FreeBalance® Shared Services

Government Resource Planning (GRP) Shared Services: Optimize Mission Resources with FreeBalance Government-

Specific Solution

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FreeBalance for Shared Services Optimize Mission Resources with Government-Specific Solution

Value for Money Government missions are expanding while funding has reduced. Government organizations are faced with doing more with less. Many governments have implemented hosted shared services where government systems are centrally supported for more efficient and effective service delivery. Yet, hosted shared services have had disappointing results. Expected savings of up to 20% has not materialized. Standardization has been difficult to achieve. Other benefits have been difficult to achieve.

New Approach to Hosted Shared Services Hosting Government Resource Planning (GRP) systems by central government services or the private sector should be more efficient than supporting numerous software instances. The design of software leveraged for shared services has been problematic.

The FreeBalance Accountability Suite Version 7 was designed specifically to support hosted shared services. Governments can host GRP functionality centrally, leverage private sector hosting facilities including FreeBalance and integrate centrally and self hosted applications. Version 7 has been designed to overcome government shared services challenges.

HOSTED SHARED SERVICES DIFFICULTIES FREEBALANCE APPROACH � Standardization: Difficulty for shared services

software to standardize processes across many government organizations

� Configuration approach including flexible parameters increases standardization footprint while accommodating unique requirements

� Migration: Difficulty of migrating data from numerous on-premises software with different configuration

� Data and system migration tools included � Supports phased migration to standards

� Deployment: Difficulty for single-instance software to support range of government needs

� Deployment approach supports flexible configurations and multiple system hosts

� Adaptation: Difficulty to centrally support changes in government standards and organizational structures

� Progressive activation supports configuration changes to meet new standards

� Integration: Difficulty that standardized approaches can reduce integration with needed special purpose applications

� Component Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) supports tight integration among GRP modules

� FreeBalance Accountability Platform provides COTS approach for unique requirements

� Technology modernization: Difficulty to achieve scalability, security, integration and lower power consumption with legacy private sector technology

� Pure web component-based SOA approach eliminates client/server to web translation

� Government-specific software and optimal technical footprint design reduces need for computing hardware

� Governance: Difficulty with shared services governance with many software vendors

� Governance options include full shared services organization integration into FreeBalance software development lifecycle

� TCO: High technology and support costs for managing unique processes, standardization, upgrades

� Low TCO through government-specific design and configuration approach

SHARED SERVICES BENEFITS � Mission: optimize mission effectiveness

through agile deployments, consistent citizen-facing systems, ease of reform and modernization

� Consolidation: optimize systems costs by eliminating duplication, reducing power consumption, centralizing management

� Predictability: optimize change and compliance costs through standardization, simple cost and growth models, improved security, controls and disaster recovery

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Shared Services Product Offering Any and all modules of the FreeBalance Accountability Suite are available for hosted shared services.

Government Performance Management • Performance Budgeting to support credible budgets, forecasting and improved government

performance including budget preparation, government performance management and a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) library

• Monitoring and Evaluation to support improved decision-making including records management, reporting, data mart, dashboards and alerts

• Government Transparency to support publishing performance and budget information to a transparency portal and computer-aided audit

Public Financials Management • Budget and Commitment Accounting to support core government financial functions for unitary

governments, national governments, line ministries, sub-national and municipal governments and projects

• Assets and Inventory to support government fixed assets, stores, fleet and facilities. • Projects and Job Costing to support project management link budgeting and project accounting to

project estimates and forecasts

Government Treasury Management • Bank Reconciliation to support multiple currency bank management including reconciliation

processes, migration to a Treasury Single Account (TSA) and foreign exchange gains and losses • Cash Management to optimize liquidity including cash forecasting based on the commitment cycle,

historical trends and manager reports • Debt and Investment Management to support debt servicing and the modeling of debt and

investment financial vehicles

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Public Expenditures Management • Expenditures and Purchasing to support expenditure controls for standard expenditures including

payment management, multiple purchasing vehicles and the purchasing cycle • Procurement to support fiscal discipline on large scale government acquisitions including tendering,

e-procurement, contract and spend management • Grants and Social Programs including government grant, loan and contribution management

Government Receipts Management • Non-Tax Revenue to support government sales and other income including sales, permits and

licensing • Tax Revenue to support tax administration for income, business, import and property • Billing and Receipts to support receipts collection including utility billing, collections and cashiering

Civil Service Management • Human Resources to support civil service reform and management including movement, capacity

building, salary planning, performance appraisal and recruitment • Payroll and Pensions to support government rules for payroll and pensions • Benefits and Self-Service including civil service benefits, travel and subsistence and self-service

portals

Complementary Shared Services There are many hosted shared services installed in governments today. Governments have invested in developing, training and managing these services. Not all processes are completely integrated in many of these implementations. There remain numerous gaps in comprehensive shared services. FreeBalance has expertise in filling these gaps with FreeBalance Accountability Suite modules such as (CSSP) Salary Planning. FreeBalance supports integration through legacy and modern methods such as flat files and Web Services. The FreeBalance Accountability Suite is built on a component Service-Oriented Architecture that facilitates multiple points of integration.

