User guide

Octopus Microfinance Suite

Version 1.1 © OCTO Technology

 End-User Guide

Summary

1Set-up ................................................................................................................................... 4
1.1 General parameters ....................................................................................................... 5
1.1.1 General parameters ................................................................................................ 5
1.1.2 Provisioning rules .................................................................................................. 7
1.1.3 Holidays................................................................................................................. 7
1.2 Users’ management....................................................................................................... 8
1.3 Economic activities, provinces and districts, and installment types set-up ..................... 9
1.3.1 Economic activity .................................................................................................. 9
1.3.2 Provinces / districts / cities ..................................................................................... 9
1.3.3 Collaterals ............................................................................................................ 10
1.3.4 Installment types .................................................................................................. 10
1.4 Funding lines .............................................................................................................. 11
1.5 Loan products ............................................................................................................. 15
1.5.1 What is a loan product? ........................................................................................ 15
1.5.2 Loan products’ management form ........................................................................ 15
1.5.3 Create a new loan product .................................................................................... 16
1New client: physical / moral person, group ......................................................................... 21
1.6 Physical person / individual client ............................................................................... 21
1.7 Group ......................................................................................................................... 23
1.8 Moral person............................................................................................................... 24
2Project ................................................................................................................................ 25
3Loans : creation and life cycle ............................................................................................ 26
1.9 Create a new loan........................................................................................................ 26
1.9.1 « loan’s guarantees » tab ...................................................................................... 27
1.9.2 « loan’s details » tab ............................................................................................. 28
1.10 Credit committee ...................................................................................................... 29
1.11 Disbursment.............................................................................................................. 29
1.12 Loan’s repayment ..................................................................................................... 30
1.13 Remark on client, project, contract’s status ............................................................... 32
4Accounting ......................................................................................................................... 33
1.14 Chart of account ....................................................................................................... 33
1.15 Account view ........................................................................................................... 34
1.16 Export transactions................................................................................................... 34
1.17 Closure .................................................................................................................... 35
5Reports ............................................................................................................................... 37
1.18 Standard reports ....................................................................................................... 38
1.18.1 ‘Stock’ Reports ................................................................................................. 38
1.18.2 ‘Flow’ reports ................................................................................................... 39
6Consolidations .................................................................................................................... 40
1.19 At the local level (Branch/sub office): creation and export of the consolidation files 40
1.20 At the central level (Head office): importation of consolidation files ........................ 42
1.21 Consolidation reports ................................................................................................ 43

voVersion 1.1 © OCTO Technology Page 2 on 48

7Database maintenance ........................................................................................................ 45
Database update ............................................................................................................... 45
1 Set-up

From the home page you will find the « configuration » tab that allows you to access and
change the following parameter:
• Users
• Language
• Loan products
• Economic activities
• Provinces and districts
• Collaterals
• Installment types
• Funding lines
• General parameters
• Advanced parameters

Only “Super Admin” and “Admin” can access to all these menus

When you install Octopus for the first time, we advise you to carry database set-up out
according the following order:

1. General parameters

2. Users
Economic activities
 Provinces and districts
Collaterals
Installment types

3. Funding lines

4. Loan products

General parameters

‘General parameters’ menu, located in the ‘configuration’ tab, allows you to set-up main
software characteristics. It is divided in three parts:
• General parameters
• Provisioning rules
• Public Holidays

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General parameters

General parameters table

GROUPED_CASH_RECEIP True: During repayment, only one receipt can be printed
T out
False : During repayment, three receipts (principal,
interests and possibly late penalties) can be printed outs
GROUP_MIN_MEMBERS Minimal number of a group
DISABLE_FUTURE_REPAY True: anticipated repayments are allowed
MENTS False: anticipated repayments are not allowed
ACCOUNTING_PROCESS Define the accountancy mode: accrual (2) or cash (1). See
part (6).
ALLOWS_MUTIPLE_LOAN True: a client can have several active loans simultaneously
S False : Octopus will not allow a client to have several loans
simultaneously
CITY_MANDATORY True : When entering a mail address “city” is a
compulsory field
False : When entering a mail address “city” is not a
compulsory field
CURRENCY_CODE ISO numeric code of the transaction currency. For more
information see:
http://www.iso.org/iso/support/faqs/faqs_widely_used_stan
dards/widely_used_standards_other/currency_codes/curren
cy_codes_list-1.htm
CASH_RECEIPT_BEFORE_ Allows or not the generation of cash receipt before the
CONFIRMATION confirmation of repayment.
NB : in order the « road map » to be available, you need to
set this parameter to « true »
PAY_FIRST_INSTALLMEN When the period between disbursment date and first
T_REAL_VALUE installment date is not equal to a regular installment:

on ‘True’ : interests are recalculated

on ‘False’ : client is paying interests like for a regular
installment
BRANCH_ADDRESS Branch address
LOAN_OFFICER_PORTFO True : when a loan officer logs-on Octopus, it can only
LIO_FILTER access its portfolio (user type “LOF”)
False : loan officers can access all portfolios
WEED_END_DAY_1/2 First/second week-end day: to define if you do not want to
have installments during week-ends.
1 : Monday, 2 : Tuesday, …6 : Saturday, 0 : Sunday, - :
nothing
INTERNAL_CURRENCY Internal currency code (ex : USD, EUR…) : currency on
which transactions are indexed
EXTERNAL_CURRENCY External currency code: transaction currency used with the
clients; if external and internal currencies are the same,
untick, ‘use an external currency?’
CITY_IS_AN_OPEN_VALU True: in the address form, user is a free to enter any city
E value
False : in the address form, user has to select a city in a
predefined list
LATE_DAYS_AFTER_ACC By default this parameter is blank. When a client is late,
RUAL_CEASES Octopus will accrue infinitely the late penalties.
 If you enter a number of days, for example 30 days, late
penalties cannot be more than 30 days of penalties.
COUNTRY MFI country name
INN MFI national identification number; used in some internal
reports.
WEEKLY_CONSOLIDATIO Day of week when the weekly consolidation is supposed to
N_DAY be. Usually, first day of the week.
1 : Monday, 2 : Tuesday, …6 : Saturday, 0 : Sunday
USE_CENTS True : if you want to use currency decimal for your
transaction
False : all the amounts will be rounded to the unity
ALIGN_INSTALLMENTS_O When the effective disbursment date does not match with
N_REAL_DISBURSMENT_D the first installment expected, you can chose to readjust the
ATE repayment schedule by default. To do so, set the value to 1.
BRANCH_CODE Branch code (a couple of letters in general); used to forge
the contract codes.
BRANCH_NAME Full name of the branch. Can be used in some reports.

Provisioning rules

You can set in this tab the provisioning rules (% of the due principal to be provisioned)
according to the number of late days.

To modify these values, select a line, enter a correct percentage and save the changes.
Holidays

In this table, enter the holidays for which no repayments will be expected.
To create a new holy day, select a correct date, enter a description for this day and save it.
All the active loans’ repayment schedule will be recalculated to take into account this new
date.

Users’ management

Go to ‘configuration’ tab then click on « users » to add, edit or remove users.

Octopus can deal with 5 users’ status:

• SUPER (Super Administrator) : can access to all Octopus’ functionalities

• ADMIN (Administrator) : can access to all Octopus’ functionalities excess the

database maintenance tools

• CASHI (Cashier): can create and update clients and contracts, but cannot access to
configuration menu and cannot confirm a disbursment. However it can confirm a basic
reimbursment. Cannot remove late penalties when reimbursing.

• LOF (loan officer) : Like cashier but cannot enter a repayment

 • VISIT (guest) : read-only access, cannot modify any information

Economic activities, provinces and districts, and installment types

set-up

Economic activity

When you create a new client, you must specify his economic activity choosing a value
among a predefined set. « Super Admin » status can set-up these data from the
« configuration » > « economic activities » tab.

To create a new economic activity, click on one root and then on « add ». Enter the name and
save. You can also modify an existing activity clicking on it and then on « modify ».

Provinces / districts / cities

When you create a new client, you must specify his address. Octopus will require by default
to define at least two levels of localizations (provinces and districts) and maybe three levels if
you set the parameter “city_mandatory” to true.

“Super Admin” can add, modify or delete fields for these three localization levels just going
to the “configuration” tab then clicking on “Provinces and districts”

To create a new field, select the root field (“locations” for a new province, province field for a
new district or district name for a new city) then click on “add”.

You can also modify or delete a field selecting it and clicking on the apt button.

Collaterals

When you create a new loan contract, you can save a list of collaterals and their value.
From the « configuration » tab, « super admin » user can create or delete a collateral category
clicking on the appropriate buttons.

Installment types

When you create a new loan product, you must specify repayments' frequency
(weekly,monthly, yearly, and others).
You can create new installment types from this menu by simply entering a name and the
duration between two installments (duration expressed in number of days and months).

NB : by default, Octopus offers a monthly installment corresponding to 1 month and 0 days;

interests are thus calculated on a 365 days per year basis.
If you want to use a 360 days per year basis, modify « monthly » installment type and make it
correspond to 0 month and 30 days.

Funding lines

Since version 1.2, Octopus offers a basic management of liabilities: you can create funding
lines, credit them, tie any loans to them and follow them up in real time. You can also forecast
cash balance for these lines.

Create a new funding line

In « configuration » tab click on « funding lines ». The following window will open:

Funding lines list is available, with their name, start and end date, initial amount of
endowment and residual amount.

From this screen, you will be able to:

create a new funding line

delete a funding line

open and modify an existing funding line
When you create or edit a funding line, the following screen will appear.

From this screen, you can specify certain funding lines' parameters:

code and complete name

Start date and end of validity date: no loan disbursments tied to this line will be
permitted outside of these dates.

In the bottom of the screen, a window indicate corporates (moral persons) tied to the funding
line. To these corporates are tied endowments. These are the ones who credit initially the
funding lines (ex: banks, specialized funds, etc.).

From this screen, you can:

create a new corporate and assign it an endowment, clicking on « add corporate »

look for an existing corporate in the database, assign it to this funding line and credit
an endowment; clicking on “search”

delete a corporate tied to the funding line selecting it and clicking on “delete
corporate”

update a corporate information and its “events” (credit/debit) with a double-click on
its name in the list

After one these actions, the corporate information screen appears:

It is possible to change information concerning this organism, in the main window (name,
creation date, short name and acronym) and in « legal form », address and contact.

The « events » tab recounts the list of credit / debit movements that affected this funding line.
These movements can be triggered:

• Automatically: for each event on a contract tied to this corporate and to this funding
line: debit for a disbursment and credit for a reimbursment.
• Manually: from this screen, you can add or delete an event (credit or debit), for
example to credit an initial endowment:
o Click on « add an event »
o The following window appears: specify an event code, a direction (credit or
debit) and an amount.
o Click on « save »
After having modified the corporate's form, do not forget to click on « save » to enforce your
changes.

After any modifications of the « funding line » form, do not forget to save these changes
clicking on « update corporate » button.
Loan products

What is a loan product?

Octopus offers the possibility to set-up some standards credit products to gather loans that
have common characteristics. This function allows to get more guarantees and security
regarding loan’s data entering (interest rate, installment type, funding line, etc.)

To manage your loan products, click on « configuration » then on « loan products ».

Loan products’ management form

From the loan products’ management form, you can see a summary of each product’s
features. “Super Admin” can edit these products by simply double-clicking on them. when
saving your changes after having edited a product, you will be prompted by a “do you want to
update related contracts” message; if you click on “yes”, all active loans using this loan
product will be affected by the changes, otherwise changes will be taken into consideration
only for new loans.

You can display deleted products by ticking the « show deleted products » box on the right
upper corner of the window.
Create a new loan product

From the loan product management interface, click on « add a new loan product »:

A new window with three tab appears:

« main parameters » tab allows you to set-up mandatory characteristics for loan
products

« fees » tab permits you to establish the different types of fees regarding a contract

« exotic installments » allows you to create « exotic products » and to determine if
your loan product match with some « fake » contracts.

« main parameters » tab

From this tab, you will set-up all the different and mandatory characteristics of your loan
products:
• Product name

• Installment type: monthly, weekly, quarterly, etc...

« Super Admin » user can modify these installments using « configuration » ->
« installment types » menu

• charge interests within grace period: if you click « yes », interests will be charged
during grace period, otherwise grace period will be applied to both interests and
principal
• « Keep expected schedule »: set the rule to be applied in case of prepayment:
« yes »: the repayment schedule remains the same, additional amount is used to
repay next instalment interests, then principal, etc..
« no »: schedule is modified when additional amount has been used to repay
principal

“Attach product to a specific client's type”: either the product is destined to all kind
of clients, either you must tie it with a particular entity : “group”, “individual” or
“corporate”

“interests rate type” : to be decided between:
■ “Flat”: interests are constant and calculated as a percentage of the initially
disbursed amount
■ “Declining with fixed instalments”: all instalment totals will be the same, but
interests are calculated on the due principal.
■ “Declining with fixed principal”: only interests are calculated on the due
principal; repayments for principal are constant

“Interests rate”: you can set a fixed interest rate or a range (minimal and maximal
rate); user will have to choose an interest rate within this pre-set range while creating a
new loan.

• « Grace period »: as for « interests rate » unique or range of values.

• “Number of instalments”: including grace period. Enable you to set the loan term
(according to the instalment type selected).

“Amount”: you can set a unique value or a range of values; or you use the
“amount cycle” management to create loan cycles:

A new table appears; click on “new loan cycle”

Then click on “add” to set a range of allowed amount for each loan cycle

Once your policy fixed for this product, click on “save” and enter a name
for this loan cycle type.

USE AMOUNT CYCLE NE MARCHE PAS

« Fees » tab

From this window, you can define fees penalties and commissions for loan products. For all
of these points, you can either set a specific amount either a range of values (min/max) that
will give more freedom to user when creating a new loan.

• Origination fees : proportional to loan amount

• Late fees: late fees are applied on a daily-basis. For each late day, fees will be applied,
possibly simultaneously, according the following basis:
o loan initial amount
o due capital
o late principal
o late interests

• Anticipated repayment fees: when a client fully reimburse a loan before the expected
loan closing date, it is possible to recalculate the schedule cancelling remaining
interests (see below). In this case, you can also charge a fee based on the due capital or
on the initially due interests.
« Exotic instalments » tab

From this window, you can create what we call « exotic products » and set loan products to
« fake » contracts.

Exotic products: Octopus allows you to create untraditional repayment reschedules. For
example, if you want to create loan products adapted to agricultural projects needs.
• To create a new exotic product, first set the loan amount (or the loan amount range)
• Then indicate the interest rate type to be applied (“declining with fixed instalments” or
“declining with fixed principal”).

- If interests are applied on initial capital, after you set the rate, you will thus
have set the total amount of principal and interests that has to be repaid. With
this exotic product editor, you can determine how these repayments will be
shared according to the instalments.
- If interests are applied on due capital, you can only set principal repayment
distribution, interests will be calculated automatically.

• In the « exotic instalments » tab, you can also enter instalment per instalment
reimbursements’ values as a percentage of the total due amount.
• When you entered all the data, Octopus will check that the repayments sums match
with 100% of the due total.
• Then save and give a name to this schedule type.
Fake packages: You can create “fake” packages ticking the matching check box (for
example, if you want to follow-up loans that are not directly managed by your institution).
Loans using this product will be tracked in Octopus but will not affect your accountancy.
1 New client: physical / moral person, group

Three kinds of clients can be handled with Octopus:

• Individuals
• Join Liability Groups
• Moral persons (cooperatives, associations, companies, etc...)

For each of these client types, specific fields have to be filled. These fields can be from three
different kinds: Boolean (“true” or “false”), preset (you can select one of the pre-entered data)
or free (user can enter the data by himself).
Physical person / individual client

The client form is composed by a main window that gathers main essential information about
the client (last name, first name, birth date, identity number, economic activity…) and several
secondary windows:

• Address: province, district, and possibly the city are preset fields and can be used to
get geographical breakdowns in your reports.

• Follow-up: indicate date of the first contact, sponsor name and possibly some
comments.

• Indicators: information regarding the work experience and owning of the person
(more apt to MFIs operating in developing countries).

• Customizable fields: (Boolean or free) fields that you can set by yourself (see
“configuration -> customizable fields).

• Budget and debts: household income and expenses, bank RIB / IBAN numbers, loan
cycle, bad client. All these fields can help you having a better knowledge about your
client economic situation.

• Personal situation: professional experience, information about household, housing,

education level, number of children and their education.
Group

A group gathers several individuals who want to share responsibility of their common loan.
The group form is composed by a main window (group name and creation date) and several
secondary windows:

• Address: province, district, and possibly the city are preset fields and can be used to
get geographical breakdowns in your reports.

• Follow-up: indicate sponsor name and possibly some comments.

• Leader: summary of information about the group leader. You can create a new entry
or browse the database to find the leader if already entered.

• Economic situation: you can define and know about loan cycle, “bad client”, credit
historic with other MFIs or add some free comments.

• Members: Group members list. From this tab, you can create a new person that will be
added in the group, search for an existing person and add it in the group, remove one
member of the group or set a new group leader.

NB: you can add or remove a member of the group only if the group is inactive. Of
course, you cannot add a new member to an active group.
 Loan share amount: by default, Octopus regards that the loan amount is equitably
shared within the different members of the group. However, you can modify this
information clicking n the “update share amount” button.

• History: gives information about form compositions of the group; you can know join
and left dates of persons that participated in that group.

Moral person

A moral person can be a client (for example association or cooperative) or can intervene in
Octopus as a donor for a funding line.

The group form is composed by a main window (name, acronym, short name, creation date)
and by several secondary windows:

• Legal form: company identification number, economic activity, legal form, number of
employees, number of volunteers, insertion type.

• Follow-up: indicate sponsor name and possibly some comments.

• Address: you can enter here corporate’s address.

• Contacts: you can browse the database to find existing persons or create new ones and
define their role towards the corporate.
2 Project

In client forms (person, group or corporate), you can find a « project » tab that allows you to
follow clients’ projects up.

To create a new project from this tab, click on « add ».

You can also double-click on an existing project to open its form.

Project form is composed by a main window (in which you have to set project name and
objective) and two other tabs:

• Analyses: four comment fields to analyze client’s abilities, experience, market and
competition.

• Loans / guarantees: gives the list of loans and guarantees linked to this project and,
as well, their status (active, pending, abandoned, refused). If you double-click on one
loan / guarantee you can access to its main form (see below).

In order to save a project, click on the “save project” button. A project code is then
allocated to the project according to the following:

BRANCH/YEAR/NUMBER/CLIENT NUMBER
3 Loans : creation and life cycle

A loan is linked to a project, which is linked to a client. When a loan has been approved by
the credit committee, it becomes a contract. This part describes the process of creation and the
life cycle of a loan (or of a guarantee).

Create a new loan

Remark: to apply for a new loan, client must be inactive, unless the general parameter
‘ALLOW_MULTIPLE_LOANS’ is set as true.

From the project form, go to the “loans/guarantees” tab. On the right, you can find a button
“add loan” or “add guarantee”.

When you click on one of these buttons, a menu will appear and indicate you the different
products available for this kind of client. Then you can choose the appropriate product; two
new tabs will appear: loan’s guarantees and loan’s details.
« loan’s guarantees » tab

For each loan contract, you can specify if the client has guarantors or collaterals.

To add a new guarantor, click on the “add” button on the right. A window appears and gives
you the opportunity to create a new person form or to browse in the database to find an
inactive person and indicate how much is the guarantee (in internal currency). When you click
on “save”, guarantor becomes active until the full loan’s reimbursement.

To add collateral, specify its estimated value and the type of collateral (to be set in
« configuration »-> « collateral »).

NB: after a loan has been approved by the credit committee, these values cannot be changed
anymore.
« loan’s details » tab

This tab gathers all the characteristics of a loan. According to the corresponding loan product,
certain characteristics will be set (and you cannot change them) and others will have to be
specified for each contract.

Loan characteristics to be specified are:

• Loan amount
• Interest rate per period
• Grace period
• Anticipated total repayment fees
• Late penalties (on initial amount, on OLB, on due interests and due principal)
• Disbursement date (expected)
• Installment type (monthly, weekly, etc…)
• Funding line
• Corporate
• Loan term
• Loan officer
• Entry fees

B y clicking on « preview », you can simulate repayment schedule in the lower

part of the window. Expected instalments’ total amount and interests to be
collected will be indicated too.

After you clicked on “save”, a code is allocated to the loan and the contract
appears in the Alerts window (with a left-oriented arrow). Until the credit
committee decision has been taken, it will remain like that.
This code is forged as following:

BRANCHE/YEAR/PRODUCT_CODE – LOAN CYCLE/CLIENT_ID

When the loan is saved, it is possible to print the loan agreement (contract) clicking on the
“print contract” button.
Contract status is moving to “pending”, a new tab appears: “credit committee”.

Credit committee

In this tab, the loan administrator can enter:

• Credit committee decision: the loan can be validated (accepted), abandoned (by the
client) or refused (by the credit committee). If the loan is refused or abandoned, it
disappears from the “alerts” window and the contract status will change to the
corresponding status. If the loan is validated, contract will remain in “pending” status.
• Credit committee date
• Comments

Once data are saved, they cannot be edited.

If the loan has been validated, “confirm disbursement” button becomes active in the “loan’s
detail” tab.
Disbursement

You can confirm a disbursement providing the contract has been accepted by the credit
committee.

To confirm a disbursement, the loan administrator has to click on the apt button in the
« loan’s details » tab. A new window appears, it displays the contract code, amount disbursed
and entry fees.

It is also possible to:

• Print a disbursement cash receipt
• Specify the real disbursement date
• Cancel the entry fees
• Reschedule the repayments according to the real disbursement date
• Set the exchange rate for the real disbursement date

Once disbursement has been confirmed, contract is switching to “active” status and two new
tabs appear: “loan’s repayment” and “audit trail” (regarding this tab, please refer to the
“Accounting” part).
Loan’s repayment

During the contract life cycle, you can enter manually repayments. In the “loan’s repayment”
window, you will find two different tabs:

• Repayments schedule: it presents for every instalment: the expected repayment date,
expected principal and interests to be repaid, principal and interests actually repaid,
the actual full repayment date. Fully repaid instalments are displayed in green,
otherwise in white.

• Events: it gathers all the events that occurred (disbursement, reimbursements, closure),
their date and amounts in principal, interests and fees.

NB: for a disbursement event (event code: LODE), the amount in “fees” column
corresponds to contract entry fees; for a reimbursement, this amount corresponds to
late fees or fees for anticipated total repayment.

To make a repayment, click on the « confirm repayment » button from the « loan’s
repayment” tab. A new window will appear:
On this window, enter the repayment date and total amount received (in internal or external
currency).

There are two different reimbursement modes: “in advance” or “reschedule”:

• “In advance” mode: by default, Octopus will allocate in priority the perceived
amount on the “late penalties” account, then on the “interests” and finally on
the principal accounts; and process this way instalment per instalment
complying with the initial repayment schedule (even in case of anticipated
repayment).

Nevertheless, it is possible to disable this automatic dispatching by ticking on

the “disable automatic calculation” check-box and entering the correct amount.

• “Reschedule” mode: previous instalments are handled in the same way as in

“advance” mode. For all anticipated repayment, fees may be possibly charged,
then all exceeding amount is allocated to principal account, then the schedule is
calculated again.

When you enter the data, the repayment schedule displayed on the lower part of the window
changes dynamically according to what you enter.

From this window, you can also print reimbursement cash receipts.

After the last repayment, a comment window appears, and then the client, contract and project
status are switched to “inactive”.

From the « loan’s details » tab, you can also reschedule the loan or print the repayment
schedule clicking on the buttons located on the lower part of the window.
From the “events” tab, you can delete the latest repayment and come back to the previous
situation (this action affects accounting and funding lines too).

Remark on client, project, contract’s status

The following scheme reproduces the different status of the “client”, “project” and “contract”
all along the loan life cycle:
4 Accounting

Octopus automatically generates all accounting movements linked to the loan tracking
according to the French accounting plan (you can see document in annexe explaining all
Octopus accounting rules).

Octopus can handle two different methods: accrual accounting ('accrual') or cash accounting
('cash'). You can set this through « general parameters » (see « configuration » part).

Accounting module (accessible from the top menu) is composed from these different parts:

• Chart of accounts
• Accounting transactions
• Export transactions
• Closure

Chart of accounts

This module offers you the possibility to check balance of every account available in Octopus
and to export these results to a report.

Through this module, you can also adapt Octopus' chart of account to your local chart (the
one used in your accounting software for instance).

To update the chart of account, select the account you want to modify and change the “local
number” (enter the one used in your accounting software) and the account “label”.
If you click on the « export balance » button, you can display then print the accounts out and
their corresponding balances.

Account view

This window allows you to find all the accounting transactions generated by the software and
to enter new ones manually.

