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White Papers
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Navratil International provides white papers that address key requirements definition and software development issues.  These white papers contain comprehensive examples, glossaries of terminology, and businesses process flows to illustrate the concepts.  

1. Building a Lean Software Development Organization

2. Offshore Outsourcing of Software Development

3. Developing Software for the International Market

4. International Accounting and Distribution Requirements

5. Multi-Currency Invoicing

6. Sales Tax, Value Added Tax (VAT), and Goods and Services Tax (GST)

7. International Payment Processing

8. Drafts and Other Negotiable Instruments

9. Financial Statement Translation, Revaluation of Foreign Currency Transactions, and Currency Conversion in the General Ledger

10. Journal Entry Examples in a Single Currency and Multi-Currency Environment

11. General Ledger Requirements

12. Accounts Payable Requirements

13. Accounts Receivable Requirements

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1.  Building a Lean Software Development Organization

This white paper presents the key elements of the Navratil International Lean Software Development methodology.  The approach is an intuitive use of development resources built on disciplined, repeatable processes accompanied by efficient knowledge transfer.  This document outlines the key phases in the software development process.  It includes not only the software itself, but also addresses all the associated documentation, training material and marketing collateral material. 

There are three key aspects to the Navratil International Lean Software Development process that set it apart:

Embraces a Lean Organizational Structure - Rather than creating separate departments responsible for specific groups of deliverables (i.e., design, coding, quality assurance, documentation, training and product marketing), all development is assigned to two groups based on the sets of skills necessary to accomplish the group’s goals.  

Focuses on the End Deliverables - The Lean Software Development approach focuses on the key end deliverables that are absolutely critical for success, and identifies the earliest point at which one may begin creating these deliverables.  Lean development streamlines what is developed at the various development stages, and ensures that the most appropriate individual performs the task.  Finally, this approach strongly urges the development organization to resist performing any tasks that do not further the creation of key end deliverable.

Emphasizes Knowledge Transfer - The Lean Software Development methodology emphasizes the significant benefits that result when one focuses on knowledge transfer as a key quality, performance and efficiency driver. This methodology creates an efficient use of development resources through a strong emphasis on effective knowledge creation and transfer.  The result is a lean development organization that minimizes the amount of time and cost associated with creating critical end deliverables.  

The following is an example of the Lean Software Development approach:  A designer, knowledgeable in what the end user needs, develops Business Process Flows (business scenarios) as part of the Business Requirements phase. The same individual expands these Business Process Flows during the Functional Design phase in order to quantify better how the software will function, and to confirm that he has correctly understood the needs of the end users. 

The designer later significantly expands the Business Process Flows into test scenarios during the Quality Assurance phase.  Next, he selects a subset of these test scenarios for developing training scenarios, and finally selects a subset of the training scenarios for the marketing demo scripts. 

In a typical development environment, each of these deliverables would be developed by a different department that would need to be trained by the same resources that performed the initial designs.  Using the Lean Software Development approach, the same development resources would be responsible for the preparation of all these deliverables based on an evolving expansion of the initial Business Process Flows and business requirements.  As this example illustrates, considerable training time is saved, and the end results are superior. 

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2.  Offshore Outsourcing of Software Development

The purpose of this paper is to provide a clear understanding of what is required to successfully develop software overseas.  The paper identifies the most important decisions that must be considered prior to developing an outsourcing strategy.

The following major sections are found in this white paper:

1. Where to Begin when Developing an Offshore Outsourcing Strategy

2. Understanding the Software Development Process

3. Understanding Why Software Projects Fail

4. Development Alternatives

5. Evaluating the Benefits of Offshore Outsourcing

6. Evaluating the Risks of Offshore Outsourcing

7. Evaluating the Costs of Offshore Outsourcing

8. Determining What Should Remain In-house

9. Determining what Activities are Candidates for Outsourcing

10. Evaluating Potential Partners

11. Managing the Relationship

12. Managing the Risk of Outsourcing

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This paper describes an approach to developing software for the international market that takes into consideration the fact that each country in the world has certain requirements that are unique unto itself. However, it also recognizes the fact that there are many requirements that are similar across countries, and that it is possible to develop software for the multi-national corporation that wishes to implement the same software world-wide.

This document proposes a development model that assumes there is a core product that is surrounded by market-specific and user-interface components. Many examples are provided throughout the paper to illustrate the specific design considerations.

