterations of User Acceptance Tests (UAT), incl. assistance to team members in following the test case scenarios, formalisation of results and escalation of identified defects,
• where the new system did not provide standard reports suitable for Finance's activities, construction and testing of tailored reports,
• formalisation of a step-by-step process to manage invoices and internal travel & expenses,
• identification of the unique key allowing to map new chart of accounts under Suisse Gap to the existing product matrix under IFRS,
• close assistance to the production team in first month post-migration, incl. generation of new reports using the new source of data, execution of accounting-related tasks via the new system (e.g. posting accounting adjustments, consultation of account balances),
• acting as a point of contact for the Finance department in migration program fora and committees, e.g. access and security management,
• orchestration of the Finance operating committee and coordination of department’s deliverables to the Program, incl. tasks executed by the offshored teams.