"If you could wish for how implementation projects should proceed in the SAP environment, then introduce the BPI solution and your expectations will be met!!
Smart, competent, goal- and solution-oriented with a manageable project effort in a country "China" are not self-evident buzzwords that come to mind spontaneously when it comes to the project.
But all of these apply to the introduction of EBS Workbench at Brose.We deliberately chose China as the pilot because we wanted to achieve maximum efficiency and automation. Pure manual postings in total at the end of the month are a thing of the past. Rather, the electronic account statement is now imported daily, and the business transactions are posted with an average automation rate of between 85% and 90%.
What usually remains are those that cannot be processed automatically due to missing of account statement information.
From the very beginning, the project team took on a lot of things themselves: from customizing to training the end users. BPI supported us very well in this project approach and successively imparted the know-how on the job.
In the end, a very succesful introduction, a lot of fun with a project duration of about 3 months."
Sebastian Herzer, Coordinator Finance, Brose Fahrzeugteile SE & Co. KG, Coburg, DE
"As part of a modernisation of our complete banking & payment infrastructure GLS was looking to enhance the bank statement processing in SAP. The infrastructure in place was initially setup 20 years ago, highly customized inside of SAP and no longer fit for purpose due to the increased complexity of our business and exploded volumes. This led to 250+ support tickets a year in recent years with our SAP team for support on issues with the loading and processing of bank statements.
After comparison of 3 SAP embedded tools for Automatic Cash Application we have decided for EBS Workbench. The key decisive factors for us to choose BPI:
Initially we opted to roll out EBS Workbench to only 7 group companies, but after the initial results and the gained efficiencies we decided to roll this out as a strategic solution for our 29 entities on SAP. Our company is very decentral organized, and this is the first solution that is really embraced group wide and allowed us to harmonize the reconciliation processes.
The flexibility EBS Workbench offers, is unparalleled compared to other solutions we considered and at a fraction of the price. The use of various built-in features, the possibility to integrate remittance advices and to clear intercompany payments automatically have been used extensively and offer us a lot of benefits in terms of daily operations.
The key users in the finance departments are fully in control of their reconciliation and can do most of the configuration themselves, relieving our already very strained SAP IT team.
At the same time, we completed the migration from MT940 to CAMT.053 for the banks that support this. In EBS Workbench the switch from MT940 to CAMT.053 is very easy and straight forward. For some entities we switched formats overnight without any issues. CAMT.053 vs MT940 gives us 5-10% more automation due it's more detailed and structured information.
Overall bank reconciliation automation across the group has increased from around 60% to about 85+%. In some countries we're able to achieve 95+% full automation.
The implementation of EBS Workbench has also paved the way for our S/4 HANA migration which will be a lot easier due to the way EBS Workbench operates. A great benefit is also that we were able to retire all custom specific enhancement coding that had been implemented at GLS over the last 20 years.
The support from BPI has been exceptional and invaluable. Their extensive knowledge of SAP FI is something that we value very much. Some minor tweaks to our daily operations inside SAP FI, lead to saving hours daily on tasks related to reconciliation and further posting in SAP FI."
Herman van Hazendonk, Director Group Treasury, General Logistics Systems (GLS), Netherlands
"The implementation of EBS was absolutely one of my smoothest implementations.
The EBS Workbench has had a positive impact on our processes, particularly in streamlining the reconciliation of bank statements and improving the accuracy and efficiency of our financial reporting. The key benefit is for no doubt the increased efficiency.
As we look towards future projects and the potential shift to S/4HANA, the experience with EBS has shown us how important it is to have knowledgeable partners. Your expertise throughout the project has not only ensured the success of the implementation but also reassured us that we have the right tools and support in place to scale our operations as needed.
If we had known how smoothly the implementation would go and how quickly we’d see tangible results, it would have made the decision to proceed even easier. Additionally, having a clear understanding of the support and flexibility that the EBS Workbench offers beyond just bank statement processing would have been valuable in the decision-making process."
Wim Wolsink, Financial Accounting Manager, Groupe Salins du Midi, France
"We had a high level of manual effort when posting bank statements, both in the area of bank accounting and in the area of accounts receivable. We were therefore looking for ways to increase efficiency in these areas.
Compared to alternative solutions on the market, BPI very quickly convinced us with the prospect of being able to work with a specialized provider with fast support.
Since the first go-live of EBS Workbench in September, CLAAS has already posted a six-digit number of account statement items via EBS Workbench. The degree of automation is now well over 80%.
One of the biggest advantages of EBS Workbench for us is that customizing the tool (adapting the posting rules) can be done comparatively easily by key users in the finance department. Here, the finance department itself is the driver of automation.
We also value the following points in particular when working with EBS Workbench today:
Joerg Opperbeck, A/R Accounting & Credit Management, CLAAS KGaA mbH, Germany
*This customer quote was translated into english based on the original german version"The decision to implement a new payment solution allowed us to also rethink the processing of electronic bank account statements.
We got to know BPI through a recommendation from our payment service partner.
I would like to highlight two aspects from the project with BPI:
All in all, a great project that was also a pleasure to deal with on a mutual basis and led to a high automation rate from Go Live onwards."
Michael Debus, CashManagement & Finance, DATEV eG
"With the implementation of SAP S/4 HANA, we started looking for an add-on for posting account statements so that we would not have to rely on extensive customizing in the SAP standard. Our decision quickly fell on EBS Workbench, as BPI already convinced us in the first presentation on the interface of the tool as well as in the communication on cooperