As reports Finance Time, referring to the “E-Azerbaijan.info”, SINAM company, which is one of the leading system integrators of Azerbaijan, South Caucasus and Central Asia in the field of e-government solutions, has launched another challenging project. SINAM company won the tender for development and implementation of Financial and Accounting Reporting Application for Budgetary Institutions (FARABI, Phase 1) announced by the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Azerbaijan on November 11, 2011 under the "Corporate and public accounting" project. On May 21, 2012 the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Azerbaijan and SINAM company signed the contract for implementation of this project. 

The aim of the project is to assist in strengthening and modernization the capacity of public policy and analysis of funds through implementation of financial and accounting system, based on the state-of-the-art international practices, in the budgetary institutions. Known as the English name FARABI, this system will support: implementation of modern accounting and reporting forms, a new centralized and client-oriented information system, improvement of administrative skills as well as streamlined process of internal and external reporting.

The FARABI system based on web technology and consisting of components SERP for financial and accounting reporting management (including the following modules: Accounting, General Ledger, Personnel, Fixed Assets, Payroll, Financial reports), Oracle BI for analytical reports and Clix LMS designed to manage the training courses for users of FARABI system will be installed in the Data Center of the Ministry of Finance. Budgetary and other agencies will carry out the preparation and submission of financial and accounting reports through the FARABI system by connecting to the Data Center. The initial phase of the project will be completed within 14 months.

It is planned at the initial stage to connect to the FARABI system 35 public and private higher education institutions as well as 4 ministries. In future it is considered to increase the number of connected institutions to the system as well as to bring the total number of connected users (licenses) of these institutions up to 4000. In general, it is envisaged that all the ministries and other government organizations in Azerbaijan will be connected to the FARABI system. Other institutions, submitting the financial reports to the Ministry of Finance, will also be connected to this system.

 

 

Development and implementation of the FARABI system will be carried out by the winner of the tender – SİNAM company – together with the Working Group of the Ministry of Finance under this project.

 It should be noted that for successful implementation of the FARABI system, working groups are to be formed in a short time in the planned institutions at the initial phase. For effective functioning of these groups the corresponding measures to create the required conditions have been implemented (providing access to the necessary information, corresponding computer and office equipment, Internet connection, non-involvement of groups’ employees in other activities, permanent control over the group activity etc.).

The Enterprise Resource Planning System (SERP) developed by SINAM and implementation of which is planning within FARABI project has been successfully used in various public institutions and the private sector for many years. The SERP system developed in the technical laboratory of SINAM on the basis of the latest technologies is not inferior  to existing similar international software products on technical level. The advantages of the SERP system  are  followings: full compliance with the Azerbaijani legislation and national accounting standards; generation of financial and other type of reports for submission to the Ministry of Finance, the State Social Protection Fund and the State Statistics Committee; capability to conduct accounting in multiple currencies simultaneously ; user-friend and multilingual interface; integration with e-signature solution .  

The SERP is a web-based system, which is capable to create a common environment for planning, registration, control and analysis of all business processes of institution. The suggested solution can be used in various organizations as well: small enterprises and large production complexes, holdings, state and private companies.

The SERP system consists of closely interconnected subsystems and modules. In spite of the fact that the integrated use of system modules is more effective for an institution, they can be used separately too.

 

General architecture of SINAM ERP (SERP) system

For example, the «Human Recourses» (SHR) unit enables automation of HR department’s activity. SHR consists of the following modules: «Personal Cards», «Staff table», «Time-board», «Business Trips», «Education and development», «Employment» and «Assessment of Employees».           

 «Enterprise Accounting System” (EAS) was developed for consolidation, tracking of all accounting documents as well as for reporting on the basis of these documents. EAS is capable to control and coordinate company’s activity. It includes the following modules: «Warehouse», «Fixed Assets», «Treasury», «Banking operations», «Contracts and Projects », «Payroll».

For creation of the FARABI system another two systems will be integrated in the SERP system: the software Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) and Clix LMS. The module «Financial reports» formed on the base of ORACLE BI software will enable a deep analysis of financial results and use of the analysis results in the budget planning.

It is worth noting the Learning Resources Managements module. This module will allow to train specialists on the basis of modern distant education technology. Developed on the basis of the German distant education technology, the Clix LMS module has been already successfully applied in the Baku State University within the framework of the "Electronic University" project. t Taking into account the large number of system users , SINAM has proposed to use this module in the project both during the first phase of implementation and at subsequent stages. The aim is to improve the process of mastering the user skills of the FARABI system through the distant education using the latest multimedia features as well as to reduce the application period of the system.