Many government organizations have unique mandated requirements that cannot be satisfied by shared service or Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) applications. These specialized applications are expensive to maintain and difficult to integrate, particularly as technology standards progress. Government organizations can leverage the COTS supported FreeBalance Accountability Platform, which the FreeBalance Accountability Suite uses, to develop and maintain these specialized applications. The FreeBalance Accountability Platform includes a set of reusable and supported government entities or business objects. This option reduces development and support costs.

SHARED SERVICES AND CLOUD COMPUTING � Many governments are not prepared to

have PFM applications hosted in the “cloud” because of security concerns

� The FreeBalance Accountability Suite Version 7 was designed to operate in the “cloud”, via shared services and on-premises deployment

� Shared services through government-owned infrastructure provides many cloud computing benefits

� Many PFM applications such as e-procurement, budget transparency, tax self-service and e-recruitment can be effectively and less expensively managed via the cloud with limited security

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Approach to Shared Services Standardization Process standardization is a key benefit for shared services. Standardization reduces cost for training, support and upgrading software.

Privacy, agency independence, de-centralization and legal limitations can make standardization exercises difficult.

The pattern of dissimilar processes expands based on the number of organizations compared. Even small government agencies can have significant differences in mandate. Problems encountered with standardization include:

• Disjointed processes where only parts of shared processes are standardized. The comprehensive “line of business” cannot be fully automated leaving government ministries, departments and agencies with the option of manual processes or creating special purpose tools.

• Diminishing returns where adapting organizational processes to the standard reduces efficiency or service delivery.

• Legal and process barriers where standardization cannot be implemented by some organizations. This can dramatically reduce the return on investment for setting up an expensive shared services infrastructure if it cannot be leveraged by all government organizations.

FreeBalance Shared Services Technology Approach

FreeBalance overcomes the standardization problem through a confirmation approach where the broad spectrum of government processes can be parameterized and requires no customization. Multiple configurations can be supported and the configuration ranges can be narrowed.

FREEBALANCE STANDARDIZATION APPROACH � Many processes are standard or should be across government organizations

� Standardization efforts can run into difficulties

� FreeBalance approach supports standardization and configuration flexibility

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Shared Services Deployment Options

FreeBalance supports a wide range of deployment options. Most shared services offerings are single hosted only. FreeBalance supports hybrid hosted implementations that enable some processes to be hosted on regional or local servers. The regional server option supports sub-national situations where some processes are decentralized and legally must be hosted separately. The local server option supports situations where the organizational unit has unique processes. These hybrid options can integrate with central servers.

DEPLOYMENT OPTION DESCRIPTION � Cloud � System is deployed in commercial infrastructure by FreeBalance and FreeBalance

partners. FreeBalance provides all support, upgrading and maintenance. � Government Hosted � System is deployed centrally by the government. Government determines extent to

which support, upgrading and maintenance is provided by FreeBalance. � Regional Servers � Sub-national governments implement host servers. System information can be

synchronized and consolidated to higher levels of government through Multiple Tier Government Synchronization (MTGS).Government determines extent to which support, upgrading and maintenance is provided by FreeBalance.

� Local Hosted � Systems are deployed to individual government organizations. System information can be synchronized and consolidated to central ministries through Multiple Tier Government Synchronization (MTGS). Government determines extent to which support, upgrading and maintenance is provided by FreeBalance.

� Hybrid � A combination of all server deployment options.

FreeBalance shared services support numerous configuration options. FreeBalance uses a full parameter configuration approach where all business rules and workflow used by government organizations can be configured. The FreeBalance Accountability Suite supports multiple configurations in a single server instance or across multiple servers and via the hybrid deployment.

CONFIGURATION OPTION DESCRIPTION � Standardized � Some or all processes are standardized and identical � Semi-Standardized � Some variability in some processes enabled within a very narrow range � Configurable � Some processes are enabled with the broad range of configuration options available

in the FreeBalance Accountability Suite � Unique Processes � Processes that are unique to some government organizations are supported

including custom domains and specialized application requirements

DEPLOYMENT OPTIONS

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Governance Options FreeBalance supports a wide range of shared services deployment and governance options. Some shared services exercised by governments do not include central hosting. Government organizations can achieve cost and efficiency benefits through shared enhancement, configuration, and IT practices.

