‘It’s 5 January: out with the Christmas tree, in with Bas InSite!’

At the beginning of this year, financial advisor Nathalie de Vries-Bock sends an upbeat e-mail to dozens of staff members at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences (FSW). This is the day the university switches from the SAP system to the new administration programme Bas InSite, developed by software company Afas.

However, many issues arise during this transition, as emerges from internal e-mails obtained by Mare. The correspondence, which includes weekly updates, is addressed to financial staff who are required to work with the system.

The first e-mail, dated 5 January, contains a long list of things that are not working yet. Staff who are supposed to create sales invoices are unable to do so because the required ‘Sales’ tile is missing, the VAT code cannot be adjusted when preparing invoices, the ‘Financial’ tile is not available to project controllers, expense claims cannot be submitted under the new cost centre number, and managers are listed incorrectly in the system.

On Thursday 8 January, the tone is noticeably less upbeat. ‘I’m not going to sugarcoat it’, writes De Vries-Bocker in a new update. ‘There is still a great deal that is unclear, not properly set up, and a lot of things simply don’t work yet. The list is extremely long. Everything will be resolved, but this will take time and will therefore require a lot of patience from you.’ Staff are asked to postpone as many tasks as possible: ‘If invoices, expense claims, and adjustments can wait a little longer, please let them wait.’

A week later, on Wednesday 14 January: ‘Unfortunately, we’re still far from where we need to be. This is causing us anxiety, uncertainty and a considerable workload. It is what it is. Please be patient and know that eventually everything will work.’

That patience has been thoroughly tested over the past two months, as shown by the eight e-mails that follow. Each one lists what is currently working, but also what is still not. Although the financial advisor tries to stay positive, her messages increasingly reflect her growing frustration.

‘Afas is straining at the seams’, she writes on 26 January. According to her, the system was launched too early, ‘when it was still riddled with problems and had not been sufficiently tested’. The only alternative would have been to postpone it for a full year, as such systems always come into effect on 1 January. ‘The choice was made not to do so, which has made for a very uncomfortable first month of this year.’

To keep spirits up, the e-mails always end on a ‘positive note’: one time it is a shout-out to ‘the Binnendijk family for the homemade cupcakes as consolation for the Bas hassle’, another time she shares the song ‘Let It Go’ from the Disney film Frozen, which she proclaims to be the ‘Afas battle anthem’.

But in early February, the mood shifts. The reason for this is an interview with Wouter Peters, director of the Administrative Shared Service Centre (ASSC), on the university website, in which he says that the first month of Bas InSite going live has been ‘good, tough and challenging’ and that the transition ‘calls for staff to be adaptable’.

TONE-DEAF AND OFFENSIVE

He also claims to have heard in the corridors that ‘BAS InSite and the Afas Pocket app are intuitive and easy-to-use’. 

In a new update, De Vries-Bock writes that ‘the interview has clearly been very poorly received’. Institute managers reportedly described it as ‘tone-deaf and at times even offensive’, given that the problems are still far from resolved. ‘It’s incredibly frustrating that you still can’t do your job properly, that you hop from one error message to the next and that there are black holes where both expense claims and your support requests disappear.’ 

She also notes that colleagues are running out of patience. ‘Don’t take your Afas frustrations home with you!’ she urges.

This continues throughout the entire month. The problems listed in the e-mails are wide-ranging. For example, staff who are not on the payroll often still cannot be paid, there are problems with booking travel, financial staff have no insight into salary payments and project leaders have no insight into their expenses. Staff who are responsible for approving invoices suddenly no longer have access to the system or are no longer authorised to do so due to a bug. 

A staff member who shared the internal correspondence with Mare, whose name is known to the editors, says that ‘the situation in the workplace is dire’ and that ‘staff are completely exhausted and dropping out’. Some are reportedly sitting at their desks in tears. Secretary’s offices are now receiving payment reminders, including from debt collection agencies.

Moreover, the software was only tested ‘to a limited extent’ beforehand, and employees received insufficient training to learn how to work with the new system. ‘There are walk-in sessions now, but the problems remain’, says the source. ‘This affects hundreds of people.’

In response to questions from Mare, controller Nathalie de Vries-Bock confirms that secretary’s offices are receiving payment reminders and that debt collection agencies have made contact. ‘This has a huge impact on the people who work there. There is a large backlog in invoice processing, which requires a lot of manpower.’ She says that some invoices from December still have not been paid.

When asked whether it is true that the problems affect hundreds of people, she answers in the affirmative. ‘It’s not just about the people across the university who are unable to do their jobs properly, but also about those who are uncertain when they will be paid.’

INSUFFICIENTLY TESTED

Although she wrote in one of her updates that the system had not been sufficiently tested beforehand, she does not want to elaborate on that now. ‘It’s not up to me to comment on that.’ 

She neither confirms nor denies the claims that staff are sitting at their desks in tears. ‘I find it difficult to say anything about that because I’m close to the staff. But I notice that a large number of them come to work reluctantly and are clearly struggling with this.’ 

She emphasises that ‘a lot of people are working very hard to solve the problems as best they can’. That includes herself. ‘This is the only thing I’m currently working on. I can’t carry out any of my other duties at the moment.’

Egon Houben, FSW’s Director of Operations, acknowledges that ‘we’re dealing with serious problems’. But according to him, there was no lack of training beforehand.

‘In the run-up to Afas’s roll-out, the faculty made its initial preparations in April. In October, November and December, we offered a lot of training sessions at a central level to staff who would be working with this system. These were largely well attended. During these sessions, staff were able to practise using the system in a simulation environment.’ Houben also states that a lot was tested in advance, ‘but unfortunately you can’t test everything in advance because once it’s all live, some things work slightly differently’. 

‘With what we know now, we have to reflect carefully’, he says, looking back on the past few months. ‘Most colleagues have never experienced such a large-scale transition before, which makes the change all the more challenging. These people are working their socks off, and yet we still can’t get it to run smoothly. It breaks my heart that this is bringing colleagues to tears.’

Still, he wants to emphasise that a new system is desperately needed. ‘The SAP system was very maintenance-intensive, and departments used it in different ways. With the new system, we want to harmonise that so that everyone works in the same way, making the administrative system future-proof.’

Houben estimates that it will take some time before all the problems are resolved. ‘Don’t hold me to it, but I hope that in two months’ time, we’ll be able to say that the roller-coaster ride is over. 

On Wednesday evening, after questions from Mare, the Board published a statement on the university website in line with its response to Mare (see text box).