Author Archives: Natalie

SAP Business One Support – getting it right

SAP Business One is one of the most widely used business management solutions on the market. More than 41,500 companies across the world use SAP Business One to run their business. What is interesting is that when most companies consider SAP Business One their focus is on the initial implementation. Project management, training and system configuration are considered important questions to ask your potential SAP Business One partner/reseller. The often overlooked but equally important questions to ask your SAP Business One partner/reseller is associated with ongoing support and maintenance of your SAP Business One system.

What you want is:

An up-to-date system (running a recent release of SAP Business One).
Great support – to answer your questions or support calls in a timely and efficient manner
Assurances that if you have a system issue there is a support team on standby to assist and get your problems resolved – quickly.
Access to consultants with industry knowledge – people that can make recommendations on best practices and systems for your industry – real value add.
Availability of integrated systems and solutions – access to third-party solutions that can add value to your SAP Business One implementation.
Report writing and technical skillset. Post-implementation a lot of the value add on a SAP Business One implementation will require SQL, Crystal and associated skill set – a technical skill. This person will add real value by giving you the information that you want, when you want it.

The good news with regards to SAP Business One support:

SAP offers regular system upgrades to new product versions. As an example of this, SAP Business One version 9.0 was made available in Australia in Q3 2013. These updates give you, SAP Business One customers an opportunity to keep up to date with the latest technology, system features and functions.
In Australia, you have a choice of SAP Business One partners/resellers that you can choose to have supporting your business. SAP has a number of accredited SAP Business One partners in Australia (Bronze, Silver and Gold partners). As the customer you get to choose who you want to deal with – the SAP Business One partner that you feel best suits your requirements for ongoing support and SAP Business One consultancy.

Here are some hints and tips to help you choose the right SAP Business One partner to support your business:

Does the SAP Business One partner have a dedicated support desk?
How many support, consultant and training staff are available for consultancy and support?
Is the SAP Business One partner a Bronze, Silver or Gold certified SAP partner?

SAP Business One Warehouse Management – streamlining your inventory control with Achieve Warehouse Management

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SAP Business One is widely used by wholesale and distribution based organisations across Australia. Common functional requirements include the importing of items from overseas, landed costs, foreign exchange, inventory and warehouse management. Given the amount of Capital tied up in inventory you want to streamline your inventory control – accurate and timely order fulfilment, improved pick accuracy, better inventory accuracy and improved customer service are all critically important.

SAP Business One offers substantial warehouse management functionality including multiple bins, pick / pack manager and serial number / batch traceability. As your warehouse grows the “next step” in warehouse management is the move towards a wireless warehouse – radio frequency handheld scanners. The great news is that Leverage Technologies has partnered with Achieve IT to offer the Achieve Warehouse Management solution for SAP Business One customers in Australia.

Functionality provided includes multi-bin management, multiple units of measure, cycle counts, pick, pack and ship, carton and item labels, production picks and serial / batch traceability. The radio frequency hand held scanner application allows for warehouse transactions via handheld radio frequency scanners.

The use of handheld scanners can greatly improve pick efficiency and accuracy – allowing you to re-engineer your warehouse functions for improved efficiency.

If you want to know more about SAP Business One warehouse management contact the SAP Business One team at Leverage Technologies on 1300045046.

SAP Business One 3PL integration – streamlining your warehouse

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As demand grows for specialised warehouse management and inventory control solutions we have seen a rapid growth in 3PL (3^rd Party Logistics) used in Australia. The theory is simple – focus your business on what you are good at – selling and marketing your own products. Let a specialist company take care of your warehouse and inventory control requirements. 3PL providers will usually receive stock, ship and invoice your inventory items for you – creating a totally outsourced warehouse / logistics environment for your business.

Now the question is the integration of the 3PL / logistics environment with your ERP system – SAP Business One. The good news is that SAP Business One offers multiple integration tools to allow your SAP Business One partner to provide either partial or full integration between your SAP Business One system and your 3PL provider. Common points of integration include:

Sales reporting – what items have been sold and shipped

Open orders – what orders have not yet been shipped

Back order – what items remain on back-order

Sales Order – sales order status

Stock availability – what stock is available in which 3PL warehouses

Stock control – stock movements

What you want is the transparent transfer of information between SAP Business One and your 3PL providers ERP system. This will streamline your business processes and make the right information available – when and where you want it.

True 3PL / SAP Business One integration will allow sales people and management to review stock availability in SAP Business One – even though the inventory is managed by a 3PL provider in an offsite location. The level of integration available depends on the customer specific requirements. Customers in the medical and food industries have different inventory control requirements (traceability etc.) when compared to other customers in less-regulated industries. Depending on your industry and your company specific requirements the team at Leverage can provide a total solution for your SAP Business One / 3PL requirements.

SAP Business One Intercompany – a solution for your multi-company SAP Business One Requirements

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Several Australian businesses have requirements for multi-company configuration in SAP Business One. The common requirement is either for a SAP Business One multi-company requirement in Australia (several different legal entities / ABN’s in Australia) or global multi-company – when an Australian company has multiple legal entities overseas. There are three common inter-company requirements for SAP Business One :

Inter-company trading (one company in the group purchases stock and / or services from another group company).

Inter-company GL allocations– allocations of income and expenses across SAP Business One branch companies.

Financial / multi-level consolidation – consolidated reporting across multiple legal entities.

