Summary -  Training organization with remote offices in Oklahoma, Canada and Dubai. The XML Accounting Server is deployed at its corporate headquarters and interfaced with its online course registration system to automate accounting transaction processing.  All sites access ObjAcct in real time.

Background - OGCI is a leading provider of domain specific training for the petroleum industry.  Since 1963 OGCI has offered world-class training on topics spanning the industry, from geology through geophysics, petrophysics, drilling, reservoir engineering, production operations, environmental science, economics and management. PetroSkills is a world-wide training alliance comprised of OGCI, BP, Shell Halliburton, Saudi Aramco, Unocal, Oxy, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, Repsol YPF, University of Trinidad & Tobago, and John M. Campbell.  By combining the synergy of it members PetroSkills delivers competency-based training on a worldwide basis.

OGCI System Architecture - CMS / ObjAcct Integration 

Technology Background - Individual employees of companies within the PetroSkills alliance use OGCI’s online Course Management System (“CMS”) to sign-up and register for training courses.  Registrants can use CMS to change, cancel, transfer and manage their course registration as well as process payments via credit-card/purchase order.  Every change to a registration has accounting impact. Each change made by a registrant online must be recorded separately and then processed appropriately often resulting in 100s or even 1000s of accounting entries over the course of a month.  Since there was no link between CMS and their Solomon accounting system, these entries had to be manually entered by accounting staff.  The volume of transactions forced OGCI to search for a more flexible accounting solution that could help automate these processes.

Worldwide Access – Real Time Integration Using XML - OGCI began searching for an open-architecture accounting solution that had an XML application program interface (“API”) and that would allow them to access their accounting system over the internet from multiple locations worldwide.  After an extensive product search, OGCI purchased the ObjAcct XML Accounting Server in March 2004.  OGCI also engaged ObjAcct, Inc. to design and develop an interface, called the Registration Interface Module (“RIM”), between CMS and ObjAcct to fully automate the generation and processing of all accounting transactions related to course registrations as well as all general accounting tasks.

OGCI’s requirements for RIM were:

• XML architecture;
• secure real-time interface between ObjAcct and CMS;
• secure real-time remote access to all systems via the Internet;
• automatic accounting transaction processing triggered by the CMS Web Registration site;
• ability to handle high transaction volumes.

To accomplish this, the ObjAcct Framework was deployed on a server at OGCI’s corporate headquarters in Tulsa, Okalahoma and exposed to the Internet to make it accessible by all remote sites.  Staff at all sites can login to ObjAcct using ObjAcct’s WinLedger and enter/process accounting transactions.  The WinLedger is a true Windows “smart-client” application that communicates back to the ObjAcct server in real-time using XML web services.

ObjAcct Interface - RIM automatically creates and processes the following accounting transactions in ObjAcct using the ObjAcct SDK upon request from CMS and the CMS Web Registration site: 

• Course Enrollment
  • Generate an invoice in ObjAcct.
• Adjustments (Tuition, Computer Charges and Taxes)
  • If a positive tuition adjustment, an Invoice will be generated.
  • If a negative tuition adjustment, a credit memo will be generated and automatically applied to the original invoice.
  • If a positive computer charge adjustment, an Invoice will be generated.
  • If a negative computer charge adjustment, a credit memo will be generated and automatically applied to the original invoice.
• Transfer a Paid Enrollment to Hold Status
  • No AR documents are generated.
  • A journal entry will be generated to move the deferred income to a hold deferred income account.
• Transfer an Enrollment on Hold Status to Another Session
  • Generate an invoice for the new session.
  • Generate a credit memo for the old session and apply this credit memo to the new session invoice.
  • A journal entry will be generated to move the hold deferred income to a deferred income account for the old session. (Reverse entry made when transferred paid to hold).
• Transfer a Paid Enrollment to Another Session.
  • Generate an invoice for the new session.
  • Generate a credit memo for the old session and apply this credit memo to the new session invoice.
• Transfer an Unpaid Enrollment to a Another Session
  • Generate a credit memo and automatically apply to original invoice
  • Generate an invoice for the new session.
• Cancel an Unpaid Enrollment
  • Generate a credit memo for the amount of the original invoice and automatically apply it.
• Cancel a Paid Enrollment
  • Generate a check for the amount of the original invoice and place the check on hold status.
• Accept Payment
  • Generate a payment and apply to invoices as specified.

Note: Used by permission of OGCI and PetroSkills.