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2
Contents
Contents
Trends in Global Cash Management 5
The Cash Management Process 7
The Traditional Cash Management Process 8
Inbound Data 8
Cash Reporting 8
Intraday Bank Files 8
Cash Concentration and Funding of Disbursement Accounts 9
Investment and Debt Decisions 9
Currency Management 9
Derivative Transactions 9
Electronic Funds Transfers 10
End-of-Day Data 10
Month-End Data 10
The Cash Management Process with mySAP Financials 10
Inbound Data 10
Cash Reporting 11
Intraday Bank Files 11
Transaction Processing 11
Period-End Processing 11
Benefits of Cash Management in mySAP Financials 12
3
Contents
4
Trends in Global Cash Management
And because you now manage information in addition to cash, you have
become an integral part of other business functions. Youre now responsible not
only for executing transactions, but also for anticipating problems, taking
advantage of market changes, controlling costs, planning strategically, and
assisting in meeting corporate goals.
Today, your skill in managing financial assets has a direct impact on your com-
panys competitiveness and shows up both on the bottom line and in the share
price. To fulfill your responsibilities, you need a treasury solution that is inte-
grated with the business and updated in real time as cash-relevant transactions
occur. Managing working capital is of primary importance. An accurate and
timely cash forecast based not only on bank-account, accounts receivable, and
accounts payable data, but also on sales and procurement information helps
you make better investment and borrowing decisions.
5
Trends in Global Cash Management
You must look at all steps along the working-capital time line. To do this effec-
tively, you must have a treasury system that is integrated with the enterprise
information system and gives you a complete picture of cash. You can make
superior financing decisions when you have at your disposal all the up-to-date
information about orders placed and entered, the status of shipments and
invoices, procurement expenses, and current credit and market information.
Your business is constantly changing. Youre making decisions faster and soon-
er. Your treasury system can and should be in a position to help you drive the
business forward. The solution must have a business model that is flexible
enough to match your companys geographic scope and organizational struc-
ture, and it must meet your needs for automation and sophistication.
The solution that meets all these needs is Cash Management in mySAP
Financials.
6
The Cash Management Process
7
The Cash Management Process
Cash Reporting
The cash worksheet is often a spreadsheet generated in Microsoft Excel or Lotus.
It allows you to manipulate the data and add additional flows, such as a pro-
jected tax payment, to the forecasted data. Once entered, the data becomes part
of the worksheet until you manually remove it. As more information becomes
available or the data changes, you must manually edit the report. You must con-
stantly update the worksheet as transactions are initiated, funds transferred, and
deposits concentrated.
8
The Cash Management Process
Currency Management
You must also manage individual currencies, following the same data-gather-
ing and analysis procedures you used before, to set and manage the overall cash
position for each currency. Again, you must record and maintain in the work-
sheet the future cash flows and any resulting gains or losses.
Derivative Transactions
Managing currency and interest-rate risk exposure may result in executing
options, swaps, and other steps to offset and limit your risk and exposure. The
various potential financial results of derivative instruments must be reflected in
the cash position and forecast when applicable.
9
The Cash Management Process
End-of-Day Data
You need to poll todays bank data at least once more to verify the transactions
that you initiated throughout the day and to view additional data such as lock-
box deposits and incoming wires. You must then update the cash worksheet
with this new data and prepare to post the days transactions to the general
ledger.
Month-End Data
All the cash management transactions must be managed to allow for the appro-
priate accounting treatment for each period, including cash accounting, for-
eign-currency gains and losses, and interest accruals and deferrals. You must
also reconcile bank statements and accounts payable and accounts receivable
subledgers, and post the required general ledger transactions.
10
The Cash Management Process
Cash Reporting
Real-time reporting within mySAP Financials allows you to view a reconciled
report on the current cash position at any time. From the report, you can easi-
ly research additional data on any suspect balance by drilling down on the
balance in question. This allows you to determine the account affected and the
reason for the transaction in question. The cash-position report automatically
and immediately reflects new transactions. The drill-down functions let you
analyze multiple currencies or balances across companies.
Transaction Processing
Throughout the day, as you make decisions to concentrate balances, fund cur-
rencies, and execute investment or hedging transactions, the system automati-
cally creates the corresponding cash flows, constantly updating the cash reports.
It also creates payment files and transfers them to the banks electronically.
In addition, you can post cash transactions to the general ledger as cash-in-
transit, providing a foundation for reconciliation with the next mornings bank
statement.
Period-End Processing
Because the system posts all the transactions as soon as they occur, you need
not create any adjusting entries. The system automatically posts accruals and
deferrals and performs all calculations required to determine gains, losses, rev-
enue, and expenses. Results are automatically posted, making the period-end
closing swift and simple.
11
The Cash Management Process
12
The Cash Management Process
Cash
Market information management Trading
decision
13
The Cash Management Process
Inbound Data
The three main sources of cash-relevant data are bank statements, operational
systems, and planning items.
Bank Statements
mySAP Financials supports more than 27 standard formats for bank communi-
cation that are used worldwide. This capability provides the foundation for your
global cash management system. Authorized individuals can access the bank
transaction status or current balances 24 hours a day worldwide.
The second processing step clears transaction activity that is not critical to
developing the active cash position of your organization. This procedure clears
the appropriate subledger transactions, which were not automatically cleared
and appeared in a post-processing list.
14
The Cash Management Process
Electronic
bank statement Bank
postings
Swift MT940 EU
MultiCash EU
Lockbox USA
BACS UK Bank Cash position and
Area-specific
ETEBAC F Data liquidity forecast
processing
CODA BE Buffer
03/15
FIDES CH
Banks 100
CSB43 E
Subledger 25
ZENGINKYO JP
IDOC SAP
Interface
. Subledger
. accounts
(A/P, A/R)
Manual bank
statement
Electronic bank statements attach transaction codes to each item. These codes
tell mySAP Financials what kind of transaction the particular bank-statement
item represents. To specify how each business transaction from the electronic
account statement has to be posted, you can define posting specifications for
each transaction code within the system. A posting specification can determine
a general ledger account posting and a subledger account posting known as
area-one and area-two posting, respectively. You can set the posting specifica-
tions to select one or both of these postings.
To process bank-statement items correctly, the system needs to identify the cor-
responding internal open items. To achieve this, the system uses standard algo-
rithms to interpret and search for recognized values in the transaction field of
the electronic bank statement. For example, the system contains algorithms for
check-number search and document-number search, based on the details of
transaction data. If an algorithm is defined to interpret the activity of the elec-
tronic bank statement, the system examines data within the transaction line to
determine whether it represents, for example, a known document number, ref-
erence document number, or check number. If the number is valid and correct,
the system finds and clears the corresponding item or items within the system.
The interpretation algorithm automatically finds incoming and outgoing pay-
ments based on information supplied by customers and the bank within the
bank statement. If the standard algorithms supplied by SAP do not meet all your
requirements for clearing, you can define your own functional algorithms.
15
The Cash Management Process
Two options are available for post-processing electronic bank statements. One
option is to post immediately; the other is to generate batch input. If you choose
to post immediately, you can use the post-processing transaction to modify and
post line items that the system was unable to post automatically for example,
if no matching open item could be found in the system.
For batch input processing, the batch sessions are processed in the background,
and the results are recorded in a processing log. Uncompleted transactions
remain in the sessions as defective records. You then post-process these unsett-
led transactions online. You can delete or edit defective data to assist in the
clearing process. Post-processing is complete when no defective transactions
remain to be processed.
The two-step integrated process described above allows all areas of your organ-
ization to use the same data and reduce transaction-reporting costs charged by
the bank. For example, accounts receivable can review payments received from
customers, accounts payable can review checks that were cashed by vendors,
and cash managers can review all wires and transfers. Everyone can focus daily
on items with problems or discrepancies. Daily automated processing also
results in stronger operational control, because you can identify unexpected
transactions and resolve errors immediately, rather than waiting until the end
of the month when a paper-based bank statement arrives.
Cash Management in mySAP Financials can retrieve and process intraday (cur-
rent-day) data without the problem of double postings to the general ledger.
Processing intraday electronic statements is similar to processing prior-day
statements. However, current-day data is not posted to the general ledger.
Instead, it is represented on the cash position as memo items, which are later
replaced by the following days electronic bank statement postings.
16
The Cash Management Process
You can set the cash-position report to present intraday data with the transac-
tions that the bank file indicates will clear today, rather than the clearing-
account information used in the days earlier report. For example, you could use
first and second presentment of check totals rather than the total, or percent-
age of the total, of outstanding checks as the basis for funding a controlled
disbursement account.
Lockbox Statements
A lockbox procedure accelerates payment receipt and check processing and is
normally offered as a service by banks. A lockbox account is a payment-col-
lection account that you set up with your banks. You can tell your customers to
send payments directly to your lockbox account at a particular bank to accel-
erate the receipt of funds. The bank collects the payments as well as the remit-
tance information or payment advices. It also collects and enters data from
check payments sent by customers and notifies you of the information via file
transfer. Once a day or several times a day, the bank can send you relevant
information about the checks received.
mySAP Financials stores the payment and remittance information in the form
of a payment advice, which is used to clear subledger open items. The lockbox
processing continues by generating automatic postings to both the bank-clear-
ing (general ledger) and accounts receivable (subledger) accounts based on the
advice data. After the lockbox automatic processing program has run, you must
use the post-processing function to correct any checks that cannot be applied
automatically. Your post-processing activities might include applying payments
received, clearing open customer items, or resolving unapplied funds.
The last reconciliation step is to clear the bank-clearing accounts with the end-
of-day bank account statements. Cash Management in mySAP Financials auto-
matically processes the end-of-day account statements and creates postings of
the lockbox deposits on the bank accounts (general ledger). Offset postings are
then created on the bank-clearing accounts (general ledger).
17
The Cash Management Process
18
The Cash Management Process
Once the transaction is invoiced, the cash management functions make the spe-
cific terms and amount payable available for your reports. Finally, when the
invoice is paid using a payment run in accounts payable, the cash management
functions use the date of the check along with historical data on the specific
vendors average check-cashing time to present the expected disbursement on
the cash-position report. Once the check is charged to a specific bank account,
you import from the bank the same-day balance, which updates the cash posi-
tion with a memo record. On the next day, when you upload the prior-day bank
statement, the bank posting replaces the memo record.
Accounts Cash
Purchasing
payable Management
Purchase Liquidity
order forecast
delivery date and
Goods payment conditions
Invoice
receipt
updated payment
history
Outgoing
payment
Cash
Account position
statement
payment according
to arranged/forecast
date
19
The Cash Management Process
The process flow for incoming payments is similar. Here the SAP system proj-
ects a receipt, taking discounts into consideration, as well as the delivery date
for the sales order, the customer-payment terms, and the customers historical
payment behavior.
Planning Items
Planning items generally reflect expected cash inflows and outflows that are not
caused by actual postings. Planning items can be generated by intraday bank
statements as well as by data imported from operational systems. You can man-
ually enter any cash-relevant transactions that are not covered by these sources.
You can import planning data from subsidiaries using an upload program to
import a spreadsheet, or you can enter them manually. You can give each plan-
ning item a maturity date, which the system uses for automatic archiving once
the date has passed. Planning-item journals give you an overview of planning
items. You can limit the overview to specific items using selection criteria such
as planning type, value date, and currency.
The cash management functions can reconcile planned items with actual bank
postings. The system selects items that have a specific planning date and com-
pares them with the actual bank postings on a specific account or in a specific
bank statement. Criteria for matching the items to the postings include the com-
pany code, bank account, currency, amount, and value date. The system can
generate a list of potential matches for you to manually select and archive the
matching planned items. Alternatively, the system can perform the archiving
automatically, generating an archiving protocol. For automated processing, you
can define tolerance intervals for the amount. Non-matching items are summa-
rized in an exception list for manual post-processing.
The Cash Position tool represents the short-term view and reflects relatively
certain and exact information about bank account balances and cash flows in
transit. Cash movements in this report result from bank statements, short-term
treasury transactions, postings to bank-clearing accounts, and confirmed plan-
ning items.
20
The Cash Management Process
The Liquidity Forecast has a midterm focus. It is fed with more uncertain and
less exact information from sales and procurement, accounts payable, and
accounts receivable, as well as with midterm financial transactions and uncon-
firmed planning items.
The cash position displays the short-term liquidity status by analyzing the bal-
ances in the bank and bank-clearing accounts with respect to value date. It can
also display confirmed planning items in the form of memo records, as well as
expected cash inflows and outflows from short-term treasury transactions. With
integrated information from all these data sources, you gain a very compre-
hensive view of your short-term liquidity situation based on actual and con-
firmed planning data.
You can analyze the information in the cash-position report along multiple
dimensions, such as currency, business partner, value date, and business unit.
Another key parameter in determining the structure of the report is the group-
ing of accounts. The grouping defines which accounts are to be considered in
the report and which are irrelevant. By requesting different groupings, you can
obtain reports that structure and present the cash-position data in an unlimited
number of formats, according to your information needs.
21
The Cash Management Process
For example, the cash-position report may identify that a total is less than
expected. You can start with that total and use the drill-down capabilities to
identify the source of the discrepancy to be, for example, a controlled disburse-
ment account. By drilling down further on the balance, you might determine
that an unexpected check-payment program run caused the discrepancy. By
drilling down on the position entry, you can view the payment document in the
general ledger (bank accounts) and easily identify the payment recipients and
the amount of the check run.
Grouping
Level: Accounts:
BANKA 09/01 09/02 09/03 Subledger 09/01 09/02 09/03
F0Subledger 40 80 20 Account 1 10 30 10-
B2Incoming checks 60 60 60 Account 2 20 70 20-
B1Outgoing checks 10- 10- 20- Account 3 10 20- 50
22
The Cash Management Process
Bank collection
(E1)
(E2)
Groups:
Payer of net Customers with similar payment history
amount (E3) Customers of particular interest
France (E4)
(E5)
F1 =
Posting/Sales
Levels:
FW =
Bill of exchange Balances specified according to level
XA =
Blocking reason A
23
The Cash Management Process
The liquidity forecast report has the same drill-down capabilities as the cash-
position report. You can drill down from a specific balance by level or group,
across companies or currencies. The deepest level of detail is single documents
in such areas as accounts payable, accounts receivable, and materials manage-
ment.
With the help of Cash Position and Liquidity Forecast, you can automatically
and immediately capture and take into consideration all the transactions taking
place along your companys value chain.
With Cash Management in mySAP Financials, you can run reports for individ-
ual areas and perform cross-area analyses and evaluations. The cash manage-
ment functions are linked to SAP Business Information Warehouse, so you can
perform management reporting across the entire enterprise and combine cash
management data with other operational data.
You can select reports that help you evaluate cash flows and cash positions
across all the areas of corporate finance management. You can use the drill-
down reporting tool to individually design and interactively process reports. The
reporting tool is highly flexible. You can use it to portray results graphically,
transfer data to PC applications, and link and organize reports into reporting
tree hierarchies.
24
The Cash Management Process
Reporting structures
MM
SD
Planning date
A/P, A/R
x Planning date x Currency
Bank account
G/L
Com TR
pany
code
1
Planning date
Planning date
Planning date
Currency
Currency
Currency
Com
pany
code
25
The Cash Management Process
The account-balance list shows on a monthly basis the balance carried forward
at the beginning of the fiscal year, the total for the period or periods carried for-
ward, the debit total for the reporting period, the credit total for the reporting
period, and the debit balances or credit balances at the close of the reporting
period.
The journal for payment requests lists open or cleared payment requests gener-
ated in the system.
26
The Cash Management Process
Transaction Manager
Money Foreign
Securities Debt Derivatives
Market Exchange
27
The Cash Management Process
For example, based on the cash position and liquidity forecast reports, you may
discover a liquidity deficit that needs to be funded for 30 days. Within the
Transaction Manager, you have predefined the instruments that your company
uses for debt management. You select a suitable instrument and business part-
ner for the transaction and enter the amount, interest rate, and the 30-day dura-
tion. When you store the transaction, its cash flows are immediately reflected
in the cash-position and liquidity forecast reports. The amounts shown are
todays borrowing amount, the principle repayment, interest paid, and any other
associated costs that you incur in 30 days.
Outbound Data
Payment Run Procedure
Payment runs identify all payments due and prepare them for execution. You
can schedule payment runs to execute automatically or on an as-needed basis.
Payment runs result in document postings to the bank subledger accounts. In
addition, payment runs generate the request to your bank partner to disburse a
payment. You can define parameters for the payment program to specify the
scope of the payment run. Company codes, account types, paying bank, the
desired posting date, the possible payment methods, the date of the next pay-
ment run, and the form of data carrier are some of the specifications you can
use to define a payment run.
Before starting the actual run, you can execute a proposal run. The proposal run
gives you the opportunity to review and edit the targeted payments prior to
their execution and posting. When creating the payment proposal, the system
first checks the results, then writes the proposal log and records any exceptions.
It then generates the proposal list, which you can display or print for review and
editing. Once you have made any modifications and accepted the proposal, the
payment run is scheduled for execution.
28
The Cash Management Process
Documents
Proposal run
Payment run
Print program
For all necessary postings, data carriers are created to initiate the payments.
These data carriers can take on various forms and are transferred to the corre-
sponding bank or other business partners in different ways. Electronic payment
message transfers are the most common way. They result in a much quicker and
more efficient payment process with the banking partner. Valid payment meth-
ods and message formats include check payments, automated clearing house
(ACH) payments, and Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecom-
munications (SWIFT) messages.
29
The Cash Management Process
Vendor Payments
Most companies accounts payable departments set up payment run schedules
as part of the business process. Whether your vendors, customers, or employees
are paid once a day, once a week, or twice a month, the SAP systems payment
program offers a comprehensive payment feature that allows a single payment
run to use various payment methods such as checks, bank transfers, ACH pay-
ments, and payments by Fed Wire. You specify the payment method for each
vendor in the vendors master record. For example, if you select check as the
payment method of choice in a particular vendors master record, the vendor
will always be paid by check. To make an exception, you can specify the pay-
ment method when posting the invoice to the vendors accounts payable. For
example, to pay a particular vendor by wire for one time only, you can set the
posted invoice documents payment method to transfer, and the vendor will be
paid by wire for this particular invoice.
When accounts payable runs the payment program to pay the vendors, a pay-
ment proposal is generated first. You can review the proposal, then complete or
correct it and regenerate it afterward. Once the proposal is correct, it simply
executes. Postings are then made in the banks general ledger clearing account
for outgoing payments and to the accounts payable subledger to clear the open
items and reflect the cash disbursements. When the checks or electronic funds
transfers are cleared with the banks, the end-of-day bank account statement
processing will clear the corresponding bank-clearing account with a posting to
the bank account (general ledger).
You can freely define which accounts to include in your cash concentration
activities. Based on this group of accounts, the system generates a proposal for
all necessary transfers of funds. It automatically creates planning items to rep-
resent these transactions on the cash-position report. You can establish mini-
mum balances and transaction amounts affecting the concentration proposal.
Optionally, you can require an authorization to release the transfers of funds
30
The Cash Management Process
resulting from the cash concentration activity. The system then generates the
payment request and executes the payment run to post the transactions to the
bank general ledger accounts. The system sends the outcome of the payment
run (transfers of funds from the cash concentration account) to the banks in the
form of electronic payment orders.
A bank might handle the concentration service by a sweep account that auto-
matically moves funds from one account to another as a zero-balance account-
ing service. In the case of a sweep account, only those funds required to cover
the sweep need to be monitored. The system performs the same calculations as
the bank for moving the funds and updates the cash-position report appropri-
ately. No payment order is generated or sent to banks in this case.
Other repetitive payments include those to vendors and treasury business part-
ners, which you are likely to pay by wire on a scheduled basis. You set up codes
to move funds efficiently between two fixed accounts, with the agreement of
the bank receiving the payment instruction.
31
The Cash Management Process
To handle repetitive transfers, you and your banking partner define a repetitive-
transfer transaction number that is associated with the fund movement between
two specific bank accounts. The banks system maintains the number and the
characteristics of the repetitive funds transfer. You also enter the information in
the SAP system so that it can be included in electronic payment messages.
Because the accounts involved and the direction of the flow of funds are fixed,
a lower level of authorization is needed to initiate a repetitive transaction than
to initiate a freely defined transaction. This way, you can give users with lower
authorization the opportunity to generate fund transfers in appropriate circum-
stances.
32
Electronic Bank Communication
MultiCash Formats
Files in MultiCash formats are created from bank statement data received from
the banks (usually in SWIFT MT940) using bank-communication software.
33
Electronic Bank Communication
SWIFT MT940
Many banks provide bank statements in the international SWIFT MT940 format
(with or without structured field 86).
SAP offers the SAP Software Partner Program, in which banks and bank-com-
munication software providers are certified to deliver files to SAP systems in
SWIFT MT940 format.
Electronic Payment
SAP supports and generates various message formats for transmitting payment
files. Printed checks and payment by ACH or SWIFT messages are a few exam-
ples. A payment run may automatically trigger the electronic delivery of pay-
ment messages to your bank partner, resulting in a much quicker and more effi-
cient payment process with the banking partner. SAPs intermediate document
(Idoc) interface is one way to establish such electronic payment processes.
For each payment method, you can select one payment medium generation pro-
gram. These data media exchange (DME) programs process the data for payment
delivery resulting in, for example, printed payment forms (checks), payment
files (in ACH, SWIFT, or Fed Wire formats), or Idocs for EDI delivery. In the pay-
ment parameters, you can specify the payment medium generation program for
each payment method.
After the payment run is completed, you can follow the results in the payment
log. You can review the output of the payment run in the appropriate output
spool (for payment advice) and DME administration (for file-based output such
as ACH and SWIFT messages). You can also review Idoc-based output, such as
the status of the electronic delivery of payment messages, in the outbound Idoc
processing areas.
34
Electronic Bank Communication
The SAP IDoc format was developed by SAP to handle the multiple EDI stan-
dards recognized throughout the world. IDoc is an SAP standard format for data
exchange between systems. Idoc offers significant opportunities for interfacing
external and internal systems. Data exchange using Idoc is message-oriented
and asynchronous. Whereas IDoc is similar to EDI in its logical message struc-
ture, it is independent of the various EDI standards.
Within the SAP system, only IDoc formats are used to manage communications
between various systems. Communication between SAP systems and bank sys-
tems is performed by a bank-connector workstation for EDI format mapping
and file transfer. Both the bank-connector workstation and the banks propri-
etary software act as translators of IDoc to the EDI standard implemented by the
bank. You may implement these bank communication systems by working with
an SAP certified partner in the SAP Software Partner Program.
Internet Banking
The Internet is a cost-efficient medium for communicating financial data in real
time. The most common way to transmit data files over the Internet is to con-
vert them into a human-legible XML document and pass the XML message over
the Internet.
Currently, no global standards are available for direct bank communication over
the Internet. One financial XML standard, Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX),
is a promising Internet message standard that is available now to support cor-
porate banking requirements. IFX will be extended to support corporate Internet
banking.
SAP is developing the framework to support Internet banking using IFX. SAP
will support the IFX standard for incoming bank account statement messages
and outgoing payment messages for multiple payment methods such as ACH
messages, wires, and checks.
35
Electronic Bank Communication
Complementary Software
SAP certifies complementary software partners that can provide bank-commu-
nication utility software to customers who would like to receive, send, and
translate banking data.
36
Electronic Bank Communication
1 Bank
Software
R/3
Bank 1 Business
Bank 1
2 Bank Connector
Connector
Bank 2
Workstation
Bank 3
Connector
Bank 2
4
Internet
37
Electronic Bank Communication
Bank-Connector Workstation
Another choice is to communicate with your banks using a bank-connector
workstation to translate data in IDoc format (SAPs EDI standard) to the formats
required by your external banks, and vice versa. Your company implements and
maintains the bank-connector workstation, which interfaces with your SAP sys-
tem. This single-platform solution, also known as an EDI subsystem, ensures
that your electronic banking processes are integrated and your data communi-
cation is secure.
