Funds / Corpus with VSLA
Objective
This is to ensure that the group does not “deploy” or utilize more funds than what is available to them.
Business context: It is important to keep track of the funds available with a Group (VSLA) at any given point in time. Unlike a Micro-finance Institution (or Joint Liability Group) scenario - where the MFI brings in the funds to deploy, in a VSLA scenario, the groups have to raise their own funds for utilization via savings, loan interest payments etc.
The total Funds or the Corpus available with VSLA can be calcualted as:
Total Deposits made by Members
Plus loan repayments (includes principal, interest and fees components) made by members towards their loan accounts
Plus penalties and fees collected from member
Minus all withdrawals made by Members (from both Group-Linked Saving accounts and Individual savings accounts)
Minus all loan disbursals done by the Group to members
Minus any profits distributed to members
Success metrics
Goal | Metric |
|---|---|
At any given point in time, it must be possible to view the funds available with a Group | Accurate fund balance is displayed on the Group summary screen |
When a cash outflow transaction (Group-Linked or Individual Savings withdrawal, new loan disbursals etc.) is being captured, if the fund balance for the group is less than the amount of cash outflow, then the cash outflow transactions should not be allowed | All cash outflow transactions greater than the funds balance available with the Group should fail. |
Assumptions
For this release, the following funds inflow and outflow transactions will be supported.
Saving deposits (inflows)
Loan repayments (inflows)
Penalties from members (inflows)
Savings withdrawals (outflows)
Loan disbursals (outflows)
The following additional cash inflows and outflows may be supported in later releases:
External Funds received (inflow) - for example: NGO or Government departments providing funds (either as grant or as loan) to the Group
Repayment of External funds (outflow) - for example: Group repaying to the NGO or Government departments (with or without interest) funds received as loans
New Loan given by Bank (or any financial institution) to the NGO (inflow)
Loan repayments done by the group to the Bank or Financial institution (outflow)
Sundry expenses/incomes
Fund inflows and outflows when the Group (i.e. the members collectively) - does a income generating activity or runs a small business/enterprise jointly
Requirements
Requirement | User Story | Importance | Jira Issue |
|---|---|---|---|
At the time of starting a meeting, the fund balance should be visible to the user | As a Group Leader or data-entry operator, when I start a new meeting - the funds available with the group should be displayed on the screen - so that I know the funds position at the beginning of the meeting | Must have |
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As the meeting progresses, the fund balance should be kept up to date and visible to the user | As a Group Leader or data-entry operator, when I am on any step in the meeting, I would like to view the a new meeting - the funds available with the group should be displayed on the screen - so that I can be sure that I do not attempt to utilize more funds than what is available with the Group | Must have |
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At the time of ending a meeting, the fund balance should be visible to the user | As a Group Leader or data-entry operator, at the end of a meeting, it should be possible to view the following:
so that I can be view the balance as per the system and confirm the physical cash balance before closing a meeting | Must have |
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Out of Scope
The following are out of scope for this release:
Transactions with external parties (Banks, Government or any other 3rd parties etc.)
Distribution of profits to members (fund outflow)
Design
When SELF_FUNDED_GROUPS_ENABLED is set to true then the following is to be done:
“funds available with group” should b kept up to date.
At the time of creation of the group, “funds available with group” will be set to 0.
If any data migration is to be done (i.e. groups are already existing in the real world already and have existing fund balances) then the “funds available with group” is to be manually captured / uploaded during the migration process, along with savings balances and loan balances.
In the mobile app screens - the fund balance should be made visible:
Within the Group summary / status screens (both in mobile app and in the web app)
From all screens for the Group meetings (both in mobile app and in the web app)
In the mobile app - a running fund balance is to be maintained internally and kept upto date with each fund inflow or outflow
In the backend - a similar running fund balance is to be maintained internally and kept upto date with each fund inflow or outflow (a design for this may be debated whether this need to be done real-time and can be done via an event handler framework where a “fund inflow” or “fund outflow” event causes the balance to be update with a lag of a few seconds.
Open questions
Question | Answer | Date Answered |
|---|---|---|
Is this the list of transactions that need to be supported in the initial release: Inflows: Saving deposits, Loan repayments, Penalties from members Outflows: Savings withdrawals (outflows), Loan disbursals (outflows) | To be confirmed by Sinergia |
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