When you’re an HR Director in a successful large organization, with one to three thousands employees, all of whom are members of an Employee Savings Scheme;

When these 3000 employees each makes a monthly contribution of various amounts, and put them under different savings or investment options (e.g., bank account, Bonds and Sukook, mutual funds, Reits, etc. (conventional or Sharia compliant);

When the performance of these savings options significantly varies amongst themselves, and from month to month;

When many of these employees (during the 12 months) make withdrawals for urgent needs, and switch the way they are investing within available options, or when they decide to increase or decrease their monthly contributions;

When the Head of Compensation or Accounts Manager wants to calculate the income generated from various investment vehicles/ asset classes, and then reconcile with the individual employees’ accounts on a monthly basis;

When he wants to calculate the Net Asset Value (NAV) of the scheme as aggregate and as individual rights of the employees;

When he needs to issue an accurate employee statement via the pay slip every month, or better still makes it available online or mobile, using modern-day technology;

When he or the Scheme Trustees want to analyse the portfolio in terms of performance, asset allocation, asset class and sub-class, markets, etc. in terms of efficiency and re-directing investment choice or asset allocations:

When he needs to generate and share scheme reports with internal and external auditors;

When he needs to apply the ‘financial control practice’ of distinct ‘maker’ and ‘checker’ roles;

And when he wants to assure stakeholders that his work is in line with best practice and legally protected; 

I genuinely “WONDER” how all of these CRITICAL elements can be executed error-free, manually, using the old ways of Excel Sheet !!