DART System|12
Treasury Management System
DART
System|12
Referenzen
To whom it may concern
It is the intention of this memorandum to share the experience of our Group by using the Treasury Management Software DART and the co-operation with the vendor AS Financial Services GmbH.
Management Summary
We group and rate the DART functionality and vendor support in 3 categories with our rating as follows:
Scope of functionality:
even beyond our needs
Implementation/Update/Design:
ideal
Vendor - relationship: outstanding
Scope of functionality used by us
We are rating the DART functionality as ‘even beyond our needs’ thus providing us more than sufficient flexibility for future activities. We are using only a part of the overall DART functionalities as follows:
Treasury
We are using DART functionality to fully handle all treasury transactions for more than 5 companies (including a bank, a leasing company, a holding and the importer). It should be noted that next to Euro we manage our UK pound and US dollar transactions via DART.
All transactions we need can be fully handled by DART - we are using a wide range of products available in the European markets. The product ranges from all type of daily/call money to short- and medium- as well as long term loans. The transactions can be fixed or floating with or without regular / irregular amortization.
Next to the traditional funding instruments DART handles our derivatives portfolio as well as all type of credit lines / credit facilities in place with the investors/banks.
The investor management functionality includes next to addresses and other key data, tools to further improve the business relationship with banks/investors like handling of business cards and storage of all internal memos per investor.
Investor Benchmarking
DART allows the benchmarking of individual investors performance (e.g. basis point variances to money market index), individual portfolios or even the whole portfolio. These DART benchmark functions allow improving our business relationships with investors and results in an excellent tool to manage our performance.
Controlling
DART provides a full range of controlling tools to either generate the required reports within DART or to extract the data into Excel for further management in combination with other business data. Based on our request some controlling functions were implemented, but it’s fair to say that most controlling tools were already available and are maintained/updated regular. So we fulfil all regulatory and Group-Audit demands.
Business Planning
DART includes a fully fledged business planning tool that was designed and implemented based on our detailed requirement. This complex and robust tool enables us to manage our business planning within DART even for different legal entities in separate databases. Next to the existing treasury data our Retail/Leasing and Wholesale data is transferred into DART via interfaces. This allows regular controls of business plan versus actual results. All business plans remain in DART and can be reviewed at any point in time. Currently more than 20 business plans are available within the DART-System. Important to mention that we allow the vendor to add this complex and comprehensive functionality to the DART system function scope available to any other DART user.
Accounting
DART represents the sub-ledger of our general ledger for more than 5 legal entities. A mechanized interface from DART to the G/L is in place since spring 2004 for the daily feed as well as the month-end transactions for accruals and expenses. All required accounting reports (e.g. to allow detailed reconciliation at any point in time) are provided by DART and are available online.
Audit-Functions
DART fully supports the needs regarding the German specific BAFIN requirements and our extensive Group audit demands. All transactions are stored with date/time and user flags. Changes made to existing transactions are documented in detail as well.
DART provides a complex but easy to use user level structure in order to define user functionality as needed for different user scopes. This includes levels ranging from read-only to full system access and supervisor levels. DART system access routines are following corporate standards like password change every 30 days; minimum length of the password; password can not be re-used. Login and logout monitoring routines provide management controls.
Management Reporting
DART provides a full range of management tools enabling that the CFO controls online and/or via management reports / print-outs. In most cases we are using the online tools as this limits the need to print and document management reports. An important feature next to the online functionality is the possibility to re-create management reports at any point in time.
DART implementation, updates & design
We are rating the DART technical design as ‘ideal’ from a user and IT perspective.
Implementation
The integration of the DART-System into our corporate IT infrastructure went very fast. The DART system was ready to use with less than 1 hour implementation work. Out of several DART installation options we selected the server-centric approach – no need for any installations on user workstations. We went live with DART in very short period of time of less than one month. Most time was spent to key enter existing treasury transactions into DART.
System Updates
We receive DART updates and/or system enhancements via email. These files must only be copied into the DART server directories without any additional activities. This allows a very smooth and cost efficient DART system management with minimal burden (if at all) for our IT staff. In fact we do not require the involvement of our IT staff when receiving DART updates or new versions.
User interface
The DART user interface is easy to understand and to use. It is designed to provide always the required level of data for the different user teams. DART is delivered with an online manual but we hardly need to look into the documentation. In case of questions it is very easy to either call or email the vendor and ask for advice.
Currently the DART-System contains more than 150.000 records including transactions, audit trails and business planning data. The DART access speed in our LAN can be rated with very high.
Vendor relationship
We are rating the relationship with the vendor (AS Financial Services GmbH, 65428 Ruesselsheim) as ‘outstanding’.
Contractual agreements
We selected DART in 1998 and agreed on a standard license agreement as provided by the vendor. An update or service agreement is not in place. However, even without any of such agreements we receive outstanding service from the vendor.
Speed to market
Vendor provides outstanding support either via Email, phone or in urgent cases at our side. It should be noted that we hardly have to request vendor support as DART is maintained and updated by vendor on ongoing basis. It is beneficial for us that DART is designed as a standardized system – the same system is in place for any other client of vendor. New functionality that any other client requests will automatically be available to us via next DART update. Functional updates and/or new reports are provided on a ‘no cost’ basis by vendor.