Fosters - Fleet Management System
Overview
Foster's Group contracted Kiandra to produce a custom developed fleet and lease management system. Fosters had investigated various off the shelf products as well as outsourced services, however a key aspect of the solution was the requirement for deep integration with many financial systems.
The Foster's Fleet Management System was originally developed and deployed in 1999. However the system has been continually adapted and extended. Over the last 10 years Foster's has acquired and divested significant businesses (e.g. ALH, BBWE, Southcorp, Cellarmasters) and each time have called on Kiandra to make the changes and enhancements required to ensure smooth integration.
The Fleet and lease management system includes the following features:
- Multi-level role based security
- Fully dynamic database selection - FMS can run from a multitude of ODBC data sources, controlled from the desktop
- Automated and controlled purchase order generation
- Smart field completion system - watches what you type and predicts completion
- Dynamic snapshot vehicle catalogue to manage departmental purchasing requests
- Dynamic dealer list provided by a seamless interface to an Oracle Financial Management System
- Automated electronic batch payment processing for all invoice processing, interfacing with Foster's universal payment system
- Tracking of employee changes and terminations via interface with HR systems
- Automated vehicle status notification, email generation and PDF document creation
- Multi-location vehicle odometer recording and import from external fleet maintenance organisations including Fleetcare and BP Fuel Card
- Structured account code support with financial cost centres, accounts, etc
- Full interface with Active Directory for security, and Exchange messaging platform for email, contact and calendar integration for event management
- Complete end-to-end lease management, including:
- Lease statuses throughout the vehicle lifecycle
- Leasing class types for definition of residual value percentage, lease terms, depreciation rate, margins, etc.
- Management of additional key lease information, including contract numbers, asset numbers, start and end dates, asset costs, residuals, amortisation balances, lease principal cost, interest calculations, net rental costs, stamp duty, total payout, etc.
- Interface with Westpac for lease management, including vehicle draw-downs for periods, journal processing, interest accruals, payouts and residuals due batching, lease extensions, contract migrations, disposed vehicle payouts, etc.
- Dynamic vehicle assignment management with full audit history.
- Custom vehicle maintenance module that interfaces with vehicle servicing organisations.
- Interface with CitiLink for eTAG invoice processing, and subsequent invoice payment via Foster's automated universal payment system (saving a huge volume of data entry).
- Full Microsoft Office Integration including detailed Excel spreadsheet generation (with complex embedded formulas), Word document generation and Outlook integration.
- Fleetcare interfacing solution to automatically process Fleetcare invoice Excel files, with Fleetcare product code to Foster's account code mapping. In addition, Fleet changes are dynamically reported to Fleetcare via an automated Excel file production and transmit process, with all activity logged. Fleetcare invoices are interfaced by FMS into the Fosters automated universal payment system.
- BP Fuel card interfacing solution to manage fuel and maintenance-related purchasing, with a direct link into the Fosters automated universal payment system.
- Dynamic scheduling system to automate data interface feeds such as HR information, department lists and structures, vendors, tax codes and invoice batches.
- Data and detail provisioning for statutory and operating cost FBT processing. This information includes:
- Odometer readings from various sources such as Fleetcare and BP interfaces, the driver km declaration portal on the Foster's intranet, log books, etc
- Imported lease values for non-Westpac leases, generally due to new site acquisitions
- Caters for multiple assignments, employee shared vehicles, leased or owned cars, capital costs, purchase dates, effective start and end dates (from the context of the FBT year), disposal dates, lease charges, registration costs, accident repair costs, accident recovered costs, insurance charges (if applicable), fuel expenses, maintenance and tyre expenses, log book start and end dates, business percentage of use, base value, non-business accessories, odometer readings, vehicle use codes, Foster's entity and other account codes, etc.
- The above enables Foster's to chose the optimum method (Operating or Statutory) when calculating FBT liability.
Statement of Project Success
Kiandra confirms that the Foster's Fleet Management System was delivered on time and on budget.