Closure Report
Project Summary
The project consisted of 2 distinct work streams:
A) Making Tax Digital
In order for the university to become VAT compliant with regards HMRC Making Tax Digital legislation Tax Office have to implement bridging software that fulfils the following:
- connects software to HMRC systems
- allows you to submit VAT information to HMRC
- allows HMRC to send information to you
Having carried out an evaluation of HMRC identified approved supplier Finance identified Arkk as their preferred supplier engaged with them with regards progressing with a proof of concept phase. Should the proof of concept complete successfully the intention was to progress to procurement and implementation of the solution.
B) Finance System Compliance Updates and Document Revitalisation
This work stream was designed to undertake the annual review and update of eFinance documents to ensure the automatically generated financial documents for 19/20 were relevant, contain the correct details and were fit for purpose. The review required input from Finance, Advanced (eFinancials supplier) and the IS Applications Production teams to provide project management.
All changes were required to be made by Advanced, before being released to the Live environment. Finance agreed to be the liaison with Advanced regarding the work required to be undertaken, which Project Services then co-ordinate with the Production team.
Scope
A) Making Tax Digital
Support the implementation of the Arkk regulatory compliance solution, identified by UoE Tax Office as the preferred supplier.
To support identification and configuration of data flows between the purchased Arkk regulatory compliance solution and the core eFinancials suite, to ensure University VAT return is HMRC compliant.
B) Financial System Compliance Updates and Document Revitalisation
This phase was designed to undertake the annual review to ensure the automatically generated financial documents are still relevant, compliant, contain the correct details and are fit for purpose.
Phase scope included:
-
Identification of necessary corrections/updates/amendments to: All documents automatically created by GDF and then generated by Version One (Sales & Purchase Ledgers) including but not limited to Purchase Orders, Sales Invoices, Cheques, Reminder Letters, Instalment Plans, Statements, BACS Remittances, Cheque Remittances.
- Project Management support to coordinate the activities of Finance, Advanced and ISG Application Services support.
- Acceptance testing by Finance of eFinancials development changes (made by Advanced).
- Application Services team deployment support for approved development changes within the Development, Test and Live environments.
- Support for Project Closure stage activities.
Objectives/Deliverables
| No. |
Objective / Deliverable |
Priority |
Outcome |
| AO1 |
Making Tax Digital |
|
|
| D1.1 | Signed letter of engagement with the external supplier outlining the roles and responsibilities of both parties during the proof of concept period | MUST |
Completed |
| D1.2 |
Proof of concept exercise to confirm suitability of software and compliance with Making Tax Digital with regards automatic submission of the University VAT return |
MUST |
Completed |
| D1.3 | Support the purchase of Arkk For:sight bridging software. | MUST |
Withdrawn |
| D1.4 | Implementation of Arkk For:sight bridging software. | MUST |
Withdrawn |
| BO2 |
Financial System Compliance Updates and Document Revitalisation |
|
|
| D2.1 |
Review current automatically generated documentation to identify any amendments required |
MUST |
Completed |
| D2.2 | Advanced to cleanse current scripts once gaps/amendments identified | MUST | Completed |
| D2.3 | Implement changes within the development, test then live environment | MUST | Completed |
Analysis of Resource Usage:
Staff Usage Estimate: 50 days
Staff Usage Actual: 50 days
Outcome
A) Making Tax Digital :
Progress was slower than anticipated, due in part to Arkk familiarising themselves with the complexities of the UoE VAT submission process, especially around gathering the various strands of input, combined with Tax Office workload impacting on the project. As a result MTD compliant tax return and sign off on Proof of Concept was not achieved until November 2019. This late completion of the POC coincided with the allocated time on the project coming to conclusion, so PM would have no further involvement in MTD.
Finance, Business and Strategy indicated they would continue to work with Tax Office to ensure they achieved compliance with MTD. PM reminded Tax Office that they should maintain communication with Production Management and Applications Service team to ensure they have adequate support as necessary.
B) Financial System Compliance Updates and Document Revitalisation:
As a result of internal resource conflicts the initial requirements capture and analysis phase was kicked off later than had been intended. This had a knock-on effect to the milestone timescales throughout the project which were all slightly later than scheduled. The overall impact was exaggerated by the issues encountered during the development and roll out phase which are highlighted in the Key Learning Points section below. This meant that although the requirements analysis was completed in early July the roll out of the final updates was not signed off by the business until mid-October.
Explanation for variance
The project was split into 2 components, Financial Systems Compliance and MTD. The MTD component was timeboxed based on the effort remaining after the Financial Systems Compliance work had completed. As a result variance was minimal.
Key Learning Points
During the project closure review meeting there was a lessons learned session. The output from this session is held in the Lessons Learned log for the project. However a high level summary of the log is below:
| Ref. |
Title |
Description |
| 1 | Advance consultant requires word and pdf documents |
When carrying out the development work there are situations specifically relating to the back side of certain invoices/PO's where the Advanced consultant needs access to either a word version or pdf version of the invoice/PO. In an ideal world a .pdf file including the desired changes would be available. |
| 2 | Requirements deadline |
As a result of resource availability at both Finance and IS the project started later than had been hoped. This meant that the requirements capture phase and their final sign off was so late that we were not in a good position with regards reserving the Advanced consultant to address the requirements. |
| 3 |
During the file transfer process from TEST to LIVE a number of .pdf files became corrupted. This was as a result of the character format in the file transfer process being set incorrectly. |
|
| 4 | Incomplete live deployment. |
The various components of the release were covered by a number of Jira's. When it came to the live deployment a number of files that should of been included in the release were not deployed. |
| 5 | No CVR (Customer Visit Report) received from Advanced |
No CVR was received from Advanced following multiple requests from the project team. If the CVR had been received, I would expect this would have helped with a number of the issues that followed. |
| 6 | Amendments made to files directly in eFin Test by Advanced | Advanced made amendments to Reminders text in eFin TEST directly into ACT077. We were advised verbally to remember to make these changes in live at time of live deployment. The changes were made, however, having not received a CVR, it became apparent that there were additional steps missing that had not been relayed to us for the amendments to ACT077. |
| 7 | Tracking of amendments and scope of code release |
Advanced asked for the pdfs to be loaded to /u01/software/finance/v1home/spool and this was carried out in TEST but not during live deployment. |
| 8 | The Advanced consultant did not carry out Testing of amendments made onsite during the initial 2 day booking for this project. Once the amendments had been made, the project team would alert the business areas to trigger testing, however a large proportion of these amendments failed. | |
| 9 | Location of consultant when on site at UoE. | At his initial site visit to carry out the remedial work the Advanced consultant sat with the Applications Services team. This meant updates were moved to Test immediately upon completion but there wasn't representation from Finance to co-ordinate the work and confirm that the updates had been carried out correctly. |
| 10 | Staff churn caused lack of continuity. | Across the project the churn of staff as a result of the use of contractors, relatively short term fixed contracts and staff on internal secondments led to a lack of continuity from the corresponding 2018/19 project. This had a detrimental effect on most aspects of the project. |
Outstanding Issues
There are no outstanding issues for this project.