Tens of thousands of invoices that have not yet been paid, countless freelancers who are waiting for their money and a recovery operation of 7 tons: the implementation of AFIS, the new billing system of the municipality of Amsterdam, is anything but smooth. While some of the problems could have been solved if the municipality had drawn up a tight schedule and had kept to it. Mario says that, connoisseur in the field of digital invoicing.
Beyond has been working in the world of payment systems for almost 20 years. “I am not concerned with the daily operations, but I am particularly involved in the background in major change processes. Think of customer and data migrations, from one system to the other. These are fairly extensive processes. Such a program is in sub-programs split, to spread the impact and keep each step as manageable as possible. “
You have read the alderman’s letters to the council well. What do you get from that?
“To start with, I think there is something of the accuracy. At one moment there is talk of a live on January 1, then on January 6. Gives me a picture that it is messy. I think there is a scenario and a plan there. Rattles a bit.
Beyond, the Go/No-Go moment also cites the date on which it is decided whether the live system should continue or not. “That was December 13. Later in the letter it says that on January 6 there were no more findings from the testing. But you should have concluded that on December 13, not at the time of the live. I have no access to that.
In the letter you stayed on the term ‘input’ used.
“A purchasing system has a learning capacity. Someone puts his invoice number on the left or right side; perhaps there is a handwritten invoice in between, or a different font is always used. Getting to know those different invoices, input, takes time. They also experienced this in a test environment.
“But then they find out after the go -up that the system has to start again. That is remarkable, because that has already been found in the test environment. The answer stated that they could not transfer what they have learned in the test environment to the living. I do imagine something in itself. ”
“But then: then they want to take up time, but then it cannot be that they turn the button, go live and say: there is delay because the system still has to tackle invoices. A remarkable part of the answer of the council questions. “