This paper contains three major sections that cover the following topics:

1.   The International Software Product Model

1. Base Component

2. Market-Specific Component

3. User-Interface Component

2.   Applying the Model to International Software Development

1. Planning

2. The Software Model Architecture - Overview

3. Configurability

4. Distributed and Shared Processing

5. Module Integration and Independence

6. Security

3.   Development and Support of the Product

1. Understanding the Design and Development Process

2. Improving the Process

3. Release Management

4. Customer Service

5. Sales Support Package

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4.  International Accounting and Distribution Requirements

This paper provides an introduction to the key features and functions that a medium to large multi-national company would typically expect to find in a world-class financial and distribution software product offering. Key features are described and ranked in their order of importance.

This paper contains five major sections that cover the following topics:

1. Sales Tax, Value Added Tax (VAT), and Goods and Services Tax (GST)

2. Order Entry and Accounts Receivable Processing in a Multi-Currency Environment

3. Purchasing and Accounts Payable in a Multi-Currency Environment

4. International Payment Processing

5. Financial Statement Translation and General Ledger Requirements

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The intent of this paper is to provide a clear understanding of the key features and functions that must be present in a distribution and financial product in order to handle foreign currency invoice processing.

The following key aspects are introduced and explained with detailed examples:

1. Foreign-Currency Invoicing

2. Computation of the Unrealized Gains and Losses at Month End Due to Currency Fluctuation.

3. Reclassification of Unrealized Gains and Losses, and Booking the Realized Gains and Losses.

This paper contains the following sections:

1. Glossary of Terminology

2. Feature Overview section

3. Accounting Conceptual Overview section that provides a clear statement of all accounting entries that must be booked.

4. Multi-Currency Invoice Examples section that provides a very detailed example of some of the more difficult aspects of multi-currency processing.

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The intent of this paper is to provide a clear, detailed understanding of the key processing features that must be present in a distribution and financial software product in order to meet the varied sales tax/VAT/GST processing requirements of key European, American and Canadian tax systems.

The paper is divided into two major sections. The first section describes the most important processing components that must be present in order to handle tax processing in the major countries of the world. The second section contains detailed examples of invoices for these same countries.

The paper takes the approach that the best way to understand how VAT, GST and Sales Tax works is to provide a detailed example of how a single invoice would be treated differently in key European countries, Canada and the U.S. Each example contains a mock-up of an invoice, actual calculations of all key tax amounts that appear on the invoice, and a list of the key factors that influence the calculation of the tax.

The following countries are included in the examples:

1. United Kingdom

2. Germany

3. France

4. Belgium

5. Netherlands

6. Canada

7. United States

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The intent of this white paper is to describe the most frequently used methods of payment employed in the world today, and then to identify for a representative group of countries the specific payment methods that they employ. The following types of payments are representative of the methods addressed in this paper:

1. Bank Transfers

2. Checks

3. Letters of Credit

4. Promissory Notes

5. Drafts (or Bills of Exchange)

6. SWIFT

The following countries are described in this paper:

1. United Kingdom

2. Germany

3. France

4. Belgium

5. Netherlands

6. Italy

7. Spain

In addition, since international payments are an integral part of international commerce, this document contains a Glossary of Terminology that defines some of the more common terms and practices associated with the international banking and transportation industries.

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In France, Spain and Italy companies receive many of their collections and make many of their payments in the form of a negotiable instrument called a Draft (sometimes called a Bill of Exchange). This document presents a requirements definition for the processing of negotiable instruments in both Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable. The Draft is the most important negotiable instrument and most of the document is devoted to describing the functional requirements of this instrument.

This document contains detailed examples of the types of processing flows that are required in both Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable. All accounting entries are described in detail. In addition, the document points out the differences in processing between Spain and France.

The following processing flows are addressed in this document:

1. Issue Draft Document

2. Customer Acceptance of the Draft

3. Presentation of the Draft to the Bank

4. Handling of Dishonored Drafts

5. Draft Close

6. Draft Cancellation

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The purpose of this white paper is to address three key international requirements that are typically addressed in the General Ledger module:

1. Financial Statement Translation

2. Currency Conversion

3. Revaluation of Foreign Currency Transactions

This white paper is divided into the following major sections:

1. Glossary of Terminology section

2. Feature Overview section, that presents a summary of the key features that most users would expect to find in any General Ledger product that handles financial statement translation, currency conversion and revaluation of foreign currency transactions.

