Sustainable Public Financial Management

A detailed overview of the FreeBalance Public Financial Management Component Map is located at section 5.2 Core Government Financial Management Requirements. The minimum requirements for core government financial management are:

• Budget controls where budgetary figures and appropriation are entered into the system, following the budget law, to automatically prevent overspending.
• Commitment management where expenditure activity is tracked and controlled based on the budget.
• Conditions by expenditure type, such as capital budgets, and fund type, such as donor funds, to ensure that spending follows government plans and procedures.
• Approval management where all expenditures and budget transfers are approved based on government fiscal procedures.
• Payment management and bank reconciliation to manage payments, government receipts and bank accounts.
• Management reporting to assist in better management of budgets, cash and government outcomes.
• Statutory reporting following period-end procedures that meets international and national public sector accounting standards.

These functions are supported in the core financial management functions of the FreeBalance Accountability Suite. Governments who implement this core sub-module are able to manage treasury functions. This base enables governments to extend to the entire Public Financial Management footprint. Other FreeBalance modules can operate stand-alone or stand-alone and integrated with existing financial management applications.

The FreeBalance Government Accountability Suite is a web-based commercial off-the-shelf Integrated Financial Management Information Systems (IFMIS). The suite automates all public finance transactions related to the budget, including budget preparation, expenditure controls, government audit, procurement, monitoring, reporting, civil service and external audit.

The FreeBalance Accountability Suite includes:

• 4.1 Country-Specific functionality to meet government needs
• 4.2 Comprehensive set of government financial management modules
• 5. Software technology infrastructure designed for government

• 4.3 Required core government financial management functionality
• 4.4 Design to ensure rapid implementation and modernization
• 4.5 Flexible software licensing model to meet government needs

FreeBalance Accountability Suite

Fiscal Transparency in Public Finance

Governments across the world are modernizing or reforming public financial management (PFM) systems. Public financial management reform is a complex process enabled by integrated information technology. Government financial reform is essential for economic growth and successful competition in the global economy. The government budget is a key mechanism for government financial management.

The FreeBalance Government Accountability Suite is a web-based commercial off-the-shelf Integrated Financial Management Information Systems (IFMIS). The suite automates all public finance transactions related to the budget, including budget preparation, expenditure controls, government audit, procurement, monitoring, reporting, civil service and external audit.  By integrating government revenue and expenditure, information systems provide better expenditure controls and improved transparency in the budget cycle.

Programmed for Government

No customization required. FreeBalance software is optimized for public finance, with fiscal controls and government financial management rules built into the main code of the software.

Progressive Activation

Key for government self-reliance.  FreeBalance solutions can be scaled from basic capability for fast initial implementation and then gradually scaled up.

Proven Worldwide

Robust technology. More than 20 years of successful implementations, from difficult conditions in post-conflict countries to the most widely used financial software across the Government of Canada.

FreeBalance Supports Public Financial Management

FreeBalance applications support the complete lifecycle of budget management, including:

• Budget Preparation and Planning: Plan for multiple year budgets including scenarios, assumptions, budget proposals and multiple drafts to create a credible and realistic government budget.
• Budget Execution: Control all expenditures based on appropriations and business rules. Budgets can be transferred, supplemented budgets provided and controls tightened or loosened.
• Budget and Cash Forecasting: Forecast based on commitments, obligations and transactions tracked against budget with anticipated variance to enable governments to adjust controls. Leverage budget assumptions and “what-if” scenarios to improve decision-making.
• Civil Service Integration: Integrate salary budgeting. Unlike Human Resources software designed for the private sector, the FreeBalance Accountability Suite supports salary management, forecasting and budget integration.
•  Budget Reporting: Analyze budgets and actuals across many years and produce standardized financial reports.

FreeBalance Commitment Accounting and Expenditure Controls

Unlike private sector financial accounting, government commitment accounting is budget driven rather than profit driven. Commitment accounting requires numerous control mechanisms between the initial budget approval and the completion of fiscal transactions.  The FreeBalance Government Accountability Suite supports all commitment controls.  The commitment controls provided by FreeBalance are:

