India Post Accountants Demand Urgent Fixes in IT 2.0

The implementation of SAP in the Department of Posts (DoP) was meant to simplify financial management, payroll processing, and reporting. However, for the accountants and financial staff dealing with it daily, SAP has only added more complexities. While higher authorities assume that all work—salary processing, pension, IT-GST calculations, PLI/RPLI settlements—happens smoothly online, the ground reality is different. Instead of reducing workload, SAP has made routine accounting tasks more tedious and error-prone.

With IT 2.0 in the works, it is critical that these problems are fixed before they become permanent barriers to efficient financial operations in DoP.

1. Payroll & Salary Processing Issues

Even basic payroll processing has severe shortcomings in SAP, leading to incorrect salary calculations and manual adjustments every month:

1. HRA & TPA not adjusted for long leave: If an official is on continuous leave for more than one month, the Transport Allowance (TPA) is not reduced. Similarly, HRA is not adjusted for leave exceeding 180 days.
2. GDS gratuity is wrongly classified: Instead of reflecting in its concerned GL, it is merged with the pension GL, making reconciliation difficult.
3. PLI & RPLI commission for IP/ASP not properly accounted: The PLI and RPLI commission for Inspectors and Assistant Superintendents is not reflected in the correct GL.
4. Half Pay Leave (HPL) calculations are incorrect: Departmental officials face issues with HPL calculations in SAP, affecting their pay and leave balances.
5. Pensioner death details not recorded: There is no provision to enter death particulars of a pensioner and adjust pension accordingly.

2. Administrative Confusion & Lack of Awareness

With SAP implementation, Divisional and Administrative Heads assume that all salary, pension, GST, and insurance-related work happens automatically. As a result, many offices have reduced staff in accounts branches, ignoring the burden on remaining employees.

This misunderstanding must be corrected. The reality is that SAP still requires significant manual intervention, and staff reduction only increases errors and delays.

3. Errors in PLI/RPLI Processing

Postal Life Insurance (PLI) and Rural Postal Life Insurance (RPLI) face systematic issues in SAP, causing discrepancies in policy updates and premium recoveries:

1. Consumed policy list & error policy list do not match the recovery schedule of the concerned DDO.
2. If salary is zero, but PLI premium is not recovered, the policy still gets auto-updated in McCamish, even though no deduction has been made. This error should be flagged during salary processing rather than allowing incorrect updates.

4. Problems in Accounting & Fund Management

The accounting side of SAP is still far from seamless, leading to financial mismatches, incorrect postings, and repetitive manual work:

1. GL mismatches:
   • Many GL codes for payments (e.g., CRF stamp purchases, share stamp payments) are missing, forcing manual adjustments.
   • Transit GL and Liability GL are not verified regularly, leading to discrepancies. A maker-checker mechanism is needed for validation.
2. Liability creation is done incorrectly:
   • While most purchases are made by Divisional Offices (DOs), the bills are sent to Head Offices (HOs), where liabilities are created. Instead, liabilities should be created by the bill sanctioning office itself.
3. Incorrect handling of GST in SAP:
   • The DoP’s decentralized GST registration process is costly and inefficient. A state-level single GST registration (like SBI & LIC) would reduce workload and financial losses.
   • No provision to enter customer GST numbers in SAP, making data tracking impossible.
   • GST collection reports for SOs, BPCs, and RMFS are not generated, forcing manual calculations.

5. Cash Book & Reporting Challenges

One of the biggest flaws in SAP is the lack of essential financial reports:

1. No provision for automatic Cash Book generation, making reconciliation difficult.
2. HO, SO & BO Summary reports are missing, forcing manual report compilation.
3. No proper report for monthly NPC/Bills Paid/PLI/RPLI returns, adding to the workload.
4. DTR and TCB closing balances do not match on certain dates, leading to incorrect opening balances the next day.
5. SAP Utility Software is outdated, causing confusion at SO levels, as they remain unaware of GL code changes.

6. GDS Payroll & Leave Issues

Gramin Dak Sevaks (GDS) face additional salary and leave-related issues in SAP:

1. GDS officiating and vacancy details are not properly recorded, making payroll adjustments difficult.
2. If a GDS remains absent for an entire month, their employee contribution to SDBS remains zero, but the government contribution is still Rs. 300, creating an inconsistency in the recovery schedule.
3. Absentee statements must be included in SAP reporting, rather than being sent manually from each office.

7. Leave & Pension Issues

1. EL and HPL not reduced correctly for EOL & Dies-Non periods: When an employee has Extraordinary Leave (EOL) or Dies-Non, their Earned Leave (EL) and HPL should be reduced proportionally. However, SAP fails to adjust this at the time of next credit.
2. List of retirees not available: There is no option to generate a retiree list in SAP, making it difficult to track retiring officials.
3. No report for tenure completion: Administrative offices frequently ask for lists of officials completing their tenure at HOs, but there is no option to generate such a report in SAP.

IT 2.0 Must Fix These Flaws

The SAP system in DoP is riddled with critical gaps that increase the burden on accounts and administrative staff instead of simplifying processes. With IT 2.0 under discussion, it is essential that these issues are not ignored.

For SAP to function effectively, the following actions are necessary:
✅ Fix payroll & leave calculation errors (HRA, TPA, EOL, Dies-Non adjustments).
✅ Improve PLI/RPLI integration to ensure error-free premium recovery.
✅ Enable automatic Cash Book & Summary generation to reduce manual work.
✅ Introduce a single GST registration per state to centralize tax management.
✅ Ensure proper GL classification to reflect actual liabilities and expenses.
✅ Make absentee & tenure reports available in SAP for administrative tracking.
✅ Update SAP Utility Software to prevent outdated information at SO levels.

SAP was introduced to streamline financial operations, but unless these fundamental flaws are fixed, it will continue to be a burden rather than a solution.

It’s time for the authorities to recognize the struggles of DoP accountants and make SAP work for them—not against them.