Information and Knowledge Management using ArcGIS ModelBuilder

Sharina Tajul Urus, Alemayehu Molla and Say Yen Teoh
“Invoice will be keyed-in into the Invoice Tracking System and at the same time we will
enter into the ‘park document' function of SAP. We are doing it simultaneously. From the
park document, we can generate reports. It provides record that shows pending invoice
for payment. Once the issue is settled, we have to remove the invoice from the park and
post it to the actual cost of the system.” (E3)
4.2.3 Bank reconciliation
Bank Reconciliation is a web based system that is created outside the accepted ERP system
environment by an individual from Finance Department in Case A. Either the IT Department Unit, or
SAP Business Support Unit or Corporate Information Development Unit (CIDU) did not sanction the
development and use of Bank Reconciliation. Therefore, the maintenance and upgrading process of
Bank Reconciliation system is not supported by the IPerintis (the third party that is responsible for
Case A’s information systems management). The system duplicates a functionality of SAP. Although
the Bank Reconciliation function is already available in the SAP system, Finance and Planning staffs
prefer to use the Online Bank Reconciliation system. According to the Manager of Finance and
Planning (M1) of case A:
“When I came here, I thought that everybody is using the SAP bank reconciliation which
is one of the functions in Accounts Payable. In SAP, the bank reconciliation function
reads from the tape and runs the bank reconciliation but this is not the case in A. We
prepare the bank reconciliation online. I was very surprised at first. When I came here,
the practice is already like that. It is because of the previous user, the people before us.”
According to the Finance and Planning Executive (E2), users prefer the feral bank reconciliation
system because “The online version is much simpler. It is very simple since our transaction is not that
much, but the SAP function is there. I think we should be using it.” However, the use of this system
and the problem it creates (such as the unsuitability of the data codes created using the Bank
Reconciliation system for SAP) has been noticed and Case A is planning to phase out this feral
system. As noted by the Manager of Finance and Planning Department:
“We have the intention to fully utilise the SAP function in the future but of course, we
have to do the clean up before we run the bank reconciliation through SAP. We need to
clean up especially on the SAP account codes. Otherwise, there will be many line items
that will not be reconciled.” (M1)
5. Discussion: Feral system taxonomy
The coding and analysis of the interviews has identified three basic dimensions that can be used in
the classification of feral systems. These are the “type of application”, “sanction” and “purpose of the
application”. These dimensions correspond to the questions of what is developed, who authorise the
development and use and why the system is created respectively. The following section discusses
each of these dimensions.
5.1 Sanction and ownership (who authorises them?)
In describing feral systems legitimacy play a major role. Legitimacy refers to whether the “system”
created is sanctioned or not by the organization. Because end users to replicate some functionalities
of legitimate system (such as ERP) in an organisation create feral systems (especially feral
information systems), they are not condoned or approved by the management. Sanctioning of system
is also associated with system compliance. Compliance is where a user interacts with systems in the
prescribed manner (Ferneley & Sobreperez 2006). Users comply with the sanctioned information
system such as ERP due to its legality (legitimacy). In such instance, the systems existence is
authorised by the management (or it’s designate such as IT executives) and the system is part of an
organisation’s accepted information technology infrastructure. The creation of feral system is usually
beyond an organisation’s accepted information systems. Thus, feral system existence may indicate
users’ uneasiness towards the corporate approved information systems such as ERP system (Kerr,
Houghton & Burgess 2007) or lack of control from the management. For instance, in a situation where
a control system is being well maintained in an organisation, there would be little evidence of feral
system found and vice-versa (Houghton & Kerr 2006; Kerr, Houghton & Burgess 2007).
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