Testing the fastest growing Financial Management Systems

Financial transactions are a part of our daily lives. How we manage our assets, income, and expenses must all be recorded in a system. A business must see its present and future i.e., debit and credit accounting, to ensure that they are compliant with the industry’s accounting standards. It is the reason that every organization must have a financial management system to record the financial transactions and provide a genuine report whenever needed.

The least you would expect is not to leave your customers dissatisfied without a proper financial management system (FMS). FMS is software used by organizations to manage assets, income, and expenses. An FMS reduces accounting errors, maintains audit trails, and remains compliant with appropriate accounting standards.

A financial management system must have the following features to qualify as an appropriate system for every organization.

  • Maintaining the transparency of all payments and receivables
  • Calculating the asset depreciation over the time
  • Tracking the liabilities
  • Maintaining the data integrity and security
  • Updating the reports/records
  • Managing multiple bank accounts
  • Managing and repaying prepaid expenses
  • Reducing overall paper records and paperwork
  • Organizing income and expense statements and balance sheets
  • Maintaining the audit trail accuracy

Purpose of financial management systems

The purpose of the financial management system is to keep a complete record and help the organization determine how to acquire and distribute funds, make critical financial decisions, enhance profits, increase the company value, and maintain business stability. Financial management forms the core of every organization. The organizations use financial management systems to manage their income, expenses, and assets with the objectives of increasing profits and ensuring sustainability.

The responsibility of an effective financial management system is to improve the short- and long-term business performance. The software helps streamline invoice and bill collection, removing accounting errors, reducing record-keeping redundancy, and ensuring compliance with tax and accounting guidelines and regulations. FMS helps in quantifying budget planning and offering flexibility and scalability to accommodate change and growth.

As a part of growing financial management software, the software can also include features like supporting the creation of ad hoc reporting, month-end, quarterly, and year-end closing report generation capabilities.

Testing financial management systems

Financial management systems carry a massive responsibility of managing, tracking, and reporting financial decisions. Organizations cannot afford to go wrong with FMS. Organizations need support with strategic test designing, test planning, and test execution across the entire software development lifecycle.

The organization must consider different project stages to ensure maximum quality at different stages. There must be a thorough requirement analysis, followed by planning and scenario designs. In the test design phase, reviews are collected, the Internal Quality Audit Team (IQA) are leveraged, and the designed test cases are reviewed periodically by SMEs and domain knowledge experts. Test cases are built based on designs, followed by test executions. Ensuring quality is an essential requirement in a test execution phase. In this phase, detailed entry and exit criteria are evaluated, and defect status is reviewed periodically.

For extensive software such as financial management systems, it must undergo end-to-end testing to ensure the software quality.  A financial management system must be evaluated under different stages during the software testing lifecycle. These evaluation criteria include requirements assurance, integration assurance based on application suite and system landscape, functional assurance based on user acceptance, and non-functional assurance based on application performance and security. It is also important to automate test execution wherever applicable and conduct regression testing to eliminate redundant test cases.

Conclusion

At Yethi, we have successfully executed an FMS testing project for multiple clients with over 450+ branches and 300+ branches across the country. We have empowered many businesses with our proprietary 5th generation codeless test automation tool – “Tenjin”, and a repository of 850K+ test cases. Our clients have already reaped the benefits of the FMS integration testing solution with their existing Core Banking System model. We have successfully covered 4000+ test cases on different platforms.

10 Important Aspects to Consider While Testing Mobile Banking and Internet Banking Platforms

Testing mobile and internet banking platforms are essential in the current banking landscape. Customers no longer wish to continue with brick-and-mortar banking. They avoid visiting banks and standing in long queues as they know that the banks will meet their requirements even from a remote location. This daily dealing and transactions are now pushed to an extreme, where banking seems impossible without mobile platforms. Of course, inadequate performances of mobile banking have various consequences, and there is no room for pondering whether the mobile and internet banking platforms need testing. The answer to the question will always be a big “YES”.

