subject: Sap Business One Erp For Overseas Facilities Faq [print this page] Even midmarket firms nowadays have to expand internationally and open branches in such popular destinations as China, Brazil and Russia just to open the list countries. ERP needs to be localized in order to be implemented with compliance to foreign country legislation. If you are reading this small publication then likely you are in accounting software selection dilemma. Lets compile it in the form of Frequently Asked Questions:
Q. We are on Microsoft Dynamics GP here in Chicago headquarters and acquiring mining facilities in Brazil and in midterm perspective in Siberia Russia. We visited Microsoft office in Sao Paulo and were surprised that Great Plains is not localized and not recommended. Instead we got recommendation to acquire and implement AX formerly known as Axapta. Our facility is reasonably small operations and we do not have the budget as Axapta is high priced and requires long hours to be implemented even comparing to Dynamics GP
A. We would like to begin answering with sad story which happened back in 2004 and 2005. Our company in Campinas Sao Paulo region was contracted by MBS office to localize Great Plains version 7.5. We translated this application into Portuguese and began working with taxation logic. Unfortunately Microsoft changed the plan and decided to feature Navision and a bit later Axapta. GP is very popular here in the United States and we heard numerous stories similar to yours. Business One as brand name offer seems to be in lower price range comparing to what such giants as Oracle and MBS offer. Successful case studies ended up with SAP B1 for Brazilian office and integration via Great Plains Integration Manager module on General Ledger level. Consolidated financial reports (P&L, Balance) were done in FRx and currently you can do the same in Microsoft Management Reporter
Q. We are considering SB1 as candidate for our manufacturing facility in Brazilian area near Goiania. Our CPA guy in South American region has concerns about SPED. We are in research mode at this time and we would like to know if your solution supports SPED and what exactly it is all about
A. This is Public Digital Bookkeeping where corporations have to submit their Financial Statements as well as tax related documents (in AR, AP, etc.) in XML format to IRS servers hosted by federal, state and in certain cases municipal governments. There is add-on which does the job. As you may imagine the idea to mess up with that sort of reporting is not a good one
Q. Does it support Chinese user interface and data entry? Would it be possible to conduct corporate internal audit?
A. Application supports Unicode and Chinese client interface. Hieroglyph based documents are saved in SQL Server company database. Lets talk about audit. It is possible to switch language from Chinese to English assuming that you have naming convention in your Chart of Accounts and document entering. Good idea is to have GL account numbers to be the same for all your foreign branches and headquarters and for each country you can have accounts named in two languages: local and English. Another advice consider hosting all SQL company database on the same server in headquarters and open application to client via Citrix or similar technologies
Q. Few years ago we saw executive demo and sales engineer indicated that there are versions 2007A and 2007B which should be hosted on different SQL servers
A. Starting with release 8.8 A and B flavors were merged and you can host all the world on one SQL
Q. Lets talk about compliance in Russian Federation. We heard that even if client application talks Russian it still has compliance gaps
A. Concerns have some ground. What seems to be going on over there in Moscow and across RF they have complex and constantly changing legislation. The leader in accounting software market seems to be 1C Accounting (1S Bukhgalteria in Russian translation). B1 is considered there as ERP soft and 1C covers tax agency and fonds (pension, etc.) quarterly and annual reporting. IT folks typically export GL entries and import them to 1C General Ledger. Using your question as an opportunity to talk about history we would like to mention that back in 1995 our company in Moscow was translating Great Plains Dynamics into Russian. When Microsoft acquired Navision Software with strong clientele in Europe GP was pulled out of RF and Navision was recommended instead. Now we see AX to be in priorities
Q. Lets say that we have locations in (Russia, Kazakhstan, China, Brazil or you name it) several countries but in rural areas. What are the steps in implementation? Our concern is who will come out onsite and will stay there during implementation phase?
A. Our recommendation is to get reliable internet connection and bandwidth for remote support such as Citrix Gotomeeting, GotomyPC, VPN, Remote Desktop Connection and similar. If this is possible then you need to fly out to your mining facility abroad with consulting team and establish good relations with personnel there. It might be one day or maybe one week. Then the work could be done through web sessions. If reliable connection is possible then consultants should stay onsite. This second option seems to be expensive and plus it assumes that server should be hosted locally
Please call us 1-866-304-3265, 1-269-605-4904 (for international customers, where our representative pick up the phone in St. Joseph, MI call center). help@efaru.com. We have local presence in Chicagoland, Southern California, Atlanta, South West Michigan and Houston and Dallas areas of Texas. We serve customers USA, Canada, Mexico and Brazil nationwide and internationally via web sessions and phone conferences (Skype is welcomed). Our consultants speak English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Chinese. We feature our expertise is in International Business. We provide second opinion in SB1 data migration, customization and reporting