In the scrolling menu “account”, select an account. The current balance of this account will be
displayed in internal and external currencies. All the accounting transactions will also be
displayed from the most recent to the oldest.
You can export these data and print them out clicking on the ‘print results' button on the left-
lower part.

« Loan administrator » and « administrator » can manually add transactions by clicking on the
'add entry' button. The following window will appear and will allow you to enter an amount
and to attach it to credit / debit accounts.
Export transactions

This module allows you to view all the transactions since the last export process and to export
them to coma-separated values (CSV) or Excel file. You can take this file and import the data
into your external accounting system.

You can also unselect the transactions that you do not want to export, unticking the
corresponding check box on the left. Then click on the « run export » button.
A window appears and prompts you for the expected export format and the file name.

Closure

This module allows you to run accounting closures, notably:

• “Accrue” due interests if you have set Octopus into “accrual accounting” mode
• Carry out delinquent loans’ provisions
• “Write-off” loans delinquent for more than one year
When you click for the first time on the “run simulation” button, Octopus will simulate and
display provisions and write-off transactions. You can then select or unselect manually
transactions you can to effectively carry out ticking or unticking the corresponding check box.
Click a second time on the button to confirm these transactions.

Remark: Octopus will consider loans to be potentially written-off all loans that have been
delinquent for more than 365 days; this value can be changed in “general parameters”.
5 Reports

This module contains four types of report:

• Standard
• Weekly consolidation
• Monthly consolidation
• Export

This part only deals with the first and the last of these types since the others are tackled in the
next part (Consolidations).

All Octopus reports are generated with Crystal Report software. They are directly printable
and exportable in various formats (.txt, .xls, .doc, .pdf, etc.) by clicking on the corresponding
button in the top left corner of the report.
Standard reports

‘Stock’ Reports

• Active loans: number of active clients, active loans and OLB

with breakdowns by :
o Product
o Loan officer
o District
o Domain of activity
o Interest rate
o Loan amount

• Clients and loans analysis : Portfolio analysis (active

contracts, active loans and OLB) aggregated by :
o Sex
o Loan maturity (loan term)
o Loan amount
o Grace period

• Number of clients and share of women – analysis of the number of clients and
OLB in function of sex and according to these breakdowns:
o District
o Loan officer
o Loan product

• Delinquent loans: List of late clients and late loans.

• Financial Stock: Balance of the accounts present on the chart account managed by
Octopus

• OLB per loan: List of the loans with the corresponding OLB at the current date

• PAR Analysis : analysis of the late OLB and breakdown by number of late days
and by :
o District
o Loan officer
o Loan product

And in the ‘Export’ window:

• LoanSizeMaturityGraceDomainDistrict (1 and 2) reports: they give plenty of
information regarding each client and the status of his reimbursments.
Here is an useful trick to do your own statistical manipulations that are not
managed by other reports: export the tables on Excel and do your own
manipulations (filter, sorting, etc.)
‘Flow’ reports

The flow reports allow to extract all transactions (disbursments and

reimbursments) that have been done between two given dates.

• Disbursments and reimbursments: display the sum of

reimbursments, disbursments, late principal and anticipated
repayments, according to these breakdowns :
o Loan product
o District
o Loan officer

• Disbursments: List of all disbursments between two given dates

(with the client name, the contract code, the amount in internal and external
currency)

• Loan disbursed: Sum of the disbursments within a given period by :

o District
o Loan product
o Loan officer

• Repayments: List of all reimbursments between two dates (with the client name,
the contract code, the amount in internal and external currency, and the possible
gain/loss related to the evolution of the exchange rate)

And from the start page:

• Roadmap: displays all planned events between two dates (in the future). The late
loans and their late OLB (and penalties) are displayed on the first day.
6 Consolidations

The consolidation module offers the possibility to gather data from various bases on one
single base to present key data in an efficient way (in particular, to display consolidated
reports). The consolidation procedure also enables the user to save a record of its portfolio
situation at a given moment and then to follow its evolution week by week, and month by
month.
The consolidation process does not consist in a merging of databases. Information
management (entering, deleting, and editing the database) is only possible at the branch level.
It allows users in the head office to get a detailed snap-shot of the portfolio of each branch
thanks to an easy and fast procedure which is specified below.

At the local level (Branch/sub office): creation and export of the

consolidation files
Remark: only an “administrator” or “super administrator” user can handle these operations.
In Octopus, it is possible to manage weekly and/or monthly consolidations. By clicking on
Tools>branch consolidation, you will display the next window:
In the top left corner, you can switch from the monthly to the weekly consolidations.
The calendar on the right side of the window allows to know if the last consolidations have
been done. They are displayed in green if they have, in red if they have not.

At the top, Octopus shows the number of the current consolidation, i.e. the next consolidation
to record, as well as the corresponding period.

To save the consolidation, click on ‘consolidate’. Then, the corresponding period becomes
green-coloured in the calendar and a new line appears on the left side among the already
saved consolidations.
The window, on the left side, shows consolidations which have already been done. Each
consolidation can be identified thanks to the corresponding year and month (or week) number,
as well as the date when the consolidation was saved.

By selecting a line, the “Export consolidation” button gives the possibility to export data
related to this consolidation in a small file (approximately 100Ko). This file can then be sent
by mail to the head office.

At the central level (Head office): importation of consolidation files

Before importing in Octopus consolidation files sent by every branch, it is firstly

recommended to store them on your server/computer, in a dedicated directory.
By clicking on Tools>Global Consolidation, the following panel appears:
In the top left corner of the window, you can choose the weekly or the monthly consolidation
module.

On the left screen are displayed the various branches (identified thanks to their code) with the
number of saved consolidations on the central base. You can display the list of consolidations
with their accompanying period related to a given branch by clicking on the corresponding
branch line.

To import new data, click on ‘Select consolidation file’ and select the wanted consolidation
file. Then click on ‘Import’. The new consolidation appears on the list as a proof of his
recording in your central database.

Consolidation reports

To put up consolidated data in reports, open the reporting module and select ‘weekly
consolidation’ or ‘monthly consolidation’.

This module enables the user to visualize by default a few reports. They allow a fast
extraction of aggregated and detailed data, for every branch that has been consolidated and on
several dates.

For instance, for the ‘LoanPortfolioAnalysis’ report, you can choose the wanted branch, a
period or a consolidation as well as a loan product type.
The report displays, according to the selected settings, a series of information: late OLB and
number of late loans, number and amount of disbursments during the given period, amount of
repayments, etc.
7 Database maintenance

This paragraph deals with maintenance operations of the database, a task dedicated to ‘Super
Administrator’ user:

Database update

In the online version, the update procedure is automatically done: When the user starts the
software, he is told that a new version is available; A simple click enables him to download
and install it, without any risk of loss of data.

In the standalone version, the user must download the installation file of the new version,
uninstall Octopus (go to start > Control panel > Add or remove programs) and then launch the
installation of the new version.

During the restart of Octopus, you may be asked to reset settings of the database connection.
In that case, you must configure the connection according to the next indications:

Octopus Database – Server:

• If you had installed SQL Server 2005 Express, server’s name must be written in this
standard: servername\instancename.
o Servername is the computer’s name of the network on which Octopus is installed
(It is also possible to enter ‘localhost’ if the client (Octopus) and the database
server are on the same computer)
o Instancename is the name of the database instance. By default, it is sqlexpress, but
you may have changed it during the database installation.
• If you had installed SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005 or MSDE, your server’s name
must simply be servername.

Octopus database – User name and Password:

• You can enter the User name by default ‘sa’ and the password that you have chosen
during the database installation.
• You can also create a new user account in your server with the accurate security rules
and open Octopus with this account.
After having clicked on ‘Save’, the software restarts.

Octopus gives you then the possibility to update your database (you can migrate data from
any version to any subsequent version). But you cannot come back to a previous version.
Then make sure you keep a backup from the previous version of Octopus too.

Your data are then saved, which makes Octopus update thoroughly simple and reliable.

Annexes
Hot keys
Alt-X: Exchange rate
Alt-F: Funding Line
Alt-R: Reports
Alt-T: Contract search
Alt-C: Client search

User support
A forum for users is available at this address:
http://community.octopusnetwork.org/
Feel free to post comments and suggestions, to signal any bug and to ask questions related to
the use of Octopus.

Contact OCTO Technology: tech@octopusnetwork.org

50, Avenue des Champs-Elysées
75008 Paris
Tél : (33) 1 58 56 10 00
Fax : (33) 1 58 56 10 01
www.octo.com/
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