Indian millennials totalling 440 million, compose 46% of the workforce and contribute 70% of the household income. An average millennial checks his smartphone once every 15 minutes. Digitisation has made it easier for millennials and other banking customers to access their banking accounts 24/7 without waiting in long queues. Mobile banking and internet banking have reduced the cost of banking and streamlined processes to deliver more value to customers. The key to gaining a competitive advantage is customer-centricity in banking applications.

Banking applications and software have complex structures which incorporate a wide range of features and ensure security to all its users, while ensuring a seamless and user-friendly experience. If a banking application is released full of bugs and errors with performance issues, it will damage the credibility of the bank. Banking has essentially become a multichannel provider, and a successful testing strategy is testing cloud, mobile, internet and other aspects of the banking applications to ensure proper performance.

Let’s look at the ten aspects that banking applications (mobile or internet banking) must consider while testing the platform

  • Total coverage of workflow and business requirements
  • The functional aspects of the application
  • The security aspect of the application
  • A fool proof disaster recovery programme to protect users from unfair practices
  • Data Integrity
  • User application, support service sectors and facilitate payments through multiple gateways
  • Integrate well with other apps, including billing apps, credit cards, and trading accounts
  • Fast processing of secured transactions
  • Increased storage capacity of banking apps
  • Be user-friendly, support users across all platforms and on all devices
  • High auditing capability to troubleshoot customer issues

Testing Internet banking platform and mobile banking platform for banking apps

While testing banking applications, one of the important issues to address is data complexity. Banking applications store all sorts of private information, data, passwords, and assets of the customer in the backend. The backend databases should not be affected by malware. Testing ensures that the data is protected. The bank should have an automation tool to check data connectivity continuously. Data connectivity testing is tested over a virtual private network continuously. This will ensure that the private data is safe. The following testing methods are recommended for internet banking and mobile banking platforms:


1) Privacy governance: The most common privacy governance model that is used in data protection is a decentralised model where different business owners within the organisation are responsible for data protection matters within the scope of Indian data protection laws and   requirements, stay compliant and being proactive in solving issues. They should have expert knowledge of the data protection law and its governance and the ability to fulfil the tasks set out in the regulation. There will be various areas such as legal, IT and others involved in this process.


2) Functional testing: The design and configuration of the banking apps have to be perfectly configured. In reality, many banking apps are designed and configured imperfectly.

The testers of the mobile and internet banking platform have to understand that all the modules and the system function as designed by developers while testing the app.


3) Performance Testing: Performance levels consist of infrastructure, backward integration, and connectivity. Performance failures plague both internet and mobile banking. There should be regular administrative oversight of transactions happening during regular interim periods. Load and stress tests should be regularly performed so that transactions have multiple supports at the same time. The performance of the banking app comes under pressure during festival times. User experience is affected when there is a performance failure of the banking app. It could be as simple as cyber/IT failure leading to incorrect balances showing in the customer accounts. This leads to mass panic. The banking app must obviate such potentialities.


4) Integration testing: Users use many different channels and internet connections, and testing should consider the fact that the performance of the banking app in different channels is uniform.  Banking apps should integrate with programs used by customers without difficulty and without creating hurdles and complexities. When different system modules interact on the customer’s mobile banking app, there will be bugs and errors, so the testing teams must be cautious about bugs and incompatibility impairing the performance. Some bugs are detected in the early stages of the software development life cycle. Bugs could be due to a broken database schema or a wrong cache integration. Integration testing is necessary to understand the variations in the developer’s logic against the software requirements. It is also necessary to validate the modules’ interaction with the third-party tools and Application Programming Interface. There is a multiplicity of mobile devices, used by the bank’s customers in the marketplace. The multitude of customer devices using different platforms and networks must be tested. As this is a complex process, the automation must be planned properly.


