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Implementation of FinanceMaster

Strategic Interventions

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Agenda

Project Vision & Overview

Timeline

Budget

Risk Management

Quality Management

Communication Plan

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Project Managers

Antha Mack

Emily Schmierer

Maddie Jostol

Katherine Ness

Cheryl Tran

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Project Vision

To introduce FinanceMaster as an accounting solution intended to streamline billing, reporting, and documentation of net profit and loss by project.

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Overview

Currently:

Little visibility into the financial state of the company
Inconsistency in bonuses and project margins
No standard protocol for billing clients or profit and loss reporting

Objectives:

Transition from manual data entry to automation for efficiency and accuracy
Reliable, clear reporting to enable business strategy and decision making

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Scope

Modules:

General Ledger
Accounts Payable
Job Costing & Project Accounting
Budget Monitoring & Controlling

Training, reporting, and processes (agile)
Duration: ~6 months
Cost: $438,970

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Project Timeline

Project Kickoff

Accounts Payable Module

General Ledger Module

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

Budget Monitoring & Controlling Module

Job Costing & Project Accounting Module

Project Closeout

Aug 28 – Oct 8

May 14 – Aug 14

May 30 – Aug 22

May 14 – June 26

Mar 27

Oct 9

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Project Milestones

Milestones	End Date
Project Kickoff	March 27
Project Approval	May 3
Implementation of GL Module	July 20
Training on GL Module	July 24
Implementation of AP Module	June 1
Training on AP Module	June 5
Implementation of Job Costing and Project Planning Module	July 31
Training on Job Costing and Project Planning Module	August 1
Implementation of Budget Monitoring and Controlling Module	September 13
Training on Budget Monitoring and Controlling Module	September 14
Project Acceptance and Close Out	October 9

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Budget

Total Budget: $438,970.00 Management Reserve: $30,727.90

EMILY:

Our total project budget is $438,970.

The pre-defined budget was a major constraint on the ultimate scope of this project and how we chose these 4 modules. As you can see, in the chart on the left, the cost of the software alone accounts for 80% of our total expenses. The Chart on your right illustrates that materials cost of $355,000 broken down by module. These figures include the Software, Customization, and Installation for each Module. The GL and AP Modules also include documentation and training bundled in.

Looking back to the chart on the left:

Our Labor figure is the cumulative pay for internal resources during the implementation of Financemanster that Antha just spoke to.

Services includes the customized training created by Financemaster for the two additional Modules, Job Costing and Budget Planning.

And finally, our contingency reserve within the project budget is 25,000. These reserved funds are designated for any costs associated with our pre-identified risks that we plan to mitigate, which were outlined earlier. The contingency is for our ‘known’ risks.

Alongside this proposed budget, we recommend a management reserve of $30,727.90, which is 7% of our total project budget. The management reserve is for the ‘unknown’ risks that cannot be planned for. Best Practice for a management reserve is between 5-10 percent. Since we were able to reserve a contingency fund within our project budget, we felt a 7% management reserve would be more than adequate.

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Risk Management

Actions
Accept	Acknowledge the risk as a possibility, but there are no plans to do anything because the ROI is not justified.
Avoid	Change the project plan to eliminate the risk or issue
Mitigate	Address the issue/risk

High	Medium	Low	High	Medium	Low
Results in a total loss of revenue, government fine	Results in lack of consumer and team confidence (buy in)	Little to no impact on business operations	Very Likely	Likely	Not Likely

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Risk Management

Risk Description	Impact	Likelihood	Action	Response Strategy
If FinanceMaster lacks security, a security breach can happen which will compromise our financial data	High	Medium	Mitigate	SI and FinanceMaster will work closely together with their IT teams to ensure every aspect of security breach is addressed
FinanceMaster integration may result in change in accounting standards that leads to inaccurate account balance resulting in risk of audit and financial risk for misallocation in funds	Medium	Medium	Mitigate	Have SI's skilled accountants monitor and audit accounts closely

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Quality Assurance Plan

Project Team		Quality Activities
Product Manager	Compliance and User Story Reqs	Offer employee support through communication platform
Scrum Master	Timely Deliverables	Monitor workload to ensure it maintains velocity
Developer	Acceptance Testing	Weekly testing
Project Manager	Status Reporting	Communication with Stakeholder to meet expectations
Trainer	Comprehension	Regular employee check in to ensure adoption of new

