Case study: Small Business Financial Services Background: Small Business Financial Consulting (SBFC) specializes in providing financial consulting services two small firms that want to expand into global markets. Examples of its customer base include a software developer in India wanting to set up a sales office in England; a contract manufacturer of audio equipment in Malaysia wanting to set up a partnership with firms in South America; and a winery in Australia wanting to tap into the Canadian market. With local consultants in Europe; Southeast Asia; Australia; and North, South and Central America, SBFC provides cost effective advice and support to small businesses that are expanding into or from those regions. SBFC consultants, who are both full time employees and contracted consultants, have in depth knowledge of local laws, language, business practices and culture, and the challenges that small businesses face. Their business model is highly successful because they provide the same level of service as the big consulting firms, but their low overhead allows them to provide these services at a cost that small organisations can afford. SBFC grew through mergers and acquisitions of other small companies in those markets where their clients intended to expand. Most of the companies they acquired usually employed fewer than 10 employees and often only two or three. Typically, the owners of those acquired firms become partners in SBFC. Currently clients are invoiced by the local office that has the contract with the client. That local office coordinates all the resources assigned to the project and reports the accumulated time and expenses to the client in the client's chosen currency. Accurate time and expense reporting and timely invoicing are essential to SBFC's profitability. The fact that each SBFC office generally follows the format that the acquired company had been successfully using prior to joining SBFC is becoming quite a problem. Every office uses a different spreadsheet, and often contracted consultants have their own too. As SBFC's clients and offices have grown so have the inconsistencies in time and expense reporting practices by the SPFC offices. The number of different languages and currencies in which SPFC operates has also led to confusion, inconsistencies, and inaccuracies. The partners at SBFC have decided to implement a new system for time and expense reporting that will consolidate time and expense reporting, better manage currency conversions, and improve the consistency of project tracking. They will keep the current ERP system in place that is used for invoicing and other financial applications. Current Business: AS-IS Model Currently employees and contractual consultants record their time and report their expenses in the local currency and language of the local office dealing directly with the client. Each SBFC office is responsible for keying in expense costs, time, and invoicing data into the ERP system that SBFC's headquarters in New York uses to track overall corporate financial data. Each office converts its accounts into U.S. dollars before reporting to the ERP system. However, because most local offices joined as SBFC through acquisition, the local SPFC offices generally follow the processes for expenses and invoicing that the acquired company had been successfully using Prior to joining SPFC. Individual project managers are required to approve invoices before they are generated by the ERP system. However, because many projects span multiple countries and different systems are used for expense reporting, project managers currently do not have the capability of approving time and expenses before employees are reimbursed. Also, project managers must rely on the ERP system to track project time, which means there are often reporting delays because some local offices are not only timely or accurate when keying project data into the system. The Solution: TO-BE Model SBFC executives have requested the development of a new timeline an expense reporting system that will be accessible to all SPFC employees via secure web interface. The system must: Enable employees and contracted consultants to prepare and submit time reports for billable and non billable work. Enable employees and contracted consultants to record their expenses in the currencies in which the expenses were incurred and to submit receipts electronically so that digitized images of the receipts are viewable in conjunction with the electronic expense report. Enable project managers to view an approve time, expenses, and receipts for projects related expenses for individual employees and contracted consultants. Enable supervisors to view and approved time, expenses, and receipts for administrative related time and expenses. Enable the accounting Department to view and approve all time, expenses, and receipts. Enable accountants from the finance Department to check, adjust, and print all time expenses from all projects. Enable the accounting Department to authorize the reimbursement of expenses that have been approved by their managers, supervisors, and the accounting Department. Export all expense data that have been approved by project managers, supervisors, and the accounting Department into the ERP system in the currencies in which the expenses were incurred. Export all expense data that have been approved by project managers, supervisors, and the accounting Department into the electronic fund transfer (EFT) system to initiate the direct deposit process. Prepared to run the payroll by exporting all reported time data that have been approved by project managers, supervisors, and the accounting Department into the existing ERP system. Limit project team members to view only their archived time and expense reports and not those of other team members. Enable the project manager to set up and administer or project, and to create new product codes in the system. All employees and contracted consultants must record expenses and times against these product codes. An accountant in the finance Department must approve the creation of new codes before expenses and time are built against the code. Enable the project manager to assign resources to a project. Enable the project manager to remove resources from a project without deleting the time and expense records submitted by the resource. Enable project managers to view and print time and expense reports submitted by all team members for a project they manage. Project managers must be able to sort the data in the reports using criteria such as by employee, by contracted consultant, by month, by week, by project code, by customer, by vendor, by expense type (that is, lodging, transportation, meals, and so on). Enable accountants to create and control user accounts to the system for employees and contracted consultants. Enable accountants to delete accounts to the system for employees and contracted consultants without deleting the time and expense records submitted by the employees and contracted consultants. Enable the accounting Department to create, view, and print reports requested by executive management. The accounting Department must be able to sort the data in the reports using criteria such as by project manager, by employee, by contracted consultant, by month, by week, by product code, by customer, by vendor, by expense type (that is, lodging, transportation, meals, and so on). Generate email reminders to employees and contracted consultants about submitting their time and expense reports within three days of the end of a month. Should an employee fail to comply, the system will send an email to the employees and contracted consultants' project manager and supervisor. User administration, including account setup, user sign on, and password management, is currently handled by your system recently implemented in several SBFC offices. The new time and expense management system will use this existing logon module. Our user first signs on to the logon module, and then is granted access to the appropriate SBFC systems, according to their user privileges. Stakeholders: The following stakeholders have been identified for this project: Company Owners (Partners): Owners are primarily interested in supporting the anticipated growth of the company and ensuring that all financial data is as accurate as possible. Partners usually have billable time on a number of projects and will need to be able to submit their own expense claims. Executive Managers: Their primary interest is in the accuracy of Billings, tracking project expenses, and ensuring projects are on schedule. Executive managers need to access the system to approve their direct reports' expenses and create their own time and expense reports. They designate project managers to lead projects, but project managers will assign themselves to the projects using the system. Executive managers request regular reports from project managers on project status and from the accounting Department on summary expenses and time. Project Managers: Project managers will be able to assign to and remove from projects, employees, and contracted consultants. They will also be able to set up their own project codes in the system, which will be approved by the accounting Department before time or expenses can be posted against the project codes. Project managers will be able to approve and make corrections to time and expenses for all employees and contracted consultants involved in the projects they manage. They will also be able to view and print all time and expenses submitted in the past for any of their projects. Project managers will also need to create their own time and expense reports for projects and administrative work. Supervisors: Supervisors will be able to approve and make corrections to administrative time and expenses for all employees they manage. They will also be able to view and print all time and expenses submitted in the past for any of their employees, including project-based time and expenses. Supervisors will also need to create their own time and expense reports for projects and administrative work. Employees: All employees will be able to submit their timesheets, receipts, and expense reports electronically. They will also be able to view and print reports on past periods and look up the status of pending expense reports. Their primary interest is in being reimbursed in a timely manner by reducing the number of errors in submissions, as well as the time it takes to submit expense reports and receipts. Contracted Consultants: All contacted consultants will be able to submit their timesheets, receipts, and expense reports electronically. They will also be able to view and print reports on past periods and look up the status of pending expense reports. Their primary interest is in being reimbursed in a timely manner by reducing the number of errors in submissions, as well as the time it takes to submit expense reports and receipts. Accountants: The accounting Department will be able to approve project codes set up by project managers in the system. Additionally, the Department will be able to adjust, view, and print all expenses awaiting approval and all expenses already approved for all employees and contracted consultants. Accounting staff will also be able to provide secondary approval to all expenses and time charged to a product code once primary approval has been given by the project managers or supervisor. Accounting staff will also be able to issue payment to employees and contracted consultants for reimbursement of expenses. Accountants fill out timesheets, too. Accounting staff will continue to use the ERP and EFT systems as part of their existing accounting duties. SBFC clients: Clients will not need access to the system, but they will receive more accurate and timely invoices because of the project. Software developers: Because most of the application is expected to be developed inhouse, the existing software development team will be responsible for the design, development, and testing of the new application. Their primary interests are eliminating or minimizing any changes to the existing ERP system, while creating a new web-based time and expense reporting system that can transfer data to the ERP system. Finally, because they will be providing user support through a helpdesk, they are concerned that the application be self teaching, intuitive, and reliable. Government Agencies: The application will need to meet different local legal requirements concerning taxes. Corporate tax reporting requirements are already being met by the accounting system, but there are different local laws concerning the inclusion of Vale Added Taxes (VAT) in expenses incurred in some countries.

2.6.2 Alternate Flows [This section contains the path or flow of the system when only some or none of the conditions are met during the processing of the main path or basic flow. Describe what the actor does and how the system responds to that action. These statements will provide the basis for error handling as well as to illustrate the functional requirements of the system.] 2.6.2.1 1. At Step in the Basic Flow, a. 2. a. 2.6.2.2 1. At Step in the Basic Flow, a. Project Name - Use Case Document Page 6 2. a. 2.7 Special Requirements 2.7.1 < First Special Requirement > 2.8 Extension Points 2.8.1 [Extension points include any related use cases that describe post completion paths (extends) or are executed entirely, much like a subroutine (includes)]