Verification of Budget Information

Dear Client,

The Munsoft Team is committed to the mSCOA reform and we are excited about the progress made to date, we also acknowledge that we still have a long way to go.

The Munsoft Perspective specifically focusing on the budget process:

  • 2017/18 budget (Chaos)
  • 2018/19 budget (Many issues)
    • Data strings vs Submitted A Schedules differ - Differences were identified on almost all of the schedules, and the main reason for these differences were due to Schedules being populated outside the system.
    • Munsoft focused on “agreeing on principles” to ensure reconciliation between data strings and schedules submitted to the National Treasury.
    • Major issues with budgets, suspected being done outside of the system and clients wanting to reverse engineer the budget to the system.
  • 2019/20 budget (Less issues and different causes)
    • Data strings vs Submitted A Schedules differ – There were some instances where a lot of differences were identified, but it was limited to only certain schedules such as A6, A7, A9 and this was due to:
      • Principle differences on the schedules that were highlighted and communicated to the National Treasury or
      • Schedules being generated from the system, but adjusted manually to reflect the desired balances
    • Munsoft focused on “agreeing on principles” to ensure reconciliation between data strings and schedules submitted to the National Treasury – Still not finalised.
    • Major issues with budgets submitted to council being different from what is on the system and had to focus assist municipalities to use a system generated budget. What we suspect with some cases, the budgets were generated from the system, modified outside of the system and then submitted.
  • 2020/21 budget (Good – will still have problems but this will be the exception)
    • Data strings vs A schedules should not differ – We expect limited exceptions if we can achieve our goal that municipalities submit the system generated budget.
    • The approach is to give an extensive guidance on how to capture budgets on the system, and ensure budgets that are captured are complete.
    • Focus will be placed on how the budget should reflect in each of the schedules, to decrease the need for municipalities to manually adjust schedules A6, A7 and A9 after being generated via the system.
    • Principle differences to be cleared with the National Treasury to ensure there is alignment on all the schedules.
    • If municipalities decide to manually adjust amounts on the schedules, then there will still be differences.
    • Engage with clients, PT and NT to ensure the budgets are generated from system and that the system generated budget is presented as generated - implement check mechanism when budget is submitted to identify whether it is the case.
  • 2021/22 budget (Smooth sailing - mostly)

Obstacles Encountered:

It came to our attention recently that in some occasions, municipalities did not submit the budget that was generated from the system. 

Therefore, it is impossible for us to assist a municipality through the ORGB (which is locked on the system and should not be available for adjustment) to reconcile a budget that was either done completely outside of the system, or modified after being generated from the system.

Munsoft Approach that was followed for 2019/20 budget  (High Level):

  1. Within our capability to ensure that the clients process their budget in the system and produce a budget to take to council directly from the system;
  2. Focus our resources to sort out/workshop principle issues specifically on A6,A7,A9 with PT/NT/Clients in order to have an agreed way with NT  to ensure a perfect reconciliation;
  3. Provide additional support to clients (WHO SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED & SIGNED UP FOR THIS) on various aspects of their budget process if they lack internal capacity;
  4. Continuously Communicate generic guidance to all clients to assist them to generate budgets for council from the system;
  5. Continuously Communicate generic guidance to clients during verification period based on the assumption that the system generated budgets are submitted as is.

Suggested Way forward:

We suggest when the stakeholders agree on the principle issues which are preventing accurate reconciliation of council submitted A schedules vs what is on the systems (between Vendors, Clients, NT and PT’s) that the stakeholders work together to:

  1. Not to apply pressure on the municipalities who’s schedules are not accurately reconciling, until or after implementation of the changes required with the newly agreed principles.
  2. Implement the changes required after the agreement on principles.
  3. Create exception list of municipalities that are not accurately aligning with submitted A-schedules vs data strings.
  4. Combined effort to correct this with Adjustment budgets.

The progress made to date with the mSCOA transformation in the Municipal space has been extraordinary. The Munsoft Team is working constantly on improving on all aspects within the space, from training and upskilling municipal staff, financial system improvements and additional value adding aspects and modules, compliance with PT & NT deadlines, providing a strong support base for Municipalities, ensuring communication and expectations between all stakeholders are open, honest, understood and achieved… the list goes on. We thank both the PT’s and NT for their roles in this successful transformation and continued support, through this budget reconciliation stage. It is always appreciated.

If you have any  queries, please contact your Service Delivery Manager for assistance.

Regards,

Munsoft

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