3. Financial Statement Translation Conceptual Overview section that provides a clear description of the process of translating a foreign currency financial statement into the reporting currency of the parent organization.

4. Financial Statement Translation Detailed Example section that provides a detailed example of the translation process. A financial statement of a Swiss subsidiary of a U.S. parent is translated into the U.S. dollar reporting currency.

5. Currency Conversion Conceptual Overview and Detailed Example sections that provide the conceptual overview of the process along with a simple example of the concept.

6. Revaluation Conceptual Overview and Detailed Examples sections that provide the conceptual overview of the process along with a simple example of the concept.

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The purpose of this document is to provide a road map for the development of accounting and distribution software for the international market. The specific intent is to provide the conceptual understanding of some of the more difficult aspects of multi-currency processing under a wide and varied cross-section of General Ledger journal entry transaction flows.

This document contains two major sections. The first explains the general rules and concepts that underpin much of multi-currency accounting transactions. The second section illustrates, via detailed accounting examples, the differences between single and multi-currency accounting transactions.

This document is organized and structured in a way to be most useful for those responsible for the design and development of accounting and distribution software packages. The concepts and detailed examples will also be quite useful for other areas of the organization. This document will be useful for anyone who must develop test cases, prepare education material, or write user documentation.

This document describes in detail the key accounting transactions that should take place during the normal processing of:

1. Purchasing and Accounts Payable

2. Inventory Transfers and Adjustments

3. Order Entry and Accounts Receivable

The detailed examples in this document specifically address the issue of the timing of General Ledger journal entries and the associated exchange rates associated with these transactions.

Finally, the Glossary of Terminology at the end of this document provides a definition of the standard terminology widely used in the discussion of multi-currency processing.

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The purpose of this document is to provide a road map for the development of a world-class General Ledger for the international market. Summarized in this document are the key features and functions that a medium to large company would typically expect to find in a General ledger system. All features listed in this document are also ranked in order to provide an understanding of the relative importance of each feature.

This checklist may be used as a road map for new development or as a checklist against which one may compare an existing product.

This document is divided into the following sections:

1. General Issues section that addresses issues of a global nature such as security, on-line help, multi-currency and multi-language issues.

2. Setup Considerations

3. Journal Entry Processing

4. Journal Posting

5. Back-End Allocation Processing

6. Period-End and Year-End Processing

7. Budgeting

8. Statistical and Memo Information

9. Translation and Consolidation

10. Reports and Inquiries

11. Housekeeping Functions section that addresses issues such as backup of files, restoration of files and purging files.

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The purpose of this document is to provide a road map for the development of a world-class Accounts Payable module for the international market. Summarized in this document are the key features and functions that a medium to large company would typically expect to find in an Accounts Payable product. All features listed in this document are also ranked in order to provide an understanding of the relative importance of each feature.

This checklist may be used as a road map for new development or as a checklist against which one may compare an existing product.

This document is divided into the following sections:

1. General Issues section that addresses issues of a global nature such as security, on-line help, multi-currency and multi-language issues.

2. Setup Considerations

3. Invoice Processing

4. Matching Processing

5. Payment Processing

6. Bank Reconciliation Processing

7. General Ledger Account Distribution Processing

8. Tax Processing

9. Actual Cost Processing

10. Period-End Processing

11. Reports and Inquiries

12. Housekeeping Functions section that addresses issues such as backup of files, restoration of files and purging files.

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The purpose of this document is to provide a road map for the development of a world-class Accounts Receivable module for the international market. Summarized in this document are the key features and functions that a medium to large company would typically expect to find in an Accounts Receivable product. All features listed in this document are also ranked in order to provide an understanding of the relative importance of each feature.

This checklist may be used as a road map for new development or as a checklist against which one may compare an existing product.

This document is divided into the following sections:

1. General Issues section that addresses issues of a global nature such as security, on-line help, multi-currency and multi-language issues.

2. Setup Considerations

3. Invoice Processing

4. Cash Receipt Processing

5. Credit Checking

6. Finance Charges

7. Statement Issuance

8. Dunning Letters and Collection Correspondence

9. Commissions

10. Bank Reconciliation Processing

11. General Ledger Account Distribution Processing

12. Tax Processing

13. Period-End Processing

14. Reports and Inquiries

15. Housekeeping Functions section that addresses issues such as backup of files, restoration of files and purging files.

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For additional information, contact us at Navratil International, Inc.