Descripcion de estaciones de muestreo

NOT ASSESSED _Procurement

(Creditors)

Nominal Accounts Asset Register

Cashier

Billing and Payments: (manual input from printout once a month)

Cash Book Details (just reads) Reads only Automatic: transfers and write offis grouped by nominal account Balances on accounts Bank of Namibia

Flat file e-mail transfer

Manual inputs (NOTE: system does not know

if funds available). Automatic transfer -- one summarised figure/cost code Invoicing and payments: automatically writes directly to GL, keeps a database file if system unavailable Actual figures automatically updated once a year Depreciation, purchases and funding Daily manual

input from form which summarises

transactions per cashier

Figure 3: City of Windhoek: Overview of Financial

Management Systems Data Transfer

Which records controls work well in managing paper financial records?

Registration/Classification .... Adequate Access/Retrieval ... Adequate Maintaining an Audit Trail.... Adequate Tracking... Inadequate Scheduling/Retention ... Inadequate Destruction ... Inadequate Transfer ... Poor

Key Findings

The assessment supports the conclusion that those records management problems that do exist are systematic and not specific to a particular individual or organisation; this also emerged from the assessment of the central government records systems (see Chapter Two, Records Management Systems: Government of Namibia).

The assessment looked at the records controls for both paper and computerised records in detail. These include the systems’ ability to register/classify, track, access/retrieve, maintain audit trails, schedule/retain, transfer and destroy records (see the box below for a summary of the records scores for paper records and the scores matrix later in this chapter for details of scoring for the computerised financial management systems).

The main weaknesses found related to the scheduling/retention, destruction and transfer functions. Non-compliance with these functions reflects problems in the National Archives’ ability to carry out its records management

function, as discussed earlier in this chapter and in Chapter One, Records Management Programme: Government of Namibia).

The Council’s computerised financial systems work well and they have no significant problems managing their records at present. Currently, there do not appear to be electronic records that will be required for more than 10 years. However, in paragraph 135 of the draft

Procurement Policy and Procedures the possibility of electronic data exchange to issue solicitations, purchase orders and other related

data is provided for. The council does have a tradition of progressive adoption of information technology to reengineer its functions and processes. Consequently, in future the council may create or receive records (for example relating to large capital projects) that only exist in electronic form and may be required for long periods. The situation with regard to electronic records should be kept under review.

Links between the paper and computerised parts of the financial management system are good, particularly in the Billing section. For example, each application for water or electricity filed was allocated an installation number. Subsequently each customer is allocated a customer reference number, generated by the computerised system and this is reproduced on the statements which are also bar-coded.13 Expenditure vouchers are linked to the computerised system by cheque number.

All computerised systems register and classify, track and can access and retrieve records well. With the exception of the Nominal Accounts and Bank Reconciliation systems, all other systems maintain audit trails. It is understood that these two systems do not maintain audit trails on the grounds that both accept transfers directly from other systems (eg transfers to the Nominal Accounts systems come directly from the Costing system), thus users are not keying in or

13

Creditor’s Office, City of Windhoek

manipulating data in any way. Both systems function primarily as recording and reporting devices.

Internal Audit advises systems staff on the information that should be captured using audit trails. This is an example of good practice. Most systems only record when changes occur to it; they

do not log when records are viewed only. Audit trails are either kept on-line or deleted after a set period of time and once they have been printed and the paper copy kept. In most cases they are not deleted, except for systems such as the budget system where audit trails are closed after the budget is approved and then files can be overwritten. Auditors would be able to adequately use the paper financial records to confirm whether transactions were valid by tracing transactions from aggregated reports to the computerised data and back to the source documents.

The tracking function for paper records is not adequate. The paper records are stored in processing offices, file storage rooms within the sections and in safe rooms within the finance department. The movement of records from offices to storage is not tracked. On the whole, there are no mechanisms to monitor the temporary removal of records from storage. An exception to this is the Creditors section where they use a loans register to document which expenditure vouchers are borrowed from the file storage room. This is good practice.

The salaries section employs a copies policy whereby only photocopies are removed from the section. This is another example of good practice.

Some of the systems (eg Costing and Billing) scored adequate in terms of transfer because they maintain a ‘history database’ (ie after three years, data is transferred to a history database for reference purposes). It is important to note, however, that the decision to transfer data is based on systems performance issues and not as a result of consultation with the National Archives. Although it was reported that records have been destroyed, there is no documentation to describe what has been destroyed. For example, according to staff, labour slips are destroyed at the end of the financial year by burning. However, there is no written record of this activity and written authorisation is not required before destruction takes place. This process must be made more systematic and be duly authorised by the National Archives in accordance with the Archives Code issued under the Archives Act 1992.

The systems reflect the fact that the accounting and internal audit cadres and information technology staff are competent and know what they need from the systems. Those functions that are of particular importance to auditors and accountants work well, while those functions of

importance to the National Archives are weak. Accountants do not usually appreciate the need for the records control functions of scheduling/retention, transfer and destruction, so they are not implemented. The Central Registry does not play a role in the management of financial records so they do not remedy this situation.

The Central Registry does maintain a Complete List of Other Archives, as prescribed by the

Archives Act 1992 with retention periods for records series agreed by the National Archives. However, this is not up to date and consequently does not reflect the increasing use of computerised financial management systems. Senior staff were aware of the retention periods prescribed by the Central Registry. However, there was no evidence to suggest that schedules were being implemented consistently. Some records series are being destroyed regularly, ie labour slips, however this was not documented. On the whole staff were aware of the role of the Central Registry of the City of Windhoek in scheduling records, but were not aware of the National Archives.

The following matrix summarises the scores of the computerised records management systems for financial records for the City of Windhoek. It records how the various records controls rated for each system and allows for comparisons between them. Systems are rated on a scale of 1 to 4, with 1 equating to Poor and 4 to Good. The Records Management Rating is defined as the overall ability of the system to manage the records it contains and is calculated by working out an average.

The results for the paper records assessment are summarised in the table above on page #.

RATING DEFINITIONS

1 : POOR The system fails to meet the need to provide sufficient and reliable evidence of transactions. Failure to meet requirements may significantly impact on operations.

2 : INADEQUATE The system does not fully meet the need to provide sufficient and reliable evidence of transactions. Shortcomings may have a significant impact on operation.

3 : ADEQUATE The system meets the need to provide sufficient and reliable evidence of transactions. Any shortcomings will only have a minimal impact.

Basement storage room, City of Windhoek

City of Windhoek: Computerised Systems Scores Matrix

SUMMARY OF SCORES AND RATINGS Budget Costi ng N o min al A ccoun ts Ba n k Re co nc il ia ti o n Pr ocu re m en t B ill ing Ca sh ie r S ala rie s / H R S A sset R egi ste r Registration / Classification 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 Tracking 3 3 3 3 4 4 3 3 3

Maintaining an Audit Trail 4 4 2 1 4 4 4 4 4

Access / Retrieval 4 4 3 3 4 3 4 4 3

Scheduling / Retention 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Destruction 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Transfer 3 3 1 1 1 3 1 1 3

TOTAL (out of 28) 20 20 15 14 19 20 18 18 19

Records Management Rating

(Average = total ÷ 7) 2.9 2.9 2.1 2 2.7 2.1 2.6 2.6 2.7