SAP Business ByDesign is steadily growing

After the Platform move from SAP Business ByDesign to HANA our Partner SAP is again concentrating on functional enrichments of SAP Business ByDesign. On May 23^rd SAP will provide an updated which brings quite a list of functional enhancements in nine different areas. Below you find an overview of the new functions and options which will be available for SAP Business ByDesign. Please reflect how the following enhancements can strengthen the functional coverage of your actual or future fully integrated SAP public cloud ERP solution.

Project Transparency Apps

SAP Project Transparency applications are the next-generation mobile app for iOS® devices that facilitate the process of project management. These apps are not just extensions of the existing functionalities in the SAP Business ByDesign system on a mobile device, but are new applications that provide quick access to all data on the projects handled in SAP Business ByDesign, and help you interact with the project team effectively.

Two apps are available with this release

SAP Project Cockpit App
SAP Project to Go App

Advantage for your business:
A steadily increasing number of employees are working mobile. In this area, they want to have the freedom of choice that means they want to utilize the full power of their Smartphone, Tablet-PC or the new generation of a combination of both the so-called Phablet. SAP recognized this business transformation and decided right from the beginning to invest in this business driven shift by developing several mobile Applications (Apps). They are available on most mobile operating systems and devices like Android and iOS. Now the project manager has the access to multiple relevant information based on the actual project progress and is perfectly supported in her/his daily task to react, decide, readjust and communicate instantly, when the topic occurs.

SAP Project Cockpit App

Globalization Enhancements

Pre-localized country versions – It is now possible to scope countries Algeria, Egypt and Morocco on a pre-localized basis. This means that only certain features are delivered and fully localized country versions are not provided.
Japan country round offs – The following summary invoice enhancements have been made – Manual clearing, Inclusion of down payment requests and Change invoice due date.
Netherlands chain liability – For companies in the Netherlands, it is now possible to create chain liability agreements so that they are liable for the income tax and social insurance contributions owed by subcontractors they hire to complete work on behalf of the company.

Advantage for your business:
Our SAP installed base customer on one hand and prospects, not using software services from SAP, on the other hand are steadily growing on a global level. Thus, we are often involved in early discussions how to support their future business growth. This growth path is identified in emerging markets as well as markets with continuous political and social improvements. Exactly in these countries, our customers and partners like to establish or enhance their business. To support this strategy an affordable approach is required. That means on one hand the usage of the public SAP ERP Cloud Solution SAP Business ByDesign is delivering the time-to-value. Furthermore, it is sometimes necessary to enlarge the localized country versions with the expertise of the partners. For this enlargement, SAP provides further pre-localized country versions, which are establishing the foundation to meet the functional and processional requirements of the customers in various industries. The advantage for your business is obvious the Cloud ERP service is following the business growth even when your planes are not primarily touching the major GDP-countries and regions.

SAP Manager Approvals Application

SAP Manager Approvals application is the next-generation app for modern web browsers, especially on mobile devices, which facilitate the approval processes for these requests:

Project and activity based time requests
Shopping carts
Expense reports

FIN Enhancements

Payment tolerance for incoming payments – It is now possible to set a tolerance amount to clear incoming payments with a higher payment amount.
Deviating bank accounts for migrated open item payables – It is now possible to provide deviating bank account details when migrating open items payables from a legacy system.
Assets under construction – It is now possible to accumulate project costs in an asset under construction until a defined phase of the project. The costs can then be transferred to a fixed asset to begin the useful life.
Define cut-off date for a dunning run – It is now possible to restrict the dunning only to the items that are open and overdue as per the dunning strategy as on a specified cut-off date.

HR Enhancements

Customer adjustments for employee time accounts – With this functionality quota adjustments can be made to employee time accounts using an external application or system.
View time statement – It is now possible to display, review and print a time statement containing details of their recorded times for a selected month, the balances of certain time accounts and where relevant daily postings to their working time accounts.
Cancelation of time records on a completely delivered purchase order item – It is now possible to make changes to a purchase order item which is already set as delivered, the changes include cancelation of a time recording.
Employee deviating calendar MDAV – A data source has been delivered that lists out all the employees who have deviating holiday calendar assignments and at what period of time.

SRM Enhancements

Re-approval of stock PO – With this release Business ByDesign will support re-approval of ‘To-Stock’ items in a purchase order on change of quantity or price.
Scanned invoice data from supplier invoice template – This functionality provides the possibility to enrich scanned invoice data from invoice template documents in the ByDesign system.
Process extension from SIV to journal entry – With this functionality it is possible to move the values that are maintained in extension fields in supplier invoice to journal entry if the transfer is enabled via further usage.

PRO Enhancements

Quantity to be written off in itemized list – It is now possible to display quantity to be written off in the itemized list in CSV or PDF format to inform customers about certain expenses that are written off.
Copy and cancel project invoice request – With this release it is possible to copy and cancel a released project invoice request.
Process extension from SIV to journal entry – With this functionality it is possible to move the values that are maintained in extension fields in supplier invoice to journal entry if the transfer is enabled via further usage.
Earned value analysis by project structure report – It is now possible to view the planned values, actual cost and earned values for the project tasks of a single project and its snapshots in the ‘Earned Value Analysis by Project Structure’ report.

CRM Enhancements

Customer contract account address change – With this release users can edit the account address for contracts that are released.
Lead without accounts – It is now possible to create and maintain leads without an account.
MOSS tax return – It is now possible to file MOSS tax returns for Germany and Austria in the ‘Tax Management’ work center.

Application and User Management Enhancements

For Multi Step Approvals, responsibility determination to determine approvers can now be enhanced by partners using PDI SDK.
Decision Tables used in various applications now have a possibility to simulate decision results for rules maintained.
A Notification task informing key users when a tenant certificate renewal is initiated by the system when such certificates are due for expiry (60 days prior).
User IDs created during employee creation can now be specified to be defaulted to employee IDs.
Background job in application user management is now enhanced to list all background jobs including application specific jobs and their application log as a quick overview for administrators.

Thanks to SAP to further massively, strengthen the public Cloud platform SAP Business ByDesign.
– by Wolfgang Kroener, Vice President, Global Head SAP Cloud Solutions