The bank-connector workstation system receives bank data, maps it to IDoc for-
mat, and feeds the data automatically into the SAP system. For outbound com-
munication, the workstation imports payment files from the SAP system in IDoc
format, maps them into the target bank format, and electronically remits these
payment files to the banks.
For each bank, you set up a dial-up connection between your SAP system and
the bank-connector system. You can use the bank-connector workstation for
file-based data exchange.
Bank-Data Consolidator
Research is under way into using third-party banking providers to consolidate
banking data from any participating bank in the banks existing formats. The
banking data will be converted to the new format being developed for cash
management banks. You will be able to accept data directly from some banks
and through a consolidator for others, without needing a separate translation
process. Consolidation will be independent of data communication and securi-
ty and can be arranged between you and your banks to meet your requirements.
38
Electronic Bank Communication
In this scenario, the bank-data consolidator will collect the bank statements and
convert the data to an SAP standard format so that your SAP system can
process it. The SAP format could be IDoc, BAI, or the future Internet standard.
You will subscribe to the services of the bank consolidator service provider. The
bank-data consolidator will collect all bank statements from multiple banks in
multiple formats, map them to the SAP standard format, and store them in a
database. You will retrieve all account statements from a single source. A direct
interface between the bank systems and your SAP system will not be necessary.
You will only need a single dial-up from your system to the bank-data consol-
idator to access all bank account information.
A major benefit is that smaller local banks will be able to send their account
statements to the bank-data consolidator without having to implement the SAP
standard. Also, you will be able to send payment files to your banks even if you
and the banks are not prepared to interface directly.
The XML-based format will be based on a current Internet standard, and it will
be fully defined to make it accurate and easy to implement. SAP is working with
banks to provide a utility that you will use to link your SAP system to the bank
systems. Many large cash management banks are expected to make this format
available.
Once the standard is defined and implemented by both SAP and the banks, you
will have direct connection over the Internet. SAP will build solutions to con-
vert Idocs to the new XML standard. The solutions will use the SAP Business
Connector to deliver XML-based financial documents to banks. You will imple-
ment the SAP Business Connector in your SAP system to interface with your
banks over the Internet and exchange XML documents. Once connected, you
can receive account statements, send payments, and perform other electronic
banking functions securely over the Internet.
This new financial XML standard will support all Internet banking communica-
tion. You will be able to subscribe to services offered directly by banks, and
access those services from your SAP system.
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Distributed Cash Management
40
Distributed Cash Management
ALE
ALE
Mexico CM AL CM Japan
E
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Distributed Cash Management
SAP provides enterprise portals for the roles of cash managers, dealers, risk con-
trollers, and others.
The information needs and responsibilities of a central cash manager differ from
those of a local one. A central cash manager typically analyzes and aggregates
incoming financial data from subsidiaries and combines it with the headquar-
ters data, thus setting the overall cash position. If you are a global cash man-
ager, you must make sure that all subsidiaries deliver their data in time. They
must forward their cash positions and liquidity forecasts to enable you to make
centralized borrowing, investment, and hedging decisions.
The enterprise portal helps central cash managers in several ways. The launch
pad in the left part of the screen gives you custom-tailored access to all the
functions you need, including non-SAP applications and Web sources. You
never have to leave the familiar environment to access different resources
they are only a mouse-click away.
You can not only pull, but also push information by means of alerts. For exam-
ple, you can highlight unpaid payment items or data that a subsidiary has not
delivered by the agreed-upon time. You can also use the enterprise portal to
access a subsidiarys cash management system over the Internet and to drill
down on unresolved balances.
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Distributed Cash Management
Liquidity Planner
The Liquidity Planner streamlines your work in entering, aggregating, and ana-
lyzing expected cash flows for medium- and long-term planning throughout
your enterprise. You can administer templates from a single location to facili-
tate capturing both centralized and decentralized data as well as the correspon-
ding historical data.
Both the planning information and historical values from the operational sys-
tem are immediately available to decision makers at various levels within your
organization. A summary view helps you analyze cash flows across all your
planning units. You can also access extracts of the summary view by organi-
zational group, region, currency, or country, for example.
You can display aggregated data displayed in the currency of origin or in anoth-
er currency, such as a local currency or the group currency. You can use the data
to optimize planning activities, such as interest rate and currency management,
and respond to changes on a timely basis.
For variation analysis, you can choose the same structure for evaluating both
historical and planning data. System support at all levels gives you greater flex-
ibility in the liquidity planning process and better communication within the
enterprise.
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Distributed Cash Management
In-House Cash
By managing your internal and external group payments, the In-House Cash
function of mySAP Financials Corporate Finance Management can reduce your
costs of processing intragroup and external transactions. You need fewer exter-
nal bank accounts and make fewer international payments. You can gain con-
siderable savings from optimizing your use of cash reserves. The features of In-
House Cash give you greater control over payment transactions on both a
regional and global level, support corporate group structures, and accommodate
changes in those structures due to mergers, spin-offs, or reorganizations.
In-House Cash enables you to set up an in-house bank, allowing you to cen-
trally manage subsidiary accounts in any currency. For subsidiaries, In-House
Cash automates intragroup payment transactions (internal payments); payments
made by group companies to external partners (central payments); and incom-
ing payments for subsidiaries from external partners that are initially credited
to the head office's house bank accounts (central incoming payments). In-House
Cash also helps you calculate and debit interest and other charges, grant cur-
rent account overdrafts, control limits, and generate bank statements for affili-
ated firms.
Transaction Manager
A core task in many finance departments is concluding financial transactions.
Your finance department may focus primarily on providing an internal service
for subsidiaries, or it may participate actively in financial markets for invest-
ment, funding, and hedging purposes.
The Transaction Manager gives you the tools to process these transactions at all
stages, from deal capture through transferring the relevant data to financial
accounting. The Transaction Manager supports the requirements of both tradi-
tional treasury departments, which tend to focus more strongly on trading, and
asset management departments. The advantage of this approach is that you can
use a single platform to process all types of transactions from short-term
financing to strategic, long-term investments, as well as currency or interest
rate hedging.
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Distributed Cash Management
Highly flexible report configuration options help you obtain the information
you need to evaluate and control your market risk. When running reports, you
can incorporate both contracted positions and simulated financial transactions
in the calculations, and you can use actual or simulated market prices as a basis
for valuation.
The Credit Risk Analyzer addresses these requirements and offers you a com-
prehensive tool for controlling default risks that uses an integrated online limit
management function. With this tool, you can identify and control both tradi-
tional credit risks and settlement and counterparty risks arising from your com-
pany's activities on the financial and capital markets as they occur, and you can
act accordingly.
Portfolio Analyzer
The funds available for investment are often limited, and you have numerous
investment options to choose from. A crucial question to answer during invest-
ment planning is how well your investments have performed.
The Portfolio Analyzer gives you the answers. It measures your exact return on
investments, compares the results with prescribed targets, and breaks down the
overall performance into its component parts by attributing the individual port-
folio positions to the total result. The basis for these evaluations is the portfo-
lio structure, which lets you organize your investments into different categories.
You can evaluate portfolios at different levels in the portfolio hierarchy, or eval-
uate a single asset category across several portfolios.
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Distributed Cash Management
You have an integrated treasury solution that also is highly integrated with
other operational systems, banks and banks platforms, and external data
sources. You have no interface maintenance costs (costs that can be as high as
three to five times the original software purchase price). You have no risk of
interface degeneration. Integration is ensured by a common and transparent
database, as opposed to a batch interface for uploading and downloading exter-
nal data.
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Distributed Cash Management
Global Solution
mySAP Financials is a global solution that supports multiple currencies and is
translated into multiple languages. It can operate in a network of multiple
instances, providing enterprisewide information on liquidity and currency risk
position
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