SAP Solution in Detail SAP BusinessObjects Portfolio of Solutions

ReduCe ImPlementAtIOn tImeS And SuPPORt legAl COmPlIAnCe

Starter KitS for SaP BuSineSSoBjectS SolutionS

Companies deploying enterprise performance management and governance, risk, and compliance software want to streamline deployment and configuration, exploit the full potential of these applications, and improve compliance with financial standards and regulations. You can use starter kits for SAP BusinessObjects software to reduce implementation times, maximize compliance, and comprehensively address your companys business requirements with minimum cost and effort. Starter kits provide best practices and knowledge that can help you deploy SAP BusinessObjects software more quickly and easily and with minimal risk.

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Optimizing Business Performance Challenges to Application Deployment managing Implementation time and Cost Complying with Financial Standards and Regulations exploiting the Applications Full Potential Starter Kits for SAP BusinessObjects Software Working with Starter Kits Rapidly deploy Software Support legal Compliance Support Your Financial Operations and Business Requirements data Input Consolidation Activities Analysis and Audit trail Produce Publishable Financial Statements govern Your Financial Control Processes Deploy Quickly, Completely, and with Confidence Find Out more Starter Kit Configuration elements Starter Kit for Planning and Consolidation Application Starter Kits for Financial Consolidation Application Starter Kit for Process Control Application Quick Facts

oPtimizing BuSineSS Performance

dePlOY POweRFul APPlICAtIOnS wIth SKIll

SAP BusinessObjects solutions can help you gain broader insight and align your strategy with day-to-day business activities while optimizing the decision-making process and improving risk management regardless of your underlying transactional systems.

Challenging economic conditions demand that enterprises find new ways to gain a competitive edge. One surefire way to achieve this advantage is to optimize your organizations business performance. SAP BusinessObjects enterprise performance management solutions and governance, risk, and compliance software are designed to help you meet this objective by addressing compliance and business risks while closing the gap between strategy and execution. SAP BusinessObjects solutions can help you gain broader insight and align your strategy with day-to-day business activities while optimizing the decisionmaking process and improving risk management regardless of your underlying transactional systems. enterprise performance management solutions can help you model and optimize processes, strategize and prioritize goals, plan and execute those strategies, and monitor and analyze your results. Applications designed to address governance, risk, and compliance can help you develop appropriate strategies and policies, identify and respond to challenges, and monitor and remediate any identified risk.

these SAP BusinessObjects applications can deliver tremendous value to organizations seeking to optimize their business efficiencies and improve performance. Yet deploying these applications so that they deliver maximum value requires careful planning and skill. not every organization has the expertise and resources needed to conduct an effective application deployment. In fact, some CFOs and financial managers may experience a few avoidable difficulties while configuring and deploying their software.

SAP Solution in Detail Starter Kits for SAP BusinessObjects Solutions

challengeS to aPPlication DePloyment

AvOId COmmOn PItFAllS

Managing Implementation Time and Cost

when deploying these applications, several challenges commonly arise. Configuring highly flexible financial software requires time and effort to execute successfully. with many demands on both your internal and external resources, software deployment may not be the most effective use of personnel resources. Instead, you need to deploy software that includes a comprehensive core configuration, which can help you get started quickly and cost-effectively. SAP offers starter kits for applications that streamline the deployment of that software. By using a starter kit to deploy your software, you can save time and money.

standards. Risk increases when the organization lacks sufficient internal expertise on financial standards both in their current form and as they evolve. to address compliance issues and minimize risk, you need a solution that provides embedded business and financial expertise. By adopting solutions that support best practices and incorporate professional expertise, you can simplify and speed the path to organizational compliance.

value-adding enhancements. the payoff will be a more productive, effective solution and one that has a deployment that is faster, smarter, and with minimal risk.

Exploiting the Applications Full Potential

A lack of essential internal skills and knowledge about product best practices can prevent your company from taking advantage of the full potential of your powerful application. If unresolved, this problem can lead to poor execution of related business processes. You need solutions that provide a guided approach to deploying the software one that streamlines the basic processes. look for offerings that provide a foundation for software deployment, so you can focus your resources on

Complying with Financial Standards and Regulations

Changing financial regulations increase risk for most companies. Keeping pace with the dynamic financial regulatory landscape forces many companies to spend a great deal of time and money on complying with global and local

Changing financial regulations increase risk for most companies. Keeping pace with the dynamic financial regulatory landscape forces many companies to spend a great deal of time and money on complying with global and local standards. Risk increases when the organization lacks sufficient internal expertise on financial standards both in their current form and as they evolve.

SAP Solution in Detail Starter Kits for SAP BusinessObjects Solutions

Starter KitS for SaP Businessobjects Software

CReAte A FOundAtIOn FOR eFFICIent APPlICAtIOn dePlOYment

to help you meet these challenges, SAP offers starter kits for numerous SAP BusinessObjects solutions, including the SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation, SAP BusinessObjects Financial Consolidation, and SAP BusinessObjects Process Control applications. these starter kits provide functional application content, guidance on best practices, and knowledge that can help you deploy SAP BusinessObjects software more quickly and easily and with less risk. Starter kits are developed based on extensive product expertise as well as the experiences of helping thousands of customers deploy and configure our solutions over many years. these starter kits can help you set up activities ranging from data collection to financial statement publishing. For example, SAP offers starter kits for SAP BusinessObjects Financial Consolidation that help you perform, validate, and publish a statutory consolidation in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) or u.S. gAAP.

each starter kit delivers a preconfigured version of the application you want to deploy, and provides guidance and end-user documentation that helps you configure and use the software to best meet your needs. think of the starter kit as the basic foundation for your application deployment. Your deployment team can then enhance the foundation to meet your individual requirements, such as accounting policies, business processes, or company structure. the starter kits also contain configurable business rules that help you intuitively customize the application. the business rules use established product and functional processes to optimize performance, enhance usability, and secure application deployment. For example, business rules help you efficiently handle processes such as currency translation and intercompany eliminations. Starter kits can give you the best of both worlds: rules-based flexibility to adapt and configure the application to meet your companys individual needs, plus a wealth of preconfigured content and best practices that help you deploy the software quickly. In fact, hundreds of SAP customers worldwide from a wide range of industries have used starter kits to deploy SAP BusinessObjects applications, including desjardins group as one example.

The arrival of our new consolidation solution was fundamental to the implementation of best practices. Together, the software and improved practices allow us to maneuver better to deal with change.
Dany Canuel; director; Special Projects Financial Planning, Control, and enterprise Performance; desjardins group

SAP Solution in Detail Starter Kits for SAP BusinessObjects Solutions

worKing with Starter KitS

mAxImIze YOuR SAP BusinessObjects SOFtwARe

Starter kits can support your deployment of SAP BusinessObjects applications, helping you: Rapidly deploy software Streamline legal compliance meet your specific financial operations and business requirements Produce publishable financial statements Create an internal control and risk framework for the financial reporting process

tics or properties to define their behavior throughout the consolidation process. when you change account information in the chart of accounts, the starter kit automatically incorporates your modifications into related rules and documents. If you add a new set of subaccounts to your profit and loss statement, the starter kit adds these accounts to all other configuration elements and documents related to that statement. In addition, starter kits contain essential documentation that you can use to streamline deployment of the SAP BusinessObjects applications. For example, the documentation helps you accelerate IFRS compliance by explaining how you can perform an IFRScompliant consolidation using the SAP BusinessObjects application. You can also use the documentation to minimize the effort needed to address new or complex IFRS requirements, such as those involving incoming entities, additional acquisition of shares, financial interest, or comprehensive income. Finally, using the preexisting documentation provided with the starter kit can help you reduce your total cost of ownership for the SAP BusinessObjects applications. Because your users can immediately use these documents, you can eliminate the effort needed to document processes and software functionality.

Rapidly Deploy Software

Starter kits contain numerous elements that help you quickly configure and begin using the new SAP BusinessObjects application. For example, the starter kits available for the planning and consolidation and financial consolidation applications help you meet statutory requirements. Starter kits also include the preconfigured content and support the processes to perform, validate, and publish a statutory consolidation. Another starter kit, which is available for the SAP BusinessObjects Process Control application, helps you set up controls for the financial reporting process. It includes the embedded content you need to handle preparatory tasks, local data entry, consolidation processing, and analysis and reporting. Starter kits are configured in a way that lets you enhance the software, customizing your application and applying

those changes to related accounts, documents, and business rules. dynamic configuration helps you avoid time-consuming manual coding projects or metadata definition efforts. In addition, dynamic configuration helps you maintain consistency between accounts and other related elements of your deployment. For example, you can use the dynamic configuration functionality to quickly customize the chart of accounts in SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation (see Figure 1). In the starter kit, accounts are created with characteris-

SAP Solution in Detail Starter Kits for SAP BusinessObjects Solutions

Support Legal Compliance

Starter kits use built-in expertise and guidance to help you deploy your application and streamline legal compliance. embedded support for best practices can help ensure that your processes meet applicable regulatory mandates. SAP develops starter kits by using the expertise of functional experts to make sure to address the right business needs. For example, common industry practices shaped how the starter kit addresses processes such as data input, consolidation processing, and creation of financial statements. In addition, for the financial industry, SAP continuously monitors the regulatory environment and provides timely updates to the starter kits to support compliance with statutory, internal, and industry regulations. Starter kits also provide detailed process guidance for business users. to guide you, the starter kit for SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation uses the business process flows that are part of the software to define a sequence of steps and substeps for data collection and consolidation processes (see Figure 2).

Figure 1: Chart of Accounts with Related Characteristics

Figure 2: Business Process Flows

Support Your Financial Operations and Business Requirements

Starter kits also provide the comprehensive functionality you need to address your unique financial operations and business requirements.

data Input to support data input, the starter kits provide a generic chart of accounts with the accounts most commonly used by SAP customers. You can customize these charts of accounts to meet your own requirements. the starter kit uses a set of preconfigured controls to validate data entered or imported into the application. this process prevents invalid data from moving forward in the consolidation

process. these controls primarily check main balances, gross value of assets against depreciation, the analysis by share or partner against the account total, the analysis by flow, and the consistency between balance sheet and profit and loss statements. Consolidation Activities the starter kits handle consolidation activities using preconfigured IFRS or gAAP rules, controls, and calculations.

SAP Solution in Detail Starter Kits for SAP BusinessObjects Solutions

Configuration functionality including a consolidation engine, business rules, an analysis and audit trail, and control and validation mechanisms provides data consistency throughout the consolidation process. the consolidation engine handles full, proportionate, and equity methods of consolidation. It also addresses scope changes, such as business mergers, subsidiaries leaving the scope, and financial rate variations. A comprehensive set of business rules enables you to produce consolidated data. Automatic consolidation entries address: elimination of intercompany reciprocal operations goodwill booking (on the basis of a manual declaration) elimination of shares Calculation of the currency translation reserves Calculation of noncontrolling interests Analysis and Audit trail You can use the starter kits to produce control and validation reports that support the analysis and validation of consolidated data. Accounting reports such as balances, ledgers, and general ledger accounts quickly provide comprehensive data detail. You can also use the starter kits to produce reports that show details on accounts, flows, partners, and reporting units. moreover, each data item in the configuration is linked to audit

Figure 3: Analysis and Validation of Consolidated Data

Figure 4: Drill Down to Debit Credit Ledger

identifications, enabling an audit trail and facilitating the analysis of consolidated data. Figure 3 shows a sample audit dashboard linked with accounting and control reports. You can use the software to drill down to additional detail, as shown in Figure 4.

Produce Publishable Financial Statements

You can use the starter kits to produce financial statements that are ready for publishing. For example, the starter kits for both SAP BusinessObjects Financial Consolidation and SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation are delivered

SAP Solution in Detail Starter Kits for SAP BusinessObjects Solutions

with the following set of financial statements based on the IAS 1 standard: A statement of financial position with a current/noncurrent format (see Figure 5) An income statement with an expense classification by function (see Figure 6) A statement of other comprehensive income A statement of cash flows (see Figure 7) A statement of changes in equity the starter kits are provided with microsoft excelbased templates, which you can use to create financial reports with the SAP BusinessObjects xBRl Publishing application by uBmatrix. SAP BusinessObjects xBRl Publishing can pull data from the SAP BusinessObjects applications into ready-made documents in extensible Business Reporting language (xBRl), which you can use for reviewing, analyzing, and preparing financial data. with these reports, you can create publishable financial statements that are compliant with both IAS 1 and u.S. gAAP and the xBRl reporting standards, as shown in Figure 8.

Figure 5: Statement of Financial Position

Figure 6: Income Statement

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SAP Solution in Detail Starter Kits for SAP BusinessObjects Solutions

Figure 7: Statement of Cash Flows

Govern Your Financial Control Processes

Based on consolidation and financial governance best practices, starter kits can also provide content and guidance that help you set up an internal control and risk framework for the financial reporting process. the starter kit for SAP BusinessObjects Process Control offers content such as a basic financial reporting process, which is described by processes and subprocesses, risks associated with control objectives and control descriptions, and manual test plans. designed to be used primarily by internal control teams, this starter kit helps you develop better visibility into the financial reporting process. It also helps you maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of controls performed during the financial reporting process, which can help mitigate risk. Figure 9 shows processes and subprocesses associated with the consolidation cycle, along with their related risks.

Figure 8: XBRL-Compliant Income Statement

Figure 9: Consolidation Processes and Risks

SAP Solution in Detail Starter Kits for SAP BusinessObjects Solutions

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DePloy QuicKly, comPletely, anD with confiDence

And OPtImIze YOuR BuSIneSS PeRFORmAnCe

the starter kits for SAP BusinessObjects solutions provide preconfigured content and guidance that help you take full advantage of this powerful software and optimize your business performance. In short, you benefit from the following.

A quick start on your new application using prepackaged content and documentation designed to meet the most common business requirements, starter kits have helped SAP customers reduce implementation time by up to 80%. dynamic configuration lets you intuitively customize the application to meet your specific requirements. A complete, generic reference implementation also supports streamlined deployment. Lower application implementation costs By getting the application deployed more quickly, starter kits have helped SAP customers decrease the cost of implementation while allowing them to focus on value-adding enhancements. Confidence in your data and your compliance Starter kits help you produce reliable data that supports legal reporting and management decision making, giving you more confidence in your information and enhancing corporate compliance. embedded expertise encompasses best practices in financial consolidations as well as internal controls. In addition, starter kits offer detailed process guidance for business users.

Starter Kit Configuration Elements

Starter Kit for the SAP BusinessObjects Financial Consolidation Application Accounts 294 Flows Audit-Ids Package schedules Package controls Central reports Consolidation rules 25 48 46 121 81 193

Starter Kit for the SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation Application Applications 6 dimensions 18 Accounts 274 Flows 20 Audit-Ids 24 Input schedules 16 Controls 80 Analysis reports 24 Business rules 127 Starter Kit for the SAP BusinessObjects Process Control Application Processes Subprocesses Risks Control objectives Controls test plans 4 17 90 100 106 106

Find Out More

to learn more about starter kits for SAP BusinessObjects applications, call your SAP representative or visit us on the web at www.sap.com/epm.

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SAP Solution in Detail Starter Kits for SAP BusinessObjects Solutions

Starter Kit for Planning and Consolidation Application

the starter kit available for the SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation application helps you set up compliance with the International Financial Reporting Standards. the starter kit is preconfigured with a series of consolidation reports and publishable financial statements, such as balances, general ledgers, and journals. All of these reports are configured with dynamic formatting and leverage the strong native analysis and drill-down functionalities of the product to give full access to detail for instance, by account or reporting unit.

Starter Kit for Process Control Application

the starter kit for the SAP BusinessObjects Process Control application helps you configure your process control deployment for use with the consolidation and financial reporting processes. the starter kit provides a documented framework for this process as well as preconfigured content such as a basic financial reporting process, which is described by processes and subprocesses, risks associated with control objectives and control descriptions, and manual test plans.

Starter Kits for Financial Consolidation Application

SAP offers two starter kits for the SAP BusinessObjects Financial Consolidation application: one for International Financial Reporting Standards IFRS) and another for u.S. gAAP. the starter kits are preconfigured with the reports; controls; and rules you need to perform, validate, and publish a statutory consolidation. using the starter kits, you can easily customize the application through the chart of accounts. In addition to the software, the starter kit for IFRS is delivered with end-user documentation.

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QuicK factS

www.sap.com /contactsap

Summary Starter kits for SAP BusinessObjects software help you streamline application deployment and configuration, exploit the full potential of the software, and improve compliance with financial standards and regulations. By providing functional application content, guidance on best practices, and knowledge, these starter kits can help you deploy SAP BusinessObjects software more quickly and easily and with less risk. Business Challenges Reduce software implementation time and cost Address compliance issues and minimize risk exploit the full potential of software applications Key Features Rapidly deploy software Quickly configure the software, customize the application, and apply changes to related accounts and metadata Streamline legal compliance use embedded support for best practices to help ensure that processes meet applicable regulatory mandates Meet financial operations and business requirements Customize your chart of accounts, support consolidation activities using preconfigured IFRS or gAAP rules, and produce control and validation reports that support the analysis and validation of consolidated data Produce publishable financial statements Create financial statements ready for publishing, including into ready-made documents in extensible Business Reporting language (xBRl) Create controls for financial reporting Set up an internal control and risk framework for the financial reporting process Business Benefits Faster use of your new application with prepackaged content and a preconfigured approach Reduced application implementation costs by deploying the application more quickly Enhanced compliance and confidence in your work through reliable data that supports legal reporting and management decision making For More Information Contact your local SAP representative, or visit us on the web at www.sap.com/epm.

50 098 346 (10/01) 2010 SAP Ag. All rights reserved. SAP, R/3, SAP netweaver, duet, Partneredge, Bydesign, Clear enterprise, SAP BusinessObjects explorer, and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP Ag in germany and other countries. Business Objects and the Business Objects logo, BusinessObjects, Crystal Reports, Crystal decisions, web Intelligence, xcelsius, and other Business Objects products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP France in the united States and in other countries. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. data contained in this document serves informational purposes only. national product specifications may vary. these materials are subject to change without notice. these materials are provided by SAP Ag and its affiliated companies (SAP group) for informational purposes only, without representation or warranty of any kind, and SAP group shall not be liable for errors or omissions with respect to the materials. the only warranties for SAP group products and services are those that are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services, if any. nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty.