IBIS Prof. Thome AG - Pressemitteilungen

RBE Plus benchmark for the month of June - 3.5 percent of outgoing payments in Financial Accounting...

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 08:59:00 +0200

... are performed manually. State-of-the-art ERP systems offer a number of options for different payment transactions, like check or cash payments and money transfers. Plus, payment runs can be implemented to enter these transactions automatically or manually. Automatic entry limits the user�s choice of transaction types. Open items are settled on the basis of data such as payment method, due date and amount. Manual payment affords considerable advantages � flexible times and processes � since methods and terms of payment can be adapted to modified operational requirements. But the advantages are a source of increased maintenance and greater risk for misuse. This should not be discounted. If a large number of payments are performed manually, compliance should be checked in these processes.
Think it�s time you took a closer look at your system?

RBE Plus benchmark for the month of May - 8 percent of all transactions ...

Tue, 18 May 2010 09:26:00 +0200

... are called up from other systems via remote function call (RFC) or application link enabling (ALE). When the proportion of externally accessed transactions is high, this indicates that the degree of openness to external systems is too great and the landscape comparatively complex. In this case, bear in mind that RFC-compatible function modules called up from an unprotected SAP system or from external programs can circumvent authorization structures. To ensure proper security it�s imperative to check authorization in ERP and satellite systems regularly.
Think its time you took a closer look at your system?

RBE Plus benchmark for the month of April - 6 percent of incoming invoices in Materials Management ...

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 10:11:00 +0200

... are assigned directly to G/L or material accounts without reference to a purchase order. Procurement transactions are therefore documented in Accounting but not in Logistics. This greatly increases the risk of payables being created and paid for services that are not performed, or of incoming invoices being too high � mistakes that are less likely to happen when invoices are verified via reference to purchase orders. What�s more, relevant documents like purchase orders, are not recorded and so, are inadequately documented.

Think it�s time you took a closer look at your system?

RBE Plus Benchmark for the month of March - 9 percent of customer transactions and reports...

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:10:00 +0100

... are assigned to the "$TMP" class. These temporary objects are created directly in the production system. This results in inconsistencies between development and production systems. There is also a significant risk of transactions and reports being deleted during a release upgrade. Steps must be taken to prevent this from happening. In special cases it can be useful to create objects in the $TMP class. But this should remain a rare exception to the rule.
Think it�s time you took a closer look at your system?

RBE Plus Benchmark for the month of January - 21 percent of purchase order items for direct consumption...

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:14:00 +0100

... are not processed via material master records. Normally, these orders are assigned to cost center, sales or project accounts. But if material master records are not used, G/L accounts are not assigned and debited automatically. To reduce potential errors and ensure that purchase orders are created efficiently, it�s important to keep manual processing to a minimum.
Think it�s time you took a closer look at your system?

RBE Plus benchmark for the month of December - 35% of the document types in Accounting are not used every month to post transactions...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 09:02:00 +0100

These particular processes happen rarely and require relatively long prep and processing times. If an organization has a large number of these, it should check process relevancy, redundancy and efficiency. Make a huge dent in TCO by reducing seldom used processes.

Sometimes, though, seldom or once-used processes may be intentional transactions, such as dunning. That�s why it�s important to examine each of these thoroughly and decide how important they are to your company. Think it�s time you took a closer look at your organization?

RBE Plus benchmark for the month of November - on average, 58 percent of customer transactions...

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:14:00 +0100

... in SAP systems are not used. Sometimes it�s smart to have custom developments, like customer transactions -- say, when your SAP release doesn�t offer a standard version for functions you need. But custom developments become a problem when they cease to contribute positively to business processes. They require the same maintenance as your vital custom developments: The ABAP code needs to be checked and adjusted manually for every release upgrade or consolidation project. This is why it�s so important to examine custom developments regularly and remove superfluous ones. Think it�s time you took a closer look at your system?

RBE Plus benchmark for the month of October - 27 percent of those who enter invoices in FI...

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:14:00 +0200

... also enter 80 percent of all vendor invoices. Based on the relatively low number of �power� users, we can deduce that there is a large proportion of occasional users who enter invoices only sporadically. Reasons for this might be that work is distributed among several employees or that organizations have a large part-time staff. When a system has too many occasional users, processes become inefficient and must be examined.

Think it�s time you took a closer look at your processes?

Testing, re-documenting and preparing to upgrade the SAP system at Philip Morris in Russia

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:09:00 +0200

To accelerate its SAP system upgrade and reduce costs, Philip Morris in Russia opted for RBE Plus solutions.

IBIS�s RBE Plus is able to analyze a live system automatically and efficiently. So why risk manual analysis? Precisely this logic moved decision-makers at Philip Morris to enlist Metron�s help; as a partner of IBIS Prof. Thome, Metron offers RBE Plus services and consulting in Russia.

They completed an in-depth analysis of the system�s structure and usage in only four weeks and seamlessly integrated the results into SAP Solution Manager.

They then used this data to make fact-based decisions about system development and to put these into practice.

RBE Plus Benchmark for the month of September - an SAP system contains on average 1,132 ABAP queries...

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:27:00 +0200

�for company-specific data analysis. Queries are frequently used to extract ad hoc information; but they require that users know exactly what data is stored in the system. A high number of company-specific queries indicates that data supply is obstructed and decision-makers are not receiving the information they need. Gathering data via queries demands customized modifications, which are both expensive and prone to error. What�s more, queries are not usually well documented, making it difficult to use them more than once. They should therefore be used sparingly. As a matter of fact, organizations that use queries should fundamentally reconsider how they gather data. Think it�s time you took a closer look at your system?