Transaction, Reporting Systems Modernized By SOA

Overview

Agiculture and Agri-Foods Canada (AAFC) provides financial assistance to Canadian agricultural producers. One of the many responsibilities they mandate to their Accounts Receivable and Revenues Management (ARRM) division is to manage and collect on money owed to the crown by thousands of producers and corporations who have defautled on loans guaranteed by AAFC. ARRM liaises with other related government departments to put a hold on tax credits for recipients who have debts owing to AAFC until the debt is paid.

Apption’s attention to detail in a multi-faceted transaction environment met the goals set by our business imperatives. The solution focuses on core capabilities aimed at improving how we work.

- Meenaz Sunderji Assistant Director Agriculture and Agri-Foods Canada

Challenge

As one of many members in an ecosystem of other government agencies, departments and branches, ARRM needed to update and optimize functions such as reconciliation of transactions, data security, automation, accuracy (of calculation and of reporting), and accountability that were costly and did not deliver efficiencies of scale. As an example, difficulties with reconciliation and reporting were already negatively affecting the collection process for $175M in oustanding debt. Also, ARRM needed the ability to integrate the issuance of on-time and accurate tax slips to approximately 250,000 accounts. The motivation for modernization was business-critical as the status quo of a fragmented accounts-receivable and revenues management system was no longer an option.

ARRM considered leveraging SAP software that was already being used for managing accounts payable at AAFC. However, being an out-of-the–box application, SAP proved to be too inflexible to cater to specific needs required by the complexity of ARRM’s unique situation. ARRM’s  processes were unconventional in an enterprise context and simply not offered by standard functions in SAP’s generic software.

Solution

Apption was chosen for their expertise in solving real business problems for customers who need to respond quickly to rapidly changing business requirements. Apption demonstrated how implementing a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) could help by providing an industry standard framework that is interchangeable, adaptive and flexible, but most importantly closely linked to the business.

SOA is an enabling technology because it offers flexibility; breaking down applications into services that are modular, reusable and offer increased availability and management capabilities. In other words, it allows IT to keep pace with business imperatives as business processes are automated through a reliable and trustworthy architecture with minimal distruption to operations. One of the key elements of an SOA is governance,  providing trust that the services will perfom as promised, in a secure, reliable way that provides business value. SOA governance is about controling the viability, reliability and security of the services being delivered.

Apption engaged with ARRM’S business leaders to create sophisticated and complex architectures and policies written around the services ARRM was looking for. A key requirement met by Apption was optimizing the complex transactions and related calculations performed by AAFC to manage hundreds of thousands of individual debt records. The SOA solution  linked AAFC records to the Canadian Revenue Agency, for example, so that if an individual candidate for a tax credit also owed money to AAFC, the tax credit would be withheld, and AAFC’s debt load would not fall victim to lack of information.

The Apption solution also addressed the need to comply with regulations such as the  Federal Accountability Act, Federal Privacy Act, Provincial Statute of Limitations on Debt, and GAAP. Again, an SOA was the best answer as it allowed for policies relative to these regulations to be written around a governance infrastructure.

Throughout the process, customization provided the opportunity to generate mock-ups for early user feedback on design and functionality. Apption’s process for developing a purpose-built solution in this environment combined broad scope with extreme attention to detail, ensuring that every possible transaction could be tracked and recorded from beginning to end.

The Apption solution translated into business value for ARRM, including rapid delivery, strong performance and expandability in a very economical, purpose-built solution. This solution fully addressed ARRM’s original objectives, specifically:

Accuracy

• Correct interest calculations and accurate Statements of Account
• Reduction in input errors through automated data collection and transformation

Accountability

• Adherence to mandated financial controls and auditing requirements
• Improved governance through enforcement of policies and acts

Efficiency and Flexibility

• Improved efficiencies through increased process automation and flexibility
• Addition of new functionality and support of new programs
• Maintainability

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Meenaz Sunderji
Assistant Director

Agriculture and
agri-foods Canada