The great news is that SAP Business One Intercompany has the solution for your inter-company requirements including :

Multiple geographies – support for multiple different geographies across multiple physical servers.
Multi-currency support – intercompany support for different currencies.
Master data replication – the ability to replicate master data from one company to another – price lists, bill of materials, inventory items and business partners.
Inter-company transactions – to support inter-company purchases and sales when one group company sells to or purchases from another group company.
GL Allocations – allocation of income and expenses across multiple SAP Business One companies.
Centralized payments – the ability to delegate payments of accounts payable invoices between group companies.

Consolidated reporting is available through multiple SAP Business One reporting options and the team at Leverage has written several standard consolidated SAP Business One financial reports. Commonly used financial group reports include Profit and Loss, Trial Balance and Balance Sheet. Consolidated sales analysis reporting is also available for SAP Business One inter-company.

If you have an inter-company requirement for SAP Business One talk to the SAP Business One experts at Leverage Technologies.

The future of SAP Business One Reporting is available now – SAP Business One Analytics Powered by SAP HANA

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Every day we collect massive volumes of data from our SAP Business One and other integrated systems. Customer data, employee data, supplier data, inventory data and a whole lot more. The challenge is turning this useful data into timely reporting so that we can make the right business decisions. How do we make sure that we are getting the most out of this data collection? You want your SAP Business One solution to do more than invoicing, banking and basic reporting. What you want is to use your SAP Business One solution as a vehicle for making sound business decisions. So how do we sort hundreds of thousands of pieces of data into instant reporting?

There are multiple reporting options for SAP Business One but let’s talk specifically about SAP Analytics and SAP HANA. Thanks to recent developments the answer to turning big data into great decision making just got a whole lot easier – SAP Business One Analytics – Powered by SAP HANA.

SAP Business One Analytics Powered by SAP HANA

SAP Business One Analytics and Reporting – ultra quick reporting no matter how much data you have in your SAP Business One system. Users can perform “what if” analysis on data. Imagine the positive impact on your business if you able to perform “what if” analysis on large volumes of current and historical data in real time.

Pre-defined SAP Business One Dashboards and SAP Business One Reports – Cash Flow analysis and available to promise are two examples of pre-built dashboards using the SAP Business One Analytics / SAP HANA platform. Perform instant cash flow analysis on real time data. Use the available to promise dashboards to advise customers when inventory items will be available for shipment.

Search any data in SAP Business One using the SAP HANA enterprise search facility.

The future of business management reporting is the ability to sit in a management meeting and slice and dice massive volumes of data into logical and meaningful dashboards and reports – in seconds. Giving you the information that you want when you want it. The best news is that this technology is available now – ask the team at Leverage Technologies about SAP Business One Analytics powered by SAP HANA.

Watch a demo in SAP Business One Analytics for SAP Hana

SAP Business One Mobile App – now available for Android

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As part of SAP’s continued commitment to SAP Business One mobility SAP has released the SAP Business One mobile App for Android. The mobility app for Android allows SAP Business One users to access business information to help you run your business from any location at any time.

Key features of the SAP Business One mobility app for Android include :

Alerts and approvals – get alerts on user defined events (deviation from credit limit, sales orders below a certain margin and discounts greater than standard). View and approve approval requests (purchase order approvals, sales order approvals and more).
SAP Business One CRM – create sales opportunities, sales quotations and sales orders. Manage activities and notes from the SAP Business One Android app.
Service contracts and service calls – manage SAP Business One service calls and service contracts. Review customer equipment cards, service notes and more.
Reports and dashboards – get access to real time information to help you run your business.
Access business partner information – get access to customer, supplier and lead information – address details, notes, orders, quotations and more.
Inventory – check inventory levels and pricing information – in real time.

Nobody can deny the importance of mobility – every day we transact from our smartphones. With the SAP Business One mobility apps for the Apple iPhone and Android devices we can use our smartphones for much more than reading the morning news. Whether you are a regular traveler and user of mobility devices or even if you only use your smartphone infrequently you will benefit from up to date information made available with the SAP Business One mobility apps.

SAP Business One Growth Forum for Emerging Companies

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Leverage Technologies is proud to be a sponsor of the SAP Business One Growth Forum for Emerging Companies. A series of seminars in Sydney and Melbourne aimed at providing small to medium business insight into the latest expert opinions, trends and strategies for business growth.

The seminars have attracted great guest speakers and will include case studies to showcase businesses that have improved their bottom line and have used technology to streamline their business growth.

The SAP Growth Forum seminar dates are:

Melbourne – October 15^th 2013

Sydney – October 24^th 2013.

The agenda:

08:30 – 09:00	Registrations
09:00 – 09:45	Fast tracking business growth: Matt Rockman – Co-Founder of seek.com.au and numerous start-ups
09:45 – 09:55	Case Study: A business growth improvement
09:55 – 10:40	Cloud, data and the barrier-free business: Brad Howarth – co-author of “A Faster Future: The future of Broadband & what it means for business, society and you”. Freelance writer, facilitator, speaker – business, marketing, technology, media, entrepreneurship.
10:40 – 10:50	Case Study: Outsourcing for business improvement
10:50 – 11:20	Morning Break
11:20 – 11:30	Case Study: Mobile
11:30 – 12:15	Australia’s position in the global economy and finding opportunities for growth: Jonathan Pain – Director JP Consulting & Finance and Economic Futurist
12:15 – 12:25	Case Study: Analytics (Big Data)
12:25 – 13:00	Equipped to Compete – how to be more competitive in a global market place: SAP Presenter
13:00 pm	Close and Lunch

If you would like to register for the SAP Growth Forum please e-mail [email protected] – we will book you a seat at either the Sydney or Melbourne event.