Overview

Mindmill - Accounting is a browser-based, user-friendly centralized full fledged accounting application that allows a large commercial organization to conduct its business with all its various interfacing organizations along with full MIS reports and internal management tools.

Mindmill - Accounting is a technically centralized accounting solution offered by Mindmill Software Limited. It uses the state of the art technology where the application runs in a browser and the front end is not required to be loaded in each computer. It is a result of several man decades’ worth of work by some of the most brilliant minds in the industry including Computer Science engineers from IITs, MBA’s from IIMs, domain experts from the industry and of course our own past experience of our earlier accounting software products.

It uses the state of the art technology which benefits:

• The organization by providing full functionality wrapped in the right technology,
• Other organizations interacting with the said organization by offering several channels such as IVR, Internet and SMS to lodge their requests and receive information in addition to full functionality to deal with their complex nature of accounting dealings specially for debtors and creditors
• The end user by making it user friendly
• The network administrator by providing a centrally deployed software with a single database which can be accessed by all users over the WAN without deploying the front end at each computer, thereby reducing application version based errors and having a centrally parameterized and controlled system

Purpose

Mindmill - Accounting provides the following benefit to the bank and its customers:

• Centralized Database
• Single Application Deployment
• Global Employee
• Global Benefactor

Unique Features & Benefits

The unique features of this product have been grouped under the following heads:

• Cost Reduction Features
• Security Features
• Administration Features
• Benefactor Related Features
• Accounting Features

These are explained in greater detail below:

Cost Reduction Features

Mindmill - Accounting^TM offers the lowest total cost of ownership and operations compared to any other Accounting Package available in the market. This has been made possible by incorporating the following features:

Applet and browser based architecture implies that only required data can be sent between the client and the server. This data is compressed leading to further lowering of bandwidth requirements. Typically an organization requires no more than 64 Kbps bandwidth between the branch and the data center.

Since the product uses Applets it can encrypt and decrypt the data at the client end. This removes the requirement to have IIIrd party security layer such as VeriSign leading to large annual savings in IIIrd party software licenses.

Since the software is browser based, the software and subsequent patches get loaded automatically from the application server. It does not have to be loaded manually on each node individually leading to large savings in administration costs and safety by ensuring that all nodes are running the same software.

Reports are available in Java which implies the Organization does not have to invest in IIIrd party reporting tool licensing .

Security Features

• Audit Trails: Audit trail of each transaction in the system is kept with date, time and user-id stamp.
• 3DES Encryption: All data between a device and the backend is transmitted after encrypting it with industry standard 3DES encryption. This prevents any snoopers to sniff the channel and get financial data information.
• MD5 Encryption: All passwords are kept using industry standard MD5 encryption. This prevents the administrator from knowing the passwords of any user.
• Data Security: Data is kept secure using database login and password
• Access Security: By Role and Rights explained more in Administration Features.

Administration Features

• Fully integrated with a variety of delivery channels such as Internet Accounting, Mobile Accounting, Email Alerts etc for companies to see their details and status.
• Masters, Control Values and other Parameters: High level of parameterization available
• Service Outlet Concept: Each branch or delivery channel is designated as a service outlet and each transaction can be tracked at a service outlet level.
• Maker Checker Concept: Allows the Organization to have double or triple checks in place by having one person make an entry, another to verify it and sometimes if necessary a third to co-verify or next to enable it.
• Multi Lingual (on request)
• Roles and Rights: An organization can create various roles (designations) based on its Organization Chart and associate view, create, modify and delete rights on each screen as well as access to the screen itself.

Benefactor Related Features

• Unified Relationship Management across related but different roles of the same entity such as loaner, investor, and client and vendor transactions
• All benefactor services are available, including cash, bank based transactions, and internal accounts transfer.
• Completely parameterized standing instructions input and execution including prioritized debit from multiple accounts and rule based credit to multiple accounts to deal with loans.
• Statement printing is available from all the various delivery channels

Accounting Features

• Tree Based multi level GL Head Structure
• Real time transaction processing
• Straight through processing
• Single Organization-wide General Ledger, Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet for all modules
• Detailed MIS including Asset Liability Reports
• Text and WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) based Reports
• Inter-office Reconciliation
• Multi Currency

End User Features

• Full drill down software, allows you to navigate to the root of each entry by clicking on it.
• Easy to use screens which require little scrolling up and down and only relevant fields are present
• Ease of Navigation through a left hand tree. A user can click on a node/type an abbreviation and go to any screen immediately.
• Access to accounts based on account number, account name, benefactor name & number

Other Unique Features

The unique features of this product are:

• Easy to use screens which require little scrolling up and down and only relevant fields are present
• Ease of Navigation through a left hand tree. A user can click on a node/type an abbreviation and go to any screen immediately.
• Access to account based on account number, account name, customer number, and member number.
• Regulator based Image based Inward Clearing File based inward clearing
• Deposit Receipt, Passbook, Remittance, Membership Certificate, Share Certificate, and Notice Printing

Functionality Offered

Standard Edition Functionality

The standard edition of Mindmill Accounting consists of the following functionality:

• Multi Location Accounting
• Multi Currency Support
• Multiple Cashiers
• Workflow Based Payables and Receivable
• Fixed Asset Register
• Loans with NPA processing
• Borrowings
• Investments with NPI processing
• Bonds
• HR And Payroll
• Leave
• Reimbursement
• Taxation
• All Statutory Reports
• Reconciliation
• TDS Returns and Certificates
• IT returns
• Service Tax and VAT with returns/ statements/ registers
• Document, Photograph and Signature linking
• Transaction Reports (with Multi-Branch Functionality)
• Service Charges
• PDC Management
• Legal
• ALM
• Vouchers printing ( general and consolidated for multiple tranx)
• Bank Book
• Balance Sheets
• Income & Expenditure account
• Receipt and Payment account
• Annual accounts schedules.
• Investment register
• TA/ other advances/ EMD/ deposits with other parties
• Bank payment / receipts vouchers
• Cash payment / receipt vouchers
• Bank reconciliation
• MIS and Reports
• PF accounts / returns/ statements
• TA/ Medical

Integrated Loan Management Module (Only Applicable for Loan Financing Companies)

• Budgets for Loans
• Organizational Guidelines
• Complete Loan Proposal Recording
• Complete Loan Documentation Management
• Statutory Compliances for Loans
• Company Information including Share Capital and Net worth
• Guarantor Management
• Grouped Beneficiaries
• Concession Management
• Component Costing and Projected Timelines
• Loan Approval Workflow
• TRA & DSRA Management
• Mirror Loan Account Maintenance
• Lead Bank Management
• Bank Repayment Reconciliation
• Actual Loan Disbursals
• Loan Repayment Accounting
• Loan Disbursal Planning
• Loan Restructuring
• Project Monitoring including Delay Management, Critical Developments, Cash Flow, Site Visit Management & Status
• NPA Management
• Reports & Alerts Management
• Loans through Agents

Mirror Loan Account is an account maintained by the financial institute and is a mirror account of the bank account maintained for the beneficiary. It has the same features that a bank account offers such as opening, closure, limits, security and guarantee management, interest provisioning, and interest posting.

Besides this the system allows the finance company to completely manage the following areas:

• Borrowings Management to fund the loans
• Investment Management to park the unfunded loans

Borrowings & Investments (Only Applicable for Companies which Actively Borrow and Invest)

This system allows a company to manage its complete borrowings and investments portfolio. The following functionality is covered:

• Borrowing Specific:
• Fully Parameterized Interest Definition & Processing
• Borrowing Master
• Charges
• Planned and Actual Drawdown Schedule
• Security & Guarantor Management
• Hedging
• Planned and Actual Repayment
• Bond Issue Management including
• Current Bond Owner
• Bond Repayments
• Coupon Payments

Investment Specific:

Role and Rights based functionality is available for front office, mid office and back office investments management. Specifically the following is available:

• Fully Parameterized Interest Definition & Processing
• Several Investment Products (detailed in following paragraph)
• Issuing Agency
• Counter Party & Brokers
• Current Bond Owner
• Bond Repayments
• Mark to Market
• Deal Inquiry & Deal
• Ladders
• Investment Documentation
• Non Performing Investment (NPI) Processing

The following investment products are managed:

• Bonds and Government Securities
• Mutual Funds
• Commercial Paper
• CD
• FD
• FRAs
• Forwards
• Future Contracts (Calls & Puts)
• Cross Currency Swaps
• Double Currency Swaps
• Interest Rate Swaps

Delivery Channels

The following delivery channels are available in conjunction with Mindmill – Accounting:

• Internet Based Benefactor Access
• SMS Based Benefactor Access
• IVR Based Benefactor Access
• Email Alerts
• Android / IOS based apps

Technology

The structure is a 3 tier structure and consists of a browser based application written in applets. The applets communicate with a servlet via sockets. Data interchange happens via encrypted and compressed XML structures.

The software has been written in Java and can work with any standard RDBMS such as MS SQL, and Oracle.

IIIrd Party Software Requirements

Front End Machine / Client Computer

• OS: Windows XP 64 bit Professional / Linux
• JRE
• Internet Explorer or any other browser

Application Server & Backup Application Server

• OS: Windows server / Linux
• Tomcat
• JDK with JRE

Database Server & Backup Database Server

• OS: Windows Server
• Database: MS SQL

General

• Antivirus (Enterprise Edition) for Servers + Individual licenses for each client machine