• Budgetary Control: The initial approved budgetary funds are mapped to the Chart of Accounts (COA) at a pre-determined COA hierarchy level for aggregate fiscal control.
• Multiple Levels of Allotment Controls: Supports approved appropriations, warrants or allocations, mapped to summary or detailed levels within the COA and to fiscal periods.
• Commitment Control: A soft commitment or intention to spend.
• Obligation Control: A hard commitment or contractual obligation.
• Multi-Funds and Project Controls: FreeBalance links Projects and Programs with fund sources, including linking budgets, projects or programs to specific revenue sources and donors.
• Tolerances: Set tolerances for controls to ensure fiscal discipline and compliance to the budget law while enabling appropriate discretion.
• Segregation of duties: Ensure compliance with government regulations through separation of duties and approval controls

FreeBalance Supports International Finance Standards

• The World Bank Treasury Reference Model: A development tool for fiscal managers and system developers, intended to help implement good practices in fiscal accounting and expenditure control.
• International Monetary Fund Code of Good Practices on Fiscal Transparency: Method to assess government fiscal transparency with practical advice for improvement.
• United Nations Common Functions of Government (COFOG): Functional classification to report government statistics to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United Nations.
• The International Monetary Fund Government Finance Statistics (GFS): Provides a comprehensive conceptual and accounting framework suitable for analyzing and evaluating fiscal policy and performance of the general government sector and broader public sector of any country.
• International Federation of Accountants International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSASs): Reporting requirements for government and public sector organizations
• Medium Term Expenditure Frameworks (MTEF): Multiple year rational planning and budget formulation processes enabling the government to establish credible and transparent criteria for allocating public resources to strategic priorities while ensuring overall fiscal discipline
•  Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP): A collection of rules, procedures and conventions that define accepted accounting practices. This includes broad guidelines and detailed procedures applied to both the public and private sectors.

FreeBalance Accountability Platform

The FreeBalance Accountability Platform  is the enabling technology used by FreeBalance and FreeBalance partners for developing web-based public financial management solutions. These solutions deliver applications on web browsers using Java application servers.

Technology for the FreeBalance Accountability Platform was designed exclusively for government operations. The use of proven open-source components reduces costs to governments and provides more choice.

The FreeBalance Accountability Platform has been developed exclusively in Java Enterprise Edition where business logic, data entities, and the rendering of user interfaces are accomplished using technology that leverages open application and web servers. The Accountability Platform supports integration with current FreeBalance applications to enable customers to easily transition to a pure web-based environment.

The FreeBalance Accountability Suite is designed for managing government fiscal processes from the ground up. The FreeBalance IFMIS is implemented by activating functionality options through software configuration rather than bespoke programming and software source code customization.

Governments worldwide select required functionality that reflects the unique country circumstances and can activate additional features and functionality as the political process evolves. The FreeBalance IFMIS is initially scaled down for fast implementation of a simple system, which can be extended over time to reflect evolving government needs and budget frameworks.

• Localization. All translations, including terminology changes are easily accessible by the customer through simplified methods for uploading translation files. All software modules support multiple languages and multiple currencies of up to 14 digits and 2 decimal places.
• Configuration. The software configuration includes selecting and setting the Chart of Accounts (COA), accounting methods (cash, modified cash, accrual, modified accrual accounting), the government purchasing processes, fiscal periods, approval methods, valid code combinations, business rules, workflow, reporting entities and authorizations.
• Progressive activation (sequential activation of additional functionality) though allowing ongoing changes to the accounting methods, budgetary controls and initial country-specific configuration to support evolving political processes and capacity building.
• Adaptable connectors to 3^rd party software, such as Customs and Taxation systems, secure cheque printing and electronic funds transfer systems.
• Multi-tiered Government Synchronization (MTGS). MTGS enables stand-alone systems located at nodes such as the Ministry of Finance (MOF), line ministries or regional offices to be connected by a wide area network (WAN), usually through VSAT satellite communications. This deployment enables synchronization of data between the nodes and different levels of government.

FreeBalance provides comprehensive and flexible licensing methods for the FreeBalance Accountability Suite to better serve customer needs. Government customers have reported that licensing methods used for the private sector do not align well with value received in the public sector. The licensing options include:

• Named Operational Users: Licensing the number of users that use the financial system on a regular and full time basis. This option is ideal for critical users.
• Concurrent Users: Licensing based on the total number of users accessing a module or modules at any point in time. This option is ideal when there are large numbers of infrequent users.
• Occasional Users: Licensing based on users who infrequently use the software. This option is an alternative to concurrent users when there is significant activity by infrequent users during fiscal periods.
• Component and Modules: Licensing can be granular to components within modules.
• Combination: Any combination of named, concurrent and occasional users across modules and components.
• Upgrades: Rapid addition of needed new licenses supported through license key.
• Site and Enterprise Licenses: Unlimited number of users by site or across the government.
• Cloud Computing: Per month costs based on named, concurrent and occasional users on a hosted system.

The FreeBalance Accountability Suite consists of six IFMIS modules. Governments can acquire sub-modules and selected components within these sub-modules.  This modular offering is consistent with the Public Financial Management component map.

The six IFMIS modules are:

• FreeBalance Public Financial Management provides core government financial management functionality. Real-time information prevents budget overruns and forecasts budget variance. Comprehensive government accounting functions are provided that support cash and accrual accounting. Project accounting, multiple fund control, assets and inventory are also provided.
• FreeBalance Government Performance Management provides comprehensive multiple year budget formulation functionality including multiple versions and scenarios. Analysis and forecasting features enable budget decision-making during planning and budget execution. Budget classifications can link budget execution with output and outcome data.
• FreeBalance Government Treasury Management provides comprehensive multi-currency cash management and bank reconciliation.
• FreeBalance Public Expenditure Management supports government purchasing and procurement management to enable the best value. Flexible workflow configuration adjusts to the government procurement law.
• FreeBalance Government Receipts Management support non-tax revenue sources, tax regimes and integrates with existing tax systems.
• FreeBalance Civil Service Management supports the entire civil service human resources and payroll lifecycle from recruitment to retirement.

This is section 5 of a series of blog entries creating a Government IFMIS Technology Evaluation Guide. This includes information to assist in evaluating IFMIS options and the technology requirements for FreeBalance IFMIS implementations. These series will be combined with feedback to produce a comprehensive Technology Evaluation Guide to be published on our web site.

Introduction

FreeBalance is a global provider of software solutions for public financial management (PFM). PFM is an essential part of the international development process. FreeBalance solutions support government modernization, fiscal decentralization, and public finance reform across all levels of government.

Financial, human resources and enterprise resource planning software is typically designed to support different businesses. Many enterprise-class software products are deployed to private and public sector customers. Software engineers understand that any general-purpose software “architecture” is a compromise and is not ideal for all customer contexts.

The government context is different from the private sector context. Effective product and technology design for the government context improves success rates in government Integrated Financial Management Information Systems (IFMIS) implementations.

The purposes of this section is to describe:

• Public Financial Management (PFM) user and functional needs that require a unique technical design.
• The FreeBalance Accountability Platform functional design and how it addresses requirements from advanced G8 to emerging country governments.
• The FreeBalance Accountability Platform technology design and how it addresses government functional and non-functional needs while supporting software engineering best practices.

Sections Include:

• 5. FreeBalance Technology Overview 
• 5.1 Public Financial Management Design
• 5.2 Core Government Financial Management Requirements
• 5.3 FreeBalance Non Functional Technical Requirements 
• 5.4 FreeBalance Technical Approach
• 5.4.1 Configuration and Progressive Activation
• 5.4.2 Software Engineering Best Practices
• 5.4.3 Focus on Government Financial Management Requirements 
• 5.5 FreeBalance  Accountability Platform Technical Structure
• 5.6 Conclusions

This is section 5.1 of a series of blog entries creating a Government IFMIS Technology Evaluation Guide. This includes information to assist in evaluating IFMIS options and the technology requirements for FreeBalance IFMIS implementations. These series will be combined with feedback to produce a comprehensive Technology Evaluation Guide to be published on our web site.

Government financial management needs differ from the private sector. Government financial management is budget-driven and is often known as commitment accounting.  Effective government financial management requires a technology design that respects these unique needs. This section begins by describing the fundamental functional design that resulted in the technology of the FreeBalance Accountability Platform. Design follows need. Government needs should determine the technical design of software designed exclusively for Public Financial Management (PFM).

Government Budget Cycle

Governments across the world are modernizing or reforming public PFM systems. PFM reform is a complex process enabled by integrated information technology. Government financial reform is essential for economic growth and successful competition in the global economy. The government budget is the key mechanism for government financial management.

Integrated Financial Management Information Systems (IFMIS) automate all public finance transactions often called the budget cycle: budget preparation, budget execution, expenditure controls, government accounting, procurement, revenue, government audit, assets, inventory, civil service management and reporting. Integrating government revenue and expenditure information systems improves fiscal controls and improved transparency throughout the budget cycle.

FreeBalance provides software solutions for PFM. The FreeBalance Accountability Suite is a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) IFMIS.

FreeBalance Design Methodology and the PFM Component Map

FreeBalance analyzed current and future customer PFM requirements regardless of whether FreeBalance provided solutions in that category. Many customers and PFM experts were consulted and provided detailed analysis. Workshops on long-term government priorities were held at meetings of the FreeBalance International Steering Committee. This “outside-in” approach ensured that internal FreeBalance viewpoints did not dominate the functional design of the Platform.

It was also important to retain what worked in the previous design. The functional design for the previous FreeBalance Accountability Suite had many advantages for governments. The design supported more rapid implementations than most COTS applications and custom development. Governments were able to adapt FreeBalance software to support on-going PFM modernization. Information Technology (IT) costs were sustainable. Unlike other COTS vendors, all FreeBalance customers in emerging countries are actively using and sustaining the IFMIS implementation.

Comprehensive Vision for Public Financial Management

FreeBalance developed a PFM Component Map to articulate IFMIS functional needs. The Component Map also enables governments to effectively determine functional needs and priorities. The FreeBalance PFM Component Map provides a high level view to all government financial functions. It is a target for determining the characteristics of an IFMIS. Governments can identify which components are needed and the level of importance. Government can map current systems against the component map to determine gaps. It enables determining the needed portfolio for automation, reform and improvement.

The PFM Component Map is FreeBalance proprietary information and cannot be used for the development of software without permission. Governments are free to use the PFM Component Map for planning purposes. The detailed map is available from FreeBalance on request.

A component is a defined piece of functionality that could operate stand-alone. The FreeBalance PFM Component Map enables drilling into detail to identify rich functional requirements.

This is section 5.2 of a series of blog entries creating a Government IFMIS Technology Evaluation Guide. This includes information to assist in evaluating IFMIS options and the technology requirements for FreeBalance IFMIS implementations. These series will be combined with feedback to produce a comprehensive Technology Evaluation Guide to be published on our web site.

The FreeBalance Accountability Platform architecture was designed to integrate core PFM functions within a pure web-based environment. This analysis enabled FreeBalance to identify functionality that should be re-used among applications.  This is important because it makes products easier and less expense for governments to maintain.

Some of the components that were selected for re-use included core entities and standard government processes including:

• Journal and voucher functionality that handles requisitions, purchase orders, revenue, expenses, goods receipt, payroll, budget transfers and other functions.
• Ledger functionality including General Ledger and sub-ledgers, such as Accounts Payable and Payroll.
• Commitment management following standard public financial processes including budgets, appropriations (allotments, virements, warrants), commitments, obligations and transactions.
• Chart of Accounts (COA) hierarchy and controls. The COA represents the “metadata” of PFM including organization structure, responsibility and accountability, accounting classification, performance objectives, programs, projects and activities.
• Cost drivers and output assumptions used for budget preparation, output and outcome reporting.
• Forecasting to enable governments to forecast revenue and expenses based on trends. This also enables scenario planning.
• Human Resources or civil service concepts of position, assignment and salary scales.
• Other reusable accounting entities such as assets, inventory, vendors and customers

The analysis of government functions created “business component maps” that articulate the broad range of PFM requirements. The government entities described in the previous section are leveraged for the development of government applications.

Government Performance Management

Performance Management enables governments to improve results and outcomes.  These components cover what is often described as budget preparation and budget execution functions including:

• Public Accounting and Budgetary Classifications: Classify accounting and budget categories to be used for budget analysis, fiscal discipline and reporting. This is also used to support international public sector accounting standards.
• Budget Preparation: Create top-down and bottom-up budgets from central government to department/agency to division to program to specific expenditure. This involves linkages to legislative and organizational constraints such as specific laws, appropriations, and warrants. It includes integrating with budget actuals from previous years.
• Collaborative Planning: Organization plans, approves, and performance analysis.
• Performance Metrics: Develop input, output and outcome performance metrics tied to departmental/agency and government mandates and goals.
• Performance Measurement: Track, aggregate and analyze performance metrics.
• Performance Improvement: Take performance reporting information for continuous improvement including changing priorities, adding or removing performance metrics.
• Performance Linkage: Link budget items from line items to aggregated items to performance objectives and metrics.
• Budget Execution: Manage and control budgets during the fiscal year.
• Budget Forecasting: Forecast budget expenditures based on budget and actual expenditures.
• Aid Management: Link and collaborate with external aid partners and support the integration of “off budget” information.

Commitment Accounting

Commitment Accounting and budget management are unique to the public sector enabling budgetary and commitment controls. Commitment Accounting functions include:

• Public Accounting and Budgetary Classifications: Control based on budget classifications executed via accounting procedures.
• Budget Execution: Control expenditures based on the established legal budget and government procedures.
• Allotment and Appropriation Control: Integrate authority to spend and release funds to enable expenditures and payments.
• Commitment Accounting: Eliminate budget overspending by setting aside funds for in-progress expenditure plans (commitments, soft commitments or pre-encumbrances) and purchase activity (obligations, hard commitments or encumbrances).
• Fund Management: Control expenditure conditions based on source and type of funds to ensure fiscal discipline.
• Budget Transfers: Manage budget transfers, supplemental budgets and virements following government standards.

Government Financial Management

Government Financial Management includes standard accounting functions include:

• Journal, vouchers and Ledgers: Support traditional accounting cycle used in public and private sectors.
• Real-time Ledgers: Balance ledgers in real-time with budgets to ensure that budgets are not overspent.
• Reform and Modernization: Modernize the financial management structure such as migrating to accrual accounting.
• Project Accounting: Improve project and program monitoring.
• Fixed Assets: Manage asset accounting, depreciation and evaluation.
• Inventory: Manage government stores, transfers, inventory counts and consumption.

Treasury Management

Treasury Management enables governments to manage debt and investments. Treasury Management functions includes:

• Cash and Liquidity Management: Predicts future cash flow requirements to ensure optimizing cash reserves.
• Treasury Single Account: Migrate many bank accounts to a single virtual account to more effectively manage reserves, investments and debt.
• Bank Reconciliation: Reconcile ledgers with cash receipts and payments at banks.
• Debt Management: Manages government debt commitments.
• Investment Management: Manage government investments in financial instruments.

Public Expenditure Management

Public Expenditure Management reflects all functions related to government spending. This exceeds typical “accounts payable” functionality common with private sector accounting because of the need for budget and commitment controls. Public Expenditure Management functions include:

• Budget and Commitment Controls: Ensure that all expenditures are approved and do not exceed budget or allotments set in the system.
• Purchase Cycle: Manage the general purchase cycle including purchase requisitions, purchase orders, goods receipt, and goods returned.
• Purchasing Methods: Develop a range of purchasing “vehicles” such as local purchase orders, petty cash purchases, open contracts, standing offers and special contracts.
• Procurement: Manage government procurement procedures including competitive tenders, tender evaluation, vendor disputes and contract management.
• Vendor Management: Manages vendors including vendor authorization, certifications, and ratings.
• Grant Management: Support government grant, loan and contributions to individuals, educational institutions, NGOs and businesses.
• Intergovernmental Transfers: Manage transfer payments among governments.
• Social Benefits: Support government pensions, health care, employment insurance and welfare payments.
• Payment Management: Manage payment cycle including approval, electronic funds transfer, cheques and secure cheques.

Government Receipts Management and Revenue Administration

Governments raise revenue and collect receipts through a number of means. Government Receipts Management function include:

• Taxation: Support income, property, custom, excise and sales taxes at national and sub-national levels.
• Government sales: Manage sales of government assets, products and services.
• Permits and licenses: Manage permit, license, certification, user fee, fines and other government processes that collect revenue.
• Collection management: Support front and back office receipts handling, collections, invoicing statements, and dunning letters.
• Customer and taxpayer management: Manage citizen and corporate information and identity across revenue systems.

Civil Service Management

Civil Service Management enables governments to manage the civil service cycle from recruitment through retirement. Civil Service Management software helps improve government capacity and results. Civil Service Management functions include:

• Civil service reform: Reform government personnel policies and reflect these reforms in the system.
• Position and establishment management: Set the establishment for the civil service, pay grades and position scales.
• Payroll and pensions: Manage payments to hourly and salary staff and pensions to former civil servants.
• Salary planning: Forecast salaries based on budget, trends, and pay to date. Ability to model changes to pay grades, vacancies and union agreements.
• Civil service workforce management: Manages recruitment, performance appraisal, dispute management and retention processes.
• Movement: Support approvals, transfers, secondments and promotions.
• Capacity management: Increase government capacity through training, capacity building programs, succession planning and pay for performance.
• Benefits management: Support insurance, bonuses, training payments and loans for civil servants.
• Payment Management: Manage payment cycle including approval, electronic funds transfer, cheques, secure cheques, pay vouchers and pay agents.

Transparency and Accountability

Transparency and accountability enables government to prove progress on goals, engage citizens and businesses and improve confidence in the government. Transparency functions include:

• Government audit: Support internal and external financial and system audits.
• Disclosure: Report on budget plans, government policies, budget actuals, program evaluations, performance dashboards and statutory requirements such as senior civil servants
• Transaction and records management: Save and retrieve information on financial transactions and supporting documentation.
• International standards: Support international public sector accounting standards for reporting including IPSAS and IMF GFS.

This is section 5.3 of a series of blog entries creating a Government IFMIS Technology Evaluation Guide. This includes information to assist in evaluating IFMIS options and the technology requirements for FreeBalance IFMIS implementations. These series will be combined with feedback to produce a comprehensive Technology Evaluation Guide to be published on our web site.

Non-Functional Requirements include reliability, availability, compatibility and performance. These are used for FreeBalance product requirements and are designed to match the range of government customer needs. Many of these requirements differ from needs in the private sector. The following is a summary of non-functional requirements used in the development and testing of the FreeBalance Accountability Platform and web-based applications.

Deployment

Deployment and installation of FreeBalance applications covers typical government needs including decentralization:

• Centralized, decentralized and hybrid deployment.
• Named, concurrent, occasional, site and government-wide licensing and licensing combinations.
• Simplified license keys for rapid upgrading.
• Use of test, training and production environments.
• Version upgrades and downgrades.
• Software as a Service (SaaS) and Cloud Computing deployment.
• Government shared services deployment.
• Support for low bandwidth setups such as dial-up and VSAT for remote government offices.
• Optimized technical footprint to ensure that FreeBalance software can operate on a stand-alone laptop.
• Ability to deploy to training centers, testing environments and disaster recovery sites.

Compatibility

Compatibility describes compatibility with industry and international government accounting standards. This ensures compatibility with a wide range of equipment and systems to protect the government investment. Compatibility requirements cover:

• Portability to other operating systems, application servers, computer systems and databases.
• Compatibility with JBoss, Tomcat, WebSphere and WebLogic application servers.
• Compatibility with Microsoft, Oracle and MySQL databases.
• Support for multiple web browsers including Mozilla and Microsoft and web standards like W3C and CSS.
• Support for Microsoft and Linux operating systems.
• Support for Web Services (SOAP, UDDI, WSDL).
• Support for Unicode.
• Support for security standards including LDAP, PKI, SSL, and Kerberos.
• Support for IPSAS, GASB, IFRS, GaaP and GFS standards for public sector accounting.

Maintainability

Maintainability refers to the ability of governments to maintain software and the FreeBalance ability to support customers easily. The maintainability requirements cover:

• Rapid deployment of code fixes and service packs.
• Support for configurable system logging and auditing.
• Parameterization for configuration and configuration changes.
• Migration, upgrading and backward compatibility.
• Systems management functionality and support for systems management standards like SNMP for 3^rd party tools.
• Archive and backup functionality.
• Remote management capabilities.

Usability

Application usability and the user interface are key elements to ensure the successful implementation of a government financial management system. FreeBalance applications are sometimes used in countries with lower human capacity. Usability requirements cover:

• User-centric design criteria to ensure simple functions oriented to the user’s objective, ease of use and ease of remembering.
• Options for user interface changes and customization, including forms adjustment, translation, and templates.
• Structure, skeleton, navigation and page layout standards for the user interface.
• Use of expected web conventions.
• Behavior for data input.
• Localization and internationalization including multiple language and multiple calendar support.
• Multi-lingual documentation and the ability to adapt documentation to meet government and capacity needs.
• Support for linking help, documentation, courseware and e-learning together.

Reliability, Performance, Capacity and Quality

These requirements are designed to support government needs:

• Availability of FreeBalance software, independent of network and server availability at better than 99.9% other than for scheduled maintenance and upgrading.
• Scales well under load with high concurrency to over 10,000 users.
• Fault tolerance for loss of connectivity, loss of computing resources and invalid data entry.
• Recoverability to hardware, network or software faults including exception handling.
• Software encryption and access control support.
• Over 99.9% Data and transactional integrity. Tools that support transaction recreation from audit trail.