SAP Business One International Deployment and Recommendations

Mar 1
07:32

2012

Andrew Karasev

Andrew Karasev

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Multinational Corporate ERP selection has its own nuances. Apparently in foreign country people may speak foreign language but it is not all. Each sovereign country has authority to regulate businesses including as annual tax returns, AP reporting (analog of form 1099 which we have here in the United States) and others.

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We would like to review how SAP B1 is addressing international business challenges and try to recommend optimal architecture.  Let’s begin with the question if SAP BO supports foreign languages:

1. Languages supported are English,SAP Business One International Deployment and Recommendations Articles Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese and Russian just to open the list.  However it is not available in Arabic to set expectations.  There is no need to do separate installation for let’s say Brazilian Portuguese.  Language could be assigned for named user as well as switched directly in client application.  In screen shot support pictures you should see available languages and sample form in foreign interface

2. Specific country regulations and compliance in Business One.  Let’s begin with Brazil as it is very popular destination for multinational company.  Here we have SPED which means Public Digital Bookkeeping System.  SPED opens to lawyers and CPA communities corporate transactions from GL, AP and AR.  Reporting is over the internet to the government servers.  As General Ledger side needs to be standardized in the sense of reporting SPED has its own government approved Chart of Accounts.  It is implemented as add-on available through ISV channel.  We would also like to mention complexity in tax rates and calculation formulas: NCM and ICMS.  All Brazilian taxes and formulas need to be entered manually and it may take hundred consulting hours.  Let’s now give another country example in the case if you are acquiring mining facility somewhere in Siberia of Russian Federation.  Here we have government approved chart of accounts and plus instructions on each transaction type in General Ledger.  For example account number 20 is responsible for main production and even if you are sales oriented business instructions are universal and in some essence manufacturing oriented.  SAP office in Moscow is working to address these instructions.  If you are moving to France then there it is also standard chart of accounts.  Feel free to let us know your destination to share your challenges in ERP localization

3. Servers and Network Architecture Recommendations.  Here in our opinion the concern is control over IT infrastructure and implementation unification.  We recommend to start with GL corporate chart of accounts which is unified and required for all foreign subsidiaries to be the same.  Corporate ERP system implementation is not something that you probably do in-house and you need consulting firm help.  We recommend you to pick general contractor here in the United States from whom you should purchase software licenses and do top level design.  Then your general contractor should be responsible for SAP implementation in the headquarters and picking consulting company in each individual country to implement local requirements and compliance.  Consider the option to host the server in the headquarters and expose user interface via Citrix to your international offices

4. Please call us 1-866-304-3265, 1-269-605-4904, help@efaru.com.  We have local presence in Chicagoland, Southern California, Atlanta Georgia, South West Michigan, Houston and Dallas areas of Texas. We serve customers USA and Canada nationwide and internationally via web sessions and phone conferences (Skype is welcomed).  We are working on Brazilian ERP consulting market in Sao Paulo since 2004