CONTENT AREAS

Budgeting, Forecasting & Planning

Hear successful solutions to integrate budget and actual data; commonly used applications to manage the creative process of budget development; see how BPC functionality enhances key consolidation processes such as: data collection, validation, currency translation, intercompany eliminations and consolidation of investments; how close to Excel is BPC really?; architectural design considerations taken into account when using BPC; first hand experience of BPC implementation lessons learned; budgeting and reporting in a multi-currency environment; learn what BW Integrated Planning (IP) functionality is available within BW7.0; see a live demo of all that IP can deliver

Reporting & Business Intelligence

Understand what the real value proposition for BW is and what other SAP tools are available; explore the ready-made financial reports that are already within your SAP system; get an up-to-date look at the options available to create profit and loss statements, balance sheets, accounts receivable and accounts payable reports and analysis, asset balances, acquisitions and retirements, asset history sheets, cash position and liquidity forecast reports; understand the differences between fixed asset, cost centre and order accounting reports; get visibility of what reporting is delivered with enhancement package 5; design a successful business case for BI investments; provide rich visualisation, flexible reporting and comprehensive analytical capability for executives;
leverage functionality of BW Accelerator, BEX 7.0 and the Visual Composer

Project System

Which different project accounting perspectives have worked for organisations?; learn to develop an end-to-end schedule for a PS/IM financial year end and how to integrate it to other financial year-end functions; get a better handle on timing: from opening a new year to closing the old year and how to report across financial years; find a common ground between financial planning and project planning and review; explore cProjects integration with PS, SD and CATs

Banking & Cash Management

Minimise cash leakage in inter-company transactions; clarify SAP’s offering and whether there is a banking and cash management solution for your business; remove physical cash flows from inter-company settlements; increase the centralised pooling of funds with treasury; understand the cost benefit using SAP’s solution and how to get the business case up

Data Quality, Ownership & Reconciliation

Strategies to clarify data ownership and separate this from (SAP) system ownership; the impact of poor, untrustworthy data on your people; governing financials Master Data to drive accurate consolidated financials statements; ensure consistent data from multiple accounting systems; workflow approvals for Master Data change requests; new financials Master Data governance functionality available in Enhancement Pack 5; recognise best practice for the ownership of the data model

New G/L

What value has it delivered to other customers?; understand the differences between the old and the New G/L; how have others implemented the New G/L and learn do’s and dont's; avoid parallel ledger setups and false segment definition; best practice for utilising splitting and zero balancing functionality; hearing about the issues around reconciling between FI and CO and how the New G/L really helps with this

SAP User Frustration, Change & Training

How successful organisations are managing the SAP Financials user experience; see SAP front-end options to assist with negative perceptions; how have others used SAP Portal or the interface with Microsoft?; successful ways to ensure quality of data entry; the importance of education, training and culture; using communication to drive change; how to successfully transition to support after implementations

Enhancement Packages & Upgrades

Learn the difference between applying an Enhancement Package and doing an upgrade; what exciting functionality do users get with the latest Enhancement Package?; explore functionality from Enhancement Pack 5 that provides a single point of entry for defining, triggering, monitoring and reporting on a reorganisation plan for a smooth transition between profit centres

Purchasing

Utilising automation technologies to reduce transactional costs and streamline purchasing; B2B automation of the Procure to Pay process; online Portal Entry of Invoice Claims; scanning solution of low transaction invoices into SAP for automated invoice entry; key considerations when selecting the appropriate automation solution for peak operating performance; 3rd party tools - what is available and what does SAP offer?

Spend Analytics

Monitoring and analysing spend; learn how to make this cumbersome process efficient through the implementation of SAP Spend Performance Management

Sustainability Reporting

Understand, comply and report on a range of sustainability topics; the impact of sustainability initiatives on: finance teams, bottom line, day-to-day business process and month end; what tools are available to help organisations manage this area?

Getting a Business Case Over the Line

How to develop business cases for SAP Financials’ projects in a tough economic climate; learn how to position your case to get funding for back office SAP Financials initiatives; how to sell your vision and strategy

Segregation of Duties

Understand the benefits of SAP GRC and whether it can assist in resolving the authorisation management challenge; Virsa/SAP Access Control functionality; management of super user access and sensitive transaction access; hear about the Authority Governance Model; deliver a real-time, holistic view of all provisioning, access and security events across both SAP and non-SAP systems; integrate SAP into your Identity, Access and Security ecosystems; deliver role based access to resource; simplify password management; streamline communications between compliance and security systems

Month-End Processes

Hear best practice in terms of number of days to close and report; how do you incentivise your people to fast close and what are the best options to automate manual processes?; tools and options that can add stability and control over the closing process; compare SAP’s enhanced financials closing cockpit with third party tools

How to Deal with Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A)

What tools are available to help with M&A?; what are successful governance models for system integration projects driven by mergers?

Profitability Reporting (CO-PA)

Hear how CO-PA fits in the SAP reporting architecture; decide if you need costing-based PA, account-based PA or both; sensible business processes versus ‘net margin’ in CO-PA; explore the technical considerations: characteristics required, data volume; summarisation levels and data, archiving, or just move to a business warehouse solution; what is the profitability analysis relationship with BW?

Profit Centre Reorganisation

Understand the impact on cost centres and materials, purchase orders, sales orders and projects when doing changes to the profit centre structure in SAP; explore the benefits of using SAP to build your profit centre reorganisation plan, rather than doing it manually with spreadsheets and email distribution lists; learn how to split a profit centre, merge two profit centres, or lock a profit centre that is no longer required; discover how to make the necessary work lists available to your end users

Document & Records Management

Hear how SAP makes it possible to integrate financially related documents into the business process; scanning, imaging and workflow of documents with SAP; SAP Easy Document Management system and its application for procedures; Records Management with SAP; contract management with SAP; document searching and viewing alternatives in SAP; secure document storage with SAP; workflow of documents in SAP

Shared Services

Learn how to grow the value of a shared services function from a transaction processing centre to a business partner providing insight; drive standardisation, consistency and optimisation of back office; maximise the efficiency of overhead operating costs; operate transparently against defined SLA’s and budgets