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Schedule Quality

Acceptance Criteria: Project Delivers On Time

Roadmap Review
Readiness Assessments at the beginning of each module
Responsibilities Commitment
RACI and planned resource reserve
Contingency Planning
Risk monitoring and mitigation

RESOURCE VARIANCE

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Budget/Cost Assurance Quality

Acceptance Criteria: Stay Within Budget

Continuous auditing and monitoring

Acceptance Criteria: All Employees Have Been

Trained and Passed User Test

Coaching and training
Resistance management as needed
Celebration and recognizing success

Prevention	$20,000.00
External Failure	$355,000.00
Internal Failure	$38,970.00
Appraisal	$53,000.00

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Scope Quality

Acceptance Criteria: Stakeholder Satisfaction

Reference communication plans and requirements weekly
Reporting weekly
Dashboard weekly

Acceptance Criteria: Meets quality metric standards (NO MISSING RECORDS)

Data collection, feedback analysis, and corrective action daily
Review security standards and acceptance testing pre and post implementation
Meets compliance regulations

SCOPE

SCHEDULE

BUDGET

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Change Management

Priority	Description
High	Resource changes cause more than 4 FTEs on the project at any point Schedule changes delivery date by more than 10 business days Budget implication of $20,000 or greater
Medium	Schedule changes increase delivery date change by up to 7 business days Budget implication of $10,000 - $19,999
Low	Resource re-allocation required, but overall FTE remain constant Schedule changes increase delivery date change up to 4 business days Budget implication less than $10,000

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Change Control Plan

Step	Description
Generate CR	A submitter completes a CR Form and sends the completed form to the Change Manager
Log CR Status	The Change Manager enters the CR into the CR Log. The CR’s status is updated throughout the CR process as needed.
Analyze CR	Change Control Team analyzes CR submission and recommends a to the Change Manager if CR should be further evaluated, approved, rejected or deferred. If approved, move to Authorize step.
Evaluate CR	Project personnel review the CR and provide an evaluation of impact, and develop a proposed solution for the suggested change
Resolution Recommendation	Change control team reviews CR evaluation and resolution(s) and recommends a go/no-go decision
Authorize	Management approval to move forward with incorporating the suggested change into the project/product
Implement	If approved, make the necessary adjustments to carry out the requested change and communicate CR status to the submitter and other stakeholders

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Resources

Module Implementation Resources

Donna Donato, Controller
Mary Gates, Accountant
Practice Group Admins
General Admins
Senior Analysts

Project is additionally supported by Agile Teams, internal and external resources

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Communication Plan

Event	Objective	Audience	Key Messages	Frequency	Vehicle/Channel	Sender/Author
Status Reports	Awareness	Key Stakeholders & Project Team	Status Updates, Issues, Risks	Weekly	Email	Project Manager
Monthly Status Meetings	Awareness, decision making, approvals	Key Stakeholders	Status Updates, Issues, Risks, Changes	Monthly	Meeting	Project Manager
Scope Change	Approval	Key Stakeholders & Project Team & FinanceMaster	Scope, Changes, Context / Criteria, Implications	As necessary	Meeting	Project Manager

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Dashboard

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Requested Approval

General Ledger

Chart of accounts
System control balances
Basic accounts receivable
Payroll interface
FinanceMaster Training

Job Costing/

Project Accounting

Automated costing
Multiple structures for activity, task, and employee categories
Comparison/variance reporting
FinanceMaster training

Budget Planning & Monitoring

Budget versioning
Allocation controls
Roll-up to corporate budgets
Financial/Statistical measures (hrs, units)
FinanceMaster training

Accounts Payable

Invoices/funds on single check
1099 forms
Auto-approval for routing entries
Commodity codes
FinanceMaster training

EMILY:

In Summary, Strategic Interventions is currently using a system that fails to provide actionable data about project costs, project profitability, and employee utilization. With our proposed project for the implementation of FinanceMaster, including these four modules, Strategic Interventions will be able accurately and efficiently track net profit or loss by project, assess associated revenue by each client engagement, impartially allocate costs directly to appropriate projects, and allow the company to identify ways to improve profitability- all while ultimately reducing the workload for administrative staff. Our implementation plan for FinanceMaster with create a transparent, efficient system that all levels of staff will be confident with, allowing and incentivizing all employees to focus on efficiency and profitability.

We are seeking approval to move forward with this plan, that includes the General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Budget Planning & Monitoring, and Job Costing/Project Accounting modules, for a total cost of $438,970 (with a suggested mgmt reserve of 30,727), and for resources allocated for implementation over the 8 month period described.

We thank you for considering this proposal, and we welcome any questions you may have at this time.

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Q&A

Employee buy-in - spending on training / we have many user stories outlined to ensure employee concerns are addressed during training / outline benefits to employees in regular project communications
Why we didn’t choose the payroll module - there are no issues with the current payroll system, the issues were more centered around job costing, budgeting, and profitability
What about the employees who are going to struggle with billing their clients? By having clearly defined and automated billing, it removes manual work
How did you come up with your recommended management reserve? We chose 7% because best practice is 5-10% so we split the difference
Why aren’t you using the full amount of time? January 1st is the deadline for GL, so we needed to have it completed by then at the latest. Our main constraint is budget, so we chose modules according to the budget and plan to implement them as early as possible.
How will we deal with Account Leaders’ chance in bonuses? The budgeting module has different settings for this, which will create consistency and transparency so the ALs know when their bonuses will be paid and for how much.
Why did you choose the Budget Monitoring and Controlling? It gives account leader the flexibility to create budgets. In addition to the foundation of the general leader and accounts payable, the job costing will show how job are currently costing while the budgeting will be able to denote where profitability can be increased and where organizational assets/enterprise environment needs can be met. It gives Strategic Implementation the ability to create their own strategy.

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Key Stakeholders

Joe Graham	Runs part of the general consulting practice (clients in manufacturing, government, IT, aerospace). He oversees 4 account leaders.
Bill D’Angelo	Runs the rest of the general consulting practice (clients in retail, healthcare, finance); currently President . He oversees 4 account leaders.
Sam Hirschberg	Runs the IT Planning and Implementation practice. He oversees 3 account leaders.
Mark Stanton	Runs the customized training program practice. He oversees 2 account leaders.
Jim Slater	Is the current acting CFO and treasurer. He oversees 2 engagement account leaders, SI IT Team
Central administrative staff	Donna Donato, Tim Snyder, Eric Gilmore, Account Leaders

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Appendix: Resources

Resource Name	Total Hours	Total Cost	Accounting	Project Accounting/Billing	General Ops	Rate	Availability
Donna Donato, Controller	12 hours	$1250.00	Expert	Experienced	Beginner	$100/hr	25%
Mary Gates, Accountant	156 hours	$9510.00	Experienced	Beginner	Beginner	$60/hr	50%
Practice Group Admins	186 hours	$13560.00	Beginner	Expert	Experienced	$80/hr	50%
General Admins	520 hours	$10620.00	Beginner	Beginner	Beginner	$20/hr	100%
Senior Analyst	16 hours	$2430.00	n/a	Expert	n/a	$150/hr	8 hrs/week

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Schedule

GL Module

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Schedule

AP Module

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Schedule

Job Costing Module

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Schedule

Budget Monitoring and Controlling Module

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Risk will be monitored by team:

Risks: Threats and Vulnerabilities are the Birthplace of Innovation, Creativity, and Change

Team Member	Role	Risk Management Area of Responsibility
Project Manager	Project Management	Project Schedule Communication Stakeholder Expectation Management Resource Availability/Scheduling
Bill D’Angelo	President, Project Sponsor	Project Scope
Sam Hirschberg	Head of IT	Technical Security Technical Competency
FinanceMaster	Vendor	Product Quality Training Quality
Jim Slater, Donna Donato, Mary Gates	Controller	Financial Security Project Cost
Joe Graham	General Consulting	External Stakeholder Expectation Management
Mark Stanton	Training Program	Training Quality

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Quality Metrics

Cost Variance	Budget	Earned Value	Cost Performance Metric
Conformance	>$400,000	<1	<$1
Non-Conformance	<$400,000	>1	>$1

Stakeholder Metrics	Audits/Testing	Reviews
Conformance	< Pass	<Satisfied
Non-Conformance	> Pass	>Satisfied

RACI	Resource Variance Metrics
Conformance	> 60% working hours per employee
Non-Conformance	< 60% working hours per employee

Schedule Variance Metric	Baseline Conditions
Conformance	>10% Variance
Non-Conformance	<10% Variance

Status Reporting	Burn Down Charts
Conformance	< 70% Efficiency
Non-Conformance	>70% Efficiency

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Velocity/BurnDown Charts

Backlog	2	Days	0	1	2	3	4	5
In Progress	1	Actual Burndown	0	1	2	3	4	5
Done	2	Ideal Burndown	0	1	2	3	4	5

Feature	Module	Priority	Estimated Hours	Status	Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5
Processes	G/L	1	3	Backlog	0	0	0	0	0
Processes	G/L	2	5	In Progress	1	3	0	0	0
Processes	G/L	3	5	Done	3	3	0	0	0
Processes	G/L	4	5	Done	5	4	0	0	0
Processes	G/L	5	8	Blocked	0	0	0	0	0
Processes	AP	6	2	Backlog	0	0	0	0	0
Processes	AP	7	3
Processes	AP	8	3
Processes	AP	9	3
Processes	AP	10	5
Processes	AP	11	5
Processes	Job Costing	12	5
Processes	Job Costing	13	5

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Budget: Overall Costs

Breakdown by Cost Type
Material (software)	GL and AP (Software, Customization, and Installation)	$260,000.00	TOTAL Software Cost: $355,000
Material (software)	Budget Planning and Monitoring (Software, Customization, and Installation)	$30,000.00
Material (software)	Job Costing/Project Accounting (Software, Customization, and Installation)	$65,000.00
Services	Additional Training	$20,000.00
Labor	Labor Costs (Internal Payroll)	$38,970.00
Contingency	Risk Contingency	$25,000.00
Total Expenses:		$438,970.00
Suggested Management Reserve (7% total project)		$30,727.90

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Budget: Time-Phased

Budget Breakdown by Month
	March	April	May	June	July	August	September	October	Totals
Labor	$0.00	$0.00	$14,480.00	$15,205.00	$3,560.00	$3,470.00	$2,255.00	$0.00	$38,970.00
Materials	$0.00	$0.00	$325,000.00	$0.00	$0.00	$30,000.00	$0.00	$0.00	$355,000.00
Services	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$10,000.00	$0.00	$10,000.00	$0.00	$20,000.00
Contingency	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$25,000.00	$25,000.00
Total Expenses:	$0.00	$0.00	$339,480.00	$15,205.00	$13,560.00	$33,470.00	$12,255.00	$25,000.00	$438,970.00
Cumulative	$0.00	$0.00	$339,480.00	$354,685.00	$368,245.00	$401,715.00	$413,970.00	$438,970.00

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Communication Plan

Event	Objective	Audience	Key Messages	Frequency	Vehicle/Channel	Sender/Author	Draft Date	Publish Date
Status Reports	Awareness	Key Stakeholders & Project Team	Status Updates, Issues, Risks	Weekly	Email	Project Manager	Every Monday	Every Monday
Monthly Status Meetings	Awareness, decision making, approvals	Key Stakeholders	Status Updates, Issues, Risks, Changes	Monthly	Meeting	Project Manager	First week of each month	First week of each month
Scope Change	Approval	Key Stakeholders & Project Team & FinanceMaster	Scope, Changes, Context / Criteria, Implications	As necessary	Meeting	Project Manager	N/A	N/A
Training Sessions	Education	Trainers, Account Leaders, All Admins	New process, training required	As necessary	Meeting	Trainer	N/A	N/A
Phase Gate Approvals	Approval	Key stakeholders	Progress	As necessary	Meeting	Project manager	N/A	N/A
Client billing updates	Awareness	Clients	New process	As necessary	Email	Account Leaders	N/A	N/A

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Communication Plan, cont.

Event	Objective	Audience	Key Messages	Frequency	Vehicle/Channel	Sender/Author	Draft Date	Publish Date
Vendor Check-Ins	Transparancy	External vendors	Tracking deliverables, Procurement Mgmt	As Necessary	Meeting, phone	Project Manager, Procurement managers	N/A	N/A
Sprint planning	Productivity	Agile Team	Review initiatives, prioritize, size work	Bi-Weekly	Meeting	Scrum Master	N/A	N/A
Sprint retrospective	Awareness	Agile Team	New user stories, feedback	Bi-weekly	Project Management Software	Scrum Master	N/A	N/A
Standups	Productivity	Agile Team	Progress, today’s tasks, roadblocks	Daily	Meeting	Scrum Master	N/A	N/A