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Post & Go - Balancing & Accounting
Stakeholders
Network - Simon J Smith / Andrea Wallis / (Tom Pegler)
FSC - Paul Lebeter / Mark Wood
Mails Team - Julian King
Security - Claire Davies
Service Management - Richard Benton
Problem Management - Antonio Jamasb / David Overstreet
« Product Owner - after being in branch for over 6 years, there is no Product
Owner. We need to identify who is best placed to take this on.
o JK advised that there is no formal owner for the Post & Go service
but moving to the new self-serve provider, NCR, Network will be
responsible for the mach @ responsible
for their products on the machine is team, Bill Payments etc.
As such the associated actions will be picked up in the most
appropriate work areas.
it was agreed that although no Product Owner identified for
Post & Go, none is required to resolve the current issues set
out below.
e Branches require a full set of official balancing and accounting instructions
- I have spoken to several branches who have stated they have never
been provided with these.
sed there are tions which were drafted but never
f lly signed off and distributed to branches following the
introduction of Post & Go 2 around October/November 2011. These
are still relevant. JK to send to RB who will distribute to the meeting
attendees as stakehoiders for comment and to make amendments
d to be sub: d to the
sion as a Crown Focus article (there
are also 4 non-Crown branches to consider also).
No comments received from any stakeholders and both FSC
& Mails team agreed to sign off. RB to send operating
instructions to SJS who will have two branches review and
return to RB with any comments by 25/07/13.
e Confirmation from Network/FSC on the requirement of frequency of
completing a full balance on each machine i.e. weekly/monthly and can
branches print the Trading Report from the machine.
would be for branches to complete a w ly balance
(this being a full defund of cash on each machine) ratt han
monthly as any anomalies are easier to trace by week, however will
abide by Network’s dec . Network effic’ has taken hours out
of the Crown branches and therefore the resource required to
complete a full balance each week is not there. AS to consult with
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Network (Tom Pegler or cover as Tom on leave this week) as to their
preference. Once agreed this will need including in the official
balancing & accounting instructions.
Discussed again the frequency of balancing, FSC preferring
weekly for ease of use if identifying transaction
discrepancies, whereas Network prefer monthly in line with
current balancing procedures. However AW raised a risk for
branches leaving it to monthly as identifying any
discrepancies in monies in the machine would be more
difficult to find. S/S to speak to Tom Pegler to discuss
further.
Some branches with multiple machines balance them as an overall
collective figure rather than on an individual machine basis - is this a
correct method, who has agreed this, does it fit with FSC/Audit/Security
balancing instructions for other products.
A pilot is currently running (Alan Orpe, project manager ?) where
branches with multiple machines defund them and place the monies
in a sealed bag to be sent to the Cash Centre to be counted,
thereby reducing the amount of time required in branch to balance
the P&G machines. This pilot is only running in a few branches
(oranches TBC) but if successful, would be rolled out to the estate.
JS to speak to Alan to get more detail & RB to invite Alan to next
call,
CD advised that the Cash Counting project at Birmingham &
Derby City had been deemed successful. RB to contact Alan
Orpe to confirm if this approach was to be adopted across
the estate. If so, the operating instructions will need
amending to reflect the new process, This has not stopped
unexplained losses at Birmingham after adopting this
process. CD also advised that TC’s across 6 branches since
the start of the financial year amount to approx. £20k and is
being discussed at other security forums.
e Branch process for reporting unable to print weekly Trading Report to
Wincor - and subsequent Wincor actions.
Branches need to run a Trading Report weekly to prevent a build-up
of data which in turn creates a software error due to the original
specifications of the build. Branches were never informed to
continue running these reports following the introduction of TA’s
approximately 2% years ago. As such quite a number of branches
have heen unable to run them and this requires a Wincor engineer
to complete a software rebuild on the machine to facilitate this
happening. This is costing the Business, specifically Service
Management, for each engineer visit to resolve these, The cost
currently stands at over £7k for this work being carried out. Once
agreed this will need including in the official balancing & accounting
instructions.
RB submitted a Crown Focus article, published 28/06/13
which referred branches to run this. The volume of branches
unable to do so has dropped significantly - no new branches
reported as being unable to run this report. RB to provide
SJS,AW,PL & MW a copy of the article.
Confirmation of the existing Transaction Acknowledgement (TA)process.
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The TA process needs to be re-issued with the balancing &
accounting instructions as a reminder for branches. PL advised he
will source the instructions to include in the communication to
branches.
PL to provide in time for next meeting
° Branch process for reporting TA mis-match against the daily report
produced by Post & Go machine(s) - FSC/NBSC/Wincor helpdesk and
subsequent actions required to investigate and reconcile.
FSC stated they receive calls & emails direct fram branches about
mis-matched or missing TA’s, however FSC have no formal route to
escalate these for investigation. Missing TA’s can occur due to non-
polling of machines. CH in agreement that Wincor should be
proactive regarding raising an automatic incident on eservices if the
number of files harvested overnight differs from the estate size Le.
266 machines should equate to 260 files which are packaged and
sent via PODG to Fujitsu for onward processing. The TA process to
be included in any communication to branches will need to instruct
branches when and who to call in the event of non-receipt of a TA
but should already be there. RB to check with Kendra Dickinson
what is held by NBSC on Knowledge Base. CH to look into branches
contacting Wincor HD direct about TA’s however they currently do
not have the processes or knowledge for answering, investigating &
resolving such queries and if this would be feasible. There is also
the issue of mis-matched TA’s whereby the totals from Daily Trading
Report from the machine do not match the TA delivered back to
branch by Fujitsu via the Horizon system. RB currently organising
with Wincor (and will also require assistance from Fulitsu Services) a
mini project involving 3 branches where this is occurring regularly
causing discrepancies running into £000’s. RB to contact
Chesterfield CO to also take part as they do not appear to be
experiencing these types of problems.
Further to the above MW will investigate all open items
across P&G estate, branch by branch, and provide a
summary of what the discrepancies are back to RB. Aj
advised that a process exists between POL & Fujitsu
Services for investigating data mismatches. Aj to provide
details on name of process & how this currently works. MW
advised after a quick search that there is approximately
£42.5k in open items from missing debit card transactions
since Oct 2012 (TBC) with over 100 branches affected (Old
St have an outstanding £24.6k discrepancy}.
RB to investigate with Wincor how long archived data is
stored for before being deleted.
RB to meet with A] &DO to discuss previous issue regarding
missing TA’s and the fix which was put in place & raising this
issue as a problem to be managed by the Problem
Management function.
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