Orange County Convention Center
Orlando, Florida | May 15-18, 20
Treasury Management Workstation:
A Practical Guide to Getting Online
Byron Bennett - Graybar
Bill Biddle - Graybar
]
[ 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.
2
[ Company Profile for Graybar
 Business Volumes:
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$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
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
3
[ 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.
4
[ 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.
5
[ 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.
6
[ Project Goals
 Improve Controls and Visibility in Treasury Functions
 SOD
 Audit Trails
 Streamline / Eliminate Manual Processes
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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.
7
[ SAP Treasury Applications
Cash &
Liquidity Mgt
• EBS, Payments, Lockbox…
• Cash Position & Liquidity Forecast reporting
Treasury &
Risk Mgt
• Transaction Mgr – hedging, investing, debt
• Analyzers: Mkt Risk, Credit Risk, Portfolio
In-House
Cash
Bank
Comm. Mgt
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
• Virtual bank for global Companies
• Reduce external Bank Accts, and Transactions
• Deep integration w/ Banks for Payments
• Integration with SWIFTNet
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[ Project Overview
 2.5 month project (Oct. – mid Dec.)
 1 SAP Treasury Consultant
 In scope for Phase 1
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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.
9
[ Graybar Banking Structure
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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[ Electronic Bank Statements – Process Overview
Automated via TIDAL
Manual Process: Accounting Dept.
5.
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
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
Clearing Acct
Lockbox Sweep
Checks Outstanding
ZBA Sweep
Payment Acct
Concentration
Encashment
 Set up accounts to post to same clearing account if they clear
against each other
 Sweep accounts, lockboxes, etc
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
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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 Accounts
Gets Transaction Type
External Trans. Codes
Determines Posting Rule
Uses Transaction Type and External
Transaction Code to determine Posting
Rule
Gets Account Symbol from Posting Rule Definition
Gets GL Acct from Acct Symbol
GL Posting!
Uggg…
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) 
Account Modifiers
Configure in OT83, “Assign
Accts to Account Symbols”
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
16
[ 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)
Request (FRFT)
Encrypt File
(if not EDI)
Pmt Run for Pmt
Requests (F111)
Create Pmt.
Secure bank info with Confirm Changes
Send to Bank
FTP or EDI
Bank sends
Confirmation
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!
Bank
Statements
(current day)
Memo
Records
(manual input)
Cash Position & Liquidity
Treasury
Debt Inst.,
Leases, etc
Cash Position
• Where do we stand today on cash?
• Determine borrowing / investing activities
FI-AP,
FI-AR, MM,
SD, etc
Payment
Advices
Liquidity Forecast
• Mid-term view of liquidity
• Plan for major Cash events
Set Planning Level in GL Accounts
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.
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[ 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)
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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[ 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
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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[ 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
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-communicationmanagement-overview.
Krishnan, Arjun, and Alamanda Balaji Kumar.
Sox Compliance with SAP Treasury and Risk
Management. Boston: Galileo Press Inc.,
2009.
Real Experience. Real Advantage.
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 Thank you for participating.
Please remember to complete and return your
evaluation form following this session.
For ongoing education in this area of focus, visit www.asug.com.
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Real Experience. Real Advantage.