5) Accessibility testing: Users of mobile apps may suffer from various physical problems which include being partially sighted, being dyslexic, suffering colour blindness, movability issues relating to their fingers, suffering from arthritis or other issues like using a small screen. The mobile app should be user friendly as much as possible. Testing screen readers, analysing colour ratios, html validator, inbuilt accessibility options, WCAG 2.0 checkpoints, site readability and navigation will ensure better accessibility.


6) Usability , Usage and Acceptance testing:  Usability testing must bear in mind the needs and requirements of a different group of customers. The design of the banking app should therefore be simple. It should be tested among different groups of people as not all will have technical skills. The banking app should be user-friendly and easy enough to use so that even the luddite is able to use the banking app easily.
Acceptance testing ensures the mobile apps with their various features are accessible to the end-users and also for business needs. This type of testing could use a black box type of testing of end-users to make the app more user-friendly and accessible to end users.


7) Data Migration testing: This testing checks whether all data has migrated with integrity from the source platform to the destination platform. This is particularly necessary when data is migrated from legacy systems to the newer applications. Testing has to ensure the integrity of migrated data.


8) Security testing: Security testing is one of the most important aspects of testing the banking app. Banking apps are prone to fraud and phishing attacks. Vulnerability scanners and penetration testing can help in this process. Testing procedures must ensure that all international security standards are followed. The privacy governance in mobile banking apps is key as it interfaces with several other third-party applications. Trojan horses could be hidden in free games which can steal the user data. That is why several authentication factors are put in place before a customer can access his mobile banking app. The Operating system and network vary across various user mobile devices. Testing must adhere to all platform, network, and operating system security standards.

Mobiles are susceptible to theft and loss, malware, and malicious applications; there is also a lack of maturity in fraud tools and controls. There are also SMS, fraud, and operating system vulnerabilities. Testing should control these risks and ensure compliance with all security protocols.

9) Regression testing: Most banks are continuously innovating and adding new features to their banking apps. When mobile banking apps are modified, the changes can have unexpected consequences. Regression testing aims at making sure that no bugs or functionality impairments are caused due to such modifications. Regression testing is crucial for banking apps as they enable banking transactions and use the protected private data of customers. Therefore, regression testing of all updates to the mobile banking app is essential.


10) UI/UX testing: In this type of testing the testers must make sure how buttons, fields, toolbars, colours, fonts, and icons respond to the user input. Testers need to make sure that the mobile app, software, or platform responds perfectly to the end-user.

Key Takeaways

Testing mobile and internet banking platforms can be a complex and demanding process but experienced users can employ strategies that can help banks and their clients secure a vulnerability-free mobile app and a user-friendly interface. The mobile banking app and the internet banking app solution provided by the bank should be a secure, user-friendly app which is free of bugs and errors, where the user can navigate between various pages/screens with minimum difficulty and make a seamless 24/7 banking experience a true reality. The importance of the role of testers and other software specialists in transforming this dream into practical reality cannot be understated.

5 Common Misconceptions About Test Automation

With the world moving towards digitalization, people expect things to swirl around in the blink of an eye. There is no room for manual errors and the time to fix those errors are even less. It only makes sense to shift to automation testing, as it has proved to be a boon and not a bane for organizations. Automation and automation testing have exceptionally benefitted industries with a massive customer base, voluminous data, less time for market launch, budget constraints, and fewer human resources. Maintaining quality assurance (QA) of companies’ software assets with automation testing is essential.

Especially in banking and financial industries, where companies cannot afford to go wrong with a loyal customer base, a large amount of data and fixed deadlines, automation testing is effective, cost and time efficient. Every time the QA team identifies a bug in the code, the testers perform a routine test across the application to ensure its quality. According to the Transparency Market Research report, the global test automation market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 15.4 percent by 2025. As per Transparency Market Research’s expectation, the automation testing market will grow from 30.45 billion USD in 2016 to 109.69 billion USD in 2025. With such demand and growth, there are bound to be questions. In this article, we will address the top five common misconceptions about test automation.

 What is Automation Testing?

It is a software testing technique that leverages specialized tools or automated scripts to automate the execution of test cases, making software testing more efficient. On the other hand, manual testing requires human effort in the form of sitting in front of the system and validating as well as executing each line to check for bugs. This testing methodology is beneficial because it automates repetitive operations and performs a few other testing techniques that would be difficult to achieve manually.

We can convert practically all manual testing into automation testing using tools and automated scripts. Test automation comes in the following forms:

Let us take a closer look at the various myths and misconceptions concerning test automation that users have.

 5 common Test Automation misconceptions:

  • You can automate all the test components: Test automation has proven to be an effective technique to reduce manual testing and tasks. That does not imply that the QA team can automate all their testing operations. We must remember that all automated testing is based on code, which is nothing but imitating manual tests. The QA team is aware of several manual parts that are not always possible to include in automated script-driven testing. Furthermore, testers are informed of which test segments to prioritize and which to test using automated testing.
  • Automated testing is more expensive than manual testing: It is only partially true. The company’s initial investment in automated testing is higher. Purchasing test automation tools or developing automated test scripts, as well as hiring testers to run those tools, are the expenses. However, this is a minor outlay that saves time and money in the long run. The QA team can save a lot of money if they implement automated testing adequately. Manual testing requires more testers and more time, extending production time and increasing the cost of testers, development efforts, and consequently, late product delivery. Over time, the company can differentiate between the execution costs of automated testing and manual testing. Time is more valuable than money. Hence, automated testing is not as expensive as companies believe.
  • Automating the test is easy: Every organization understands that development is challenging and time-consuming and implementing automated test tools and scripts is even more challenging. Enterprises and firms that can perform precise test automation can have a competitive advantage in the market. If an enterprise does not perform test automation well, it is more likely to lose money and time. Automation testing is not easy since the QA team must decide whether to use automation tools or design personalized scripts to make the test more productive. Many automated testing tools on the market are promoted and purchased on the assumption that internal testers will be able to use them without any training. The major attribute of such testing applications is the ability to automate the collection and replay of numerous manual test cases. When it comes to maintenance, the easy-to-construct aspect of the development is inherently brittle and challenging.
  • For increased automation, you need more engineers: This is another myth and misconception that prevails in the development industry. Adding more engineers or even testers to a test automation will rarely result in a positive development effect. In fact, a team of two or three testers can easily manage multiple test projects for a corporation as automation testing does not require much manual observation or human intervention. Again, the misconception is partially true because the team can perform a large number of tests in an automated manner initially. However, as the product under test changes, which is common in the rapid development ecosystem, a considerable amount of testing maintenance is required. More engineers are hired in this area. However, companies are limited in their ability to add more resources.
  • One must be a developer to write or perform automated testing: Yes, the company occasionally or once in 4 to 5 years requires a developer to write the automated test script. However, most test automation is practised using automated testing tools, which the testers can execute these test tools. Testers do not need to have hard-core programming knowledge and expertise. Just the basic knowledge of testing and programming and understanding of how to use those tools and apply them to various testing situations are all they need. The QA team must choose the finest testing tool for executing and supporting the automated tests. However, there might be situations where the testing tool available on the market does not meet the QA team’s requirements. In such scenarios, companies can hire automation scriptwriters or outsource the scripting project to third-party firms or freelancers.

 Conclusion

Delivering consistent product quality is critical to a software development firm. At the same time, firms should reduce the time it takes to promote a product. Automation is a boon for the development firm in this case. The software development and quality assurance industries should avoid the myth to understand the benefits test automation renders in the software development sector.

Yethi’s 5th generation codeless test automation solution, Tenjin is an enterprise platform. The robotic capabilities of Tenjin enable to learn and adapt to the application and its updates. Tenjin, is a plug-and-play banking aware solution, continuous testing, minimizing the manual effort and speed up the test execution regardless of the complexity and number of updates.