Governance has become an increasingly important indicator of shared services success. Government shared services tend to succeed best when government organization service customers can impact decisions by the shared services provider. Good oversight can help align service provider priorities with customer needs.

Shared services governance needs active and comprehensive software manufacturer participation. Yet, many government shared services initiatives are arm's length from the vendor. FreeBalance, as a specialist in Government Resource Planning, is an active governance participant in shared services deployments.

Deployment can be matched with the appropriate governance mechanism to optimize benefits while mitigating risks. Governance mechanisms can be combined. FreeBalance prefers stronger governance mechanisms that provide government organizations with significant impact in day-to-day product development priorities.

GOVERNANCE OPTION DESCRIPTION � Embedded � Government is embedded directly in the FreeBalance product management and

development process with full visibility and participation in requirements, specifications, test plans, alpha and beta testing

� Strategic � Government participates in product Steering Committee with other governments to determine FreeBalance product roadmap with 2+ year planning horizon

� Operational � Cluster of organizations from a single government pool enhancements to ensure that country-specific requirements are handled with a 1+year planning horizon

� User Group � Typical governance approach of pooling needs from many organizations in many countries – unlike typical user groups, only government requirements are considered because FreeBalance does not provide solutions to other markets

FREEBALANCE & SHARED SERVICES GOVERNANCE � Governance part of the FreeBalance Shared Services Blueprint

� FreeBalance supports broadest range of deployment and

governance options

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FreeBalance Shared Services Blueprint FreeBalance leverages the ISO-9001/2000 certified and unique i3+qM methodology for government shared services deployment. The i3+qM methodology was developed specifically for GRP implementations by combining best-practices in implementation and development adapted to meet the unique needs in government.

The FreeBalance Shared Services Blueprint is a comprehensive approach to governance, implementation and support. The Blueprint is adapted for each shared services engagement. The FreeBalance methodology includes planning, implementation and sustainability services.

The entire software lifecycle is accessible to shared services customers.

The Blueprint addresses data migration, standardization, technology, deployment, integration issues and opportunities. The configurations of hosted systems are identified.

FREEBALANCE SHARED SERVICES METHODOLOGY � FreeBalance Shared Services Blueprint adapted to meet customer requirements

� FreeBalance Shared Services leverages proven ISO-9001/2000 certified GRP

processes

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About FreeBalance FreeBalance is a For Profit Social Enterprise (FOPSE) software company that helps governments around the world to leverage robust Government Resource Planning (GRP) technology to accelerate country growth. Proven FreeBalance GRP products and focused methodology supports financial reform and modernization to improve governance, transparency and accountability. Good governance is required to improve development results. FreeBalance ensures high success rates for governments under stress to those in the G8 and enables governments to improve performance and comply with government goals. Unlike other Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) vendors, FreeBalance is socially responsible as core, customer-centric and focused 100% on government.

The FreeBalance Accountability Suite is a comprehensive fully web-based Government Resource Planning software suite that supports the entire budget cycle and strengthens governance by improving budget transparency, fiscal control and predictability. The proven Suite integrates transactions with content and collaboration through innovative Government 2.0 technology and links budget controls with objectives to enable governments to improve performance, transparency and comply with government goals. Unlike other Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) software, the FreeBalance Accountability Suite is proven in government implementations around the word, programmed for government and progressively activated to adapt to current and changing government context.

FreeBalance i3+qM is an integrated product development, implementation and sustainability services methodology designed for Government Resource Planning to ensure long term implementation success.

Contact FreeBalance T: +1 613 236-5150 (outside North America) info@freebalance.com www.freebalance.com

Canada FreeBalance (Headquarters) 1101 Prince of Wales Drive Suite 210, Ottawa, Ontario Canada K2C 3W7 T: (613) 236-5150 Toll Free: 1-877-887-3733 (North America only) F: (613) 236-7785

Guatemala FreeBalance EuroPlaza World Business Center Tower 1 – Suite 903 ‘A’ 5 Avenue 5-55 Zone 14 Guatemala City, Guatemala

Kosovo FreeBalance Bedri Pejani, 7A 10000 Pristina, Kosovo

Portugal FreeBalance Edificio Cyprum, Avenida 25 de Abril No. 15-B, 2D Linda-a-Velha, Portugal

Uganda FreeBalance Inc. Plot No. 23, Soliz House Lumumba Avenue, Kampala, Uganda

United States FreeBalance 1001 Connecticut Avenue, Suite 720 Washington, DC. 20036 T: 1-877-887-3733 (North America Toll Free)

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www.freebalance.com