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Orange County Convention Center
Orlando, Florida | May 15-18, 2011
Treasury Management Workstation:A Practical Guide to Getting Online
Byron Bennett - Graybar
Bill Biddle - Graybar
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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Company Profile for Graybar
Founded – 1869 by Elijah Gray and Enos Barton
Employee owned – 1929
Fortune 500
Based in St. Louis, MO
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
[ Company Profile for Graybar
Business Volumes:
$4.6 billion sales (2010)
825,000 SKUs – 12+ million plant / material records
250,000 customers
30,000 billing docs / day
6,500 employees
4,500 suppliers
250+ locations
Distribution centers, branches, and counters
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Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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Graybar’s System Landscape
SCM 5.0
ECC 6.0 – 7 TB database
ECC 6.0 – HR
EP 7.0
BW 7.0 – 3.5 TB database
CRM 7.0
APO
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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Learning Points
Streamline bank accounting and reconciliations with
Treasury Workstation.
Use electronic bank statements, debt instruments, leases, and
future cash transactions to feed Cash Position and Liquidity
Forecasting.
Improve controls and efficiencies by integrating Treasury
functions with AP and Accounting processes.
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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Why Treasury Workstation?
Manual Cashbook was prone to errors
Bank Statement recons were a multi-day job
Creating Fedwires required logging into Bank Websites
Cash Position reporting required logging into Bank Websites
and spreadsheet calculations
Liquidity Forecast was completely manual
Debt Instruments were being tracked in spreadsheets multiple
times by Accounting and Treasury
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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Project Goals
Improve Controls and Visibility in Treasury Functions
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Audit Trails
Streamline / Eliminate Manual Processes
Manual Cashbook – replaced with EBS
Manual Bank Recons – simplified with EBS
Fedwires – enabled through SAP
Cash Position Reporting – automated (thanks to EBS)
Liquidity Forecast – automated to extent possible (Phase II)
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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SAP Treasury Applications
• EBS, Payments, Lockbox…
• Cash Position & Liquidity Forecast reporting
Cash & Liquidity Mgt
• Transaction Mgr – hedging, investing, debt
• Analyzers: Mkt Risk, Credit Risk, Portfolio
Treasury & Risk Mgt
• Virtual bank for global Companies
• Reduce external Bank Accts, and Transactions
In-House Cash
• Deep integration w/ Banks for Payments
• Integration with SWIFTNet
Bank Comm. Mgt
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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Project Overview
2.5 month project (Oct. – mid Dec.)
1 SAP Treasury Consultant
In scope for Phase 1
Clean up closed bank accounts, etc
Configure banks and accounting for EBS
Turn on EBS for BOA (our main bank)
Integrate Positive Pay / Encashment with GL
Implement Fedwire with BOA
Produce basic Cash Position report
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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Graybar Banking Structure
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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Electronic Bank Statements – Process Overview
1. FTP statements from Bank
2. PGP decryption
3. Loads files to SAP via T-code:
FF.5 (SE38: RFEBKA00)
• SAP runs Pre-processor
on upload
• Posts to GL
Automated via TIDAL
Manual Process: Accounting Dept.
5. Post-processing via
FEBA_BANK_STATEMENT
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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EBS – Setting Up for EBS
Goal: Remove as much Human Interaction as possible
Uses Industry Standard BAI2 format (some assembly
required)
Work closely with Bank
They will set up a Project Team to work with you
Plan your Accounting structure for automatic clearing
Use line-item managed accounts for clearing
Configure posting rules
Set up communications
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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EBS – Optimize for Automatic CLEARING
Plan your GL Accounts and Accounting flow for Clearing
Set up accounts to post to same clearing account if they clear
against each other
Sweep accounts, lockboxes, etc
Clearing Acct
ZBA Sweep
Concentration
Lockbox Sweep
Checks Outstanding
Payment AcctEncashment
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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EBS – Posting Rule Configuration Items
Centrally configured through T-code: OT83
Several layers of abstraction in this configuration
GL Accounts
Account Symbols
Posting Rules
Transaction Types
External Transaction Types
Bank Keys + Bank Accounts
Here’s how they fit together…
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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EBS – How SAP Interprets the Bank Statement
Bank Statement Bank AccountsGets Transaction Type
Gets Account Symbol from Posting Rule Definition
External Trans. Codes
Determines Posting Rule
GL Posting!
Uggg…
Gets GL Acct from Acct Symbol
Uses Transaction Type and External
Transaction Code to determine Posting
Rule
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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EBS – Dealing with Posting Exceptions – Method 1
Method 1: Note to Payee (User Exit)
Searches for matches in the Note to Payee lines then modifies
the GL Account by picking an Account Modifier
Advantages
Simple to implement
No Transports – update/add records in Production
Disadvantage
Only updates GL Account (at least the way we did it)
Configure in OT83, “Assign
Accts to Account Symbols”
Account Modifiers
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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EBS – Dealing with Posting Exceptions – Method 2
Method 2: String Search for Document Numbers SPRO: Financial Accounting > Bank Accounting > Business Transactions >
Payment Transactions > Electronic Bank Statement > Define Search String…
How it works
Define Search Strings to search for in Note to Payee field
Assign Interpretation Algorithms that will interpret found strings
and produce a “result”
Set a Target field that will be updated with the “result”
Advantages
No ABAP
Can update VARIOUS fields: cost center, GL account, etc
Disadvantage
Requires configuration / transports to add new rules
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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Fedwire Basic Flow
Setup – BP,
Vendor, Bank
Create Rep.
Codes (OT81)Create Pmt.
Request (FRFT)
Pmt Run for Pmt
Requests (F111)Encrypt File
(if not EDI)Send to Bank
FTP or EDI
Bank sends
Confirmation
Secure bank info with Confirm Changes
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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Setting up for Fedwire
Use the Data Medium Exchange Engine (DMEE) to build file
format
Set up communications
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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Feeding Your Forecast! Cash Position & Liquidity
Cash Position Liquidity Forecast
TreasuryDebt Inst.,
Leases, etc
FI-AP,
FI-AR, MM,
SD, etc
Payment
Advices
Bank
Statements(current day)
Set Planning Level in GL Accounts
Memo
Records(manual input)
• Where do we stand today on cash?
• Determine borrowing / investing activities
• Mid-term view of liquidity
• Plan for major Cash events
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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Cash Position Reporting
T-Code: FF7A
Will load 2 presents of current-day Bank Statement
Standard report is a Drill-down Report
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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Lessons Learned – Activate Extensions
Activated EA-FIN
Post-processing Electronic Bank Statement
(FEBA_BANK_STATEMENT, FEBA_LOCKBOX)
(!) Changes FEBAN a little bit…Test Lockbox roles
Lease Accounting
Activated EA-FS
Transaction Manager and other Treasury business functions
BASIS activates extensions
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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Lesson Learned – EA-FIN Changes T-Codes
Activating EA-FIN changes FEBAN and FLB1
FEBAN now points to either FEBA_BANK_STATEMENT
or FEBA_LOCKBOX
Depending on last one used
FLB1 (same as FEBA_LOCKBOX) gets a “new do”
You can still access old view
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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Lessons Learned – FLB1’s “New Do”
Lockbox Processing defaults to a new View
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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Lessons Learned – “Oh, Yeah…Year End”
Be mindful of YE / Quarter-end closes in your timeline
Bad times for new functionality – makes Accounting nervous
BOA EBS go-live in 6 weeks, not 10 as originally thought
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
[ Wrap Up – The Payoff!
Efficiencies:
Eliminated manual cashbook
Reduced classification errors
Increased Lockbox post-processing efficiency
Abnormal items are segregated to separate GL account during EBS
upload
Improved Bank Recons
Controls:
Process standardized and automated
Positive Payee and Bank Info Confirmations
Encashment files loaded from banks to GL
(clears Checks Outstanding)
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Real Experience. Real Advantage.
[ Best Practices
Design accounting process for automatic clearing
Improve automatic posting hit rate with Note to Payee
Consider Cash & Liquidity Management up front
Use Planning Levels as appropriate
Plan go-lives for non-critical business times
Make cut-over easier by giving Outstanding Checks chance to
flush through system
I.e. don’t pay with cut-over bank for 2-3 weeks prior to go-live
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Real Experience. Real Advantage.
[ Key Learnings
SAP has full range of applications for managing the Treasury
Function
You may need to “Activate” functionality in BASIS
Bank Statement postings can be automated by up to 95%
Note to Payee is key to determining accounts/cost centers
Cash Positioning can be accurate and automated via EBS
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Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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Resources
“Quick Facts: SAP Treasury Applications”. http://www.slideshare.net/ToddWilmsSAP/quick-facts-sap-treasury-applications.
“SAP Bank Communication Management – Overview and
Strategy”. http://www.slideshare.net/ToddWilmsSAP/sap-bank-communication-
management-overview.
Krishnan, Arjun, and Alamanda Balaji Kumar.
Sox Compliance with SAP Treasury and Risk
Management. Boston: Galileo Press Inc.,
2009.
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
[
] Thank you for participating.
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