Munsoft News Letter 2012
First of all the management and staff at Munsoft would like to wish all of our customers and users everything of the best for 2012 and we hope that it is going to be a wonderful year for everyone.
Last year, 2011, was an eventful and action packed year for Munsoft and without a doubt the busiest since we started in local government in 2000
New Municipalities
We would like to welcome the following Municipalities to the Munsoft fold:-
- Modimolle LM - Limpopo
- Waterberg DM - Limpopo
- Dipaleseng LM - Mpumalanga
- Umzinyathi DM - KZN
- Bela-Bela LM - Limpopo
- Nketoana LM - Free State
Most of them were converted from one of our main opposition’s system and the conversion time for each municipality ranged between 2 and 4 days. We have been given the go ahead to convert Thabazimbi LM at the end of January 2012 which will bring our total user base up to 40 municipalities.
Munsoft must most certainly be the financial system of choice these days and we can only think that it is because of the constant development we are putting into the system to stay abreast with technology and legislative requirements as well as the superior level of support we provide.
New Supply Chain Module
This module was installed at Hibiscus Coast LM and Kwadukuza LM and has been running there successfully for the best part of 2011. It has been loaded down at every Munsoft municipality and can be switched on whenever you are ready to use it. Quite a few municipalities have started using it so please do not hesitate to contact us for training on this module.
New GRAP Fixed Assets Module
This module has also been completed now and has been installed at the Waterberg DM. We are using them as our Beta test site to iron out any teething problems and so far it seems to be hanging in.
A few municipalities have said that they are ready to implement the module and we are looking forward to get as many municipalities onto the module as soon as possible. It is fully integrated to our Munsoft procurement process and complies with all the GRAP requirements.
We have procured a Nautiz robust hand held scanner device from Sweden and have started development of software for the scanning, tagging and verification process which will be released as a Phase II of the module.
New Menu System
The Menu System has been greatly enhanced and some of the new municipalities are already using it. You will be contacted by one of our system support staff members before we upgrade your Munsoft system. Some of the new features include:-
• Logging of all menu changes. We will now be able to see who and when an operator’s menu was changed.
• Standardising of the menus. All the operators will now see the full Munsoft Menu and only the options applicable to him/her will be accessible. The other options will be ‘greyed’ out and not available. This way an operator might see options that could be of benefit to him/her.
• Each operator will have to ‘register’ when they log in for the first time with their contact details and email address. This will improve better communication between our offices and the end users when it comes to new releases, upgrades bug fixing etc. etc.
• Early warnings on each operator’s menu if they are required to do something, like authorising of transactions etc. etc.
• Operator movements will be audited
• New operator maintenance and system admin screens
• System notifications of pending transactions.
New Meter Reading System
Quite a few of our municipalities are still doing meter readings by hand, are using expensive outdated devices or have outsourced the readings to 3rd party companies at great costs.
Munsoft is going to develop a meter reading application that will run on the Nautiz rugged hand held device and will be fully integrated to the Munsoft Billing System. We expect the development to be between 4 and 6 weeks and once this has been completed we will send out a notification. The Nautiz has an IP rating of 65 which means totally protected against dust and a steady spray of water.
Standard Chart of Accounts (SCOA)
National Treasury has released the new SCOA spread sheets and Munsoft has registered to be one of the pilot developers to produce these reports. We will be partnering with Kwadukuza LM as a test site to implement these requirements.
We are thankful to them for offering to produce all the reports on a ‘manual basis’ so that once we have produced the reports electronically from Munsoft we will have something to compare to. To produce these reports according to the SCOA will require a ‘mapping of the Munsoft Vote Ledger’ to the SCOA Votes. We will be developing an easy ‘drag and drop’ process to help with this process.
New Munsoft Release 5i
This release is planned for June 2012. This new upgrade of Pro IV will open up a whole new world for Munsoft which is the WEB (Internet). We are under more and more pressure from 3rd party software suppliers, NT and Government to exchange data using the internet and this release of Pro IV will give us that opportunity. It will also do away with the ‘client’ which has to be loaded onto each PC as users will be able to log into Munsoft using the Internet Browser.
Furthermore we will be able to display graphical KPI’s on the CFO and HOD’s screens e.g. Graphs or Pie Charts of Billing vs. Payments, Arrears by Ward etc. etc. We will also be able to give Munsoft a whole new “Web Type Look & Feel”. We are happy that the once off special charge spread over 4 years is very reasonable considering what we will be able to do with Munsoft in future releases.
Munsoft User Group Conference at Sun City
Once again this was a huge success. The conference was well attended with over 120 guests from most of our Municipalities and no fewer than 15 CFO’s. We would like to thank each and every one who attended and hope that it was informative and that you could take something useful back to your Municipality. We are a close knit group and we are proud that we can still rub shoulders with our customers under one roof.
New Staff at Munsoft
Due to the rapid increase in our customer base it was necessary to increase our support staff. We would like to welcome Marlie van Blerk and Erika Jatho on board. They were quick off the mark and are already proficient on most aspects of Munsoft. We are hopeful that 2012 will be an equally action packed year for us and we are holding thumbs because we have been short listed on a few tenders. Once again thank you for your loyal support of Munsoft over the years. It is really much appreciated.
Kind Regards,
Peter Balt CEO – Munsoft (Pty) Ltd.
