Category Archives: Fast Close

Financials 2013 – the first, “Major” for 2013 is about to begin

From: David Williams, Head of Product Marketing, EPM Solutions, SAP

SAPinsider Financials 2013If like golf or tennis, we had “majors” in terms of events pertaining to SAP’s solutions for Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), “SAPinsider Financials” would be one of them – our spring opener on the circuit held where else but Las Vegas (March 19-22) . And like years prior, this year will not disappoint with a packed agenda covering EPM and financial applications topics. You can find a list of sessions here as well as read a good overview of the keynote/some of the sessions on CFOKnowledge.

From an EPM perspective, content will span managing financial performance (strategy management; planning, budgeting and forecasting; and profitability optimization) as well as accelerating the financial close to disclose (close, consolidations and disclosure management). In fact, two Pre-conference Workshops on March 18 will cover these areas in more depth: A step-by-step guide to execute a faster financial close and disclose process and I’ll personally be co-presenting The 2013 guide to SAP functionality for planning and financial performance.

There will also be deep dive sessions and customer presentations on key solution/product areas such as SAP Business Planning and Consolidation, version for SAP NetWeaver, powered by SAP HANA, SAP Strategy Management, SAP Profitability and Cost Management, SAP Financial Consolidation and SAP Disclosure Management. One thing I want to highlight in particular is new SAP Business Planning and Consolidation, version for SAP NetWeaver, powered by SAP HANA exercises that will be featured in the SAP EPM Solution Lab at the event. These new exercises will walk business users through loading data into the system, creating dimension member formulas that will be calculated by the SAP HANAMDX engine later this year, and a guided tour for technical folks. Based on first-hand customer experience, we’ll also compare the time it takes to perform these activities using SAP HANA versus a traditional relational database to help articulate the business value of running SAP Business Planning and Consolidation, version for SAP NetWeaver on SAP HANA.

There will be a number of subject matter experts at the event so don’t hesitate to come down and visit us at the SAP stations in the vendor showcase area/or in the SAP EPM Solution Lab. You’ll also be able to catch vBlog highlights from each day and make sure to follow the conversation on @SAPEPM, @daveswilliams and @BusinessObjects twitter handles as well as #Financials2013 hashtag for real-time updates on what’s happening at the event.

Looking forward to seeing you in Las Vegas!

Performance, value and superior service…delivered in about 10 minutes!

I’m all for making things simpler. Why use one hundred words to say something you could do in just ten? That’s one reason I like this recorded presentation, which running at just under ten minutes is just enough time to give me the information that I need, without making it a laborious process. So, if you have ten minutes for a short break from your daily activity, then why not have a look at this new whiteboard describing how SAP solutions for LoB Finance can help organizations achieve financial excellence.

Accelerated insight to profitability analysis

Having profitability reports by a single dimension such as customer, product or channel is fairly meaningless as they do not reveal exactly what makes a customer profitable or not. It could be the prices they pay, the low margin products they purchase or the high cost channels they buy through – who knows? But manipulating multidimensional data that may have many thousands and potentially millions of records in each dimension has never been easy, so many organizations have struggled to gain full insight from data. 

Well those days are over. In this video, Michael Crowe of Colgate-Palmolive Company talks about how they they gain better insight into brand and customer profitability analysis performed at unparalleled speed with SAP CO-PA Accelerator, powered by SAP HANA, As they say in the video, they now analyze high volumes of data and benefit from improved productivity at month-end close – going live in just eight weeks.

SAPPHIRE NOW: Don’t Close the “Fast Close Pod”

by Joe Pacor

This was the comment heard at the end of each day during the SAPPHIRE NOW event held this past May. Attendees were lined up three-deep at times awaiting their turn to see content, ask questions and experience the buzz surrounding the robust solutions supporting the Accelerated Close process for Financials. Whether the interest was related to Fast Close best-business practices, Continue reading →

SEC Financial Late-Filings: Better Late Than Never…But Not By Much

By Joe Pacor, Director of the ERP Financials Solutions Marketing at SAP

I’ve dabbled in the stock market for as long as I can remember. This may be an understatement, since I was actually licensed to sell securities during a period of time (but that’s for another story). Somehow, I encountered the unfortunate position of owning a stock which missed their SEC filing deadline. Then the scarlet letter “E” was affixed to the stock symbol from NASDAQ, and the precipitous decline of the stock price ensued. Since I have been reviewing Fast Close software, I decided to investigate just how widespread this late-filing problem was…and this may come as a shock. At the SEC info website I discovered that 846 late-filing notices had been filed in just one month (Nov 3-Dec 1 ’09). So at least I wasn’t alone in my stock picking mishaps. But let’s look at the bigger picture.            

The costs associated with late filings can be quickly added up in terms of lost market capitalization (I have seen 25%+ drops after such announcements), but what about the other costs? Clearly, investor confidence is shattered when a company’s management cannot get the results out the door within the prescribed timeline. How could those fiduciaries left in charge have not seen, nor prepared for, such an occurrence? Then there is the company’s entire ecosystem which comes into play. Customers, suppliers and employees all feel the repercussions, and apprehensions, of the late filing fallout. Is extended credit at risk; should we seek out another supplier; should we look for a more stable company to work for?

I am not trying to dramatize the impact. The SEC has determined manageable timelines for corporate compliance. When a breach occurs, watch out below. However, something can be done. One of the top reasons cited for late-filings has been “Delayed Information”. Maybe some of these late-filing companies could benefit from a 1 hour SAP Fast Close session. We help our customers aggregate their period-end financial data in days…not months. Best practice statistics show quarterly closes of 3.8 days, with yearly closes at 5.1 days. I may not always pick the right stock, but I assure you I know how to pick the right Fast Close software.    

Joe Pacor has led the management and successful SAP sale’s activities of business software solutions in the Enterprise Resource Planning Financials applications for nearly 15 years. Prior to joining SAP, Joe held financial management and analysis positions at Cardinal Health, Lehman Brothers, and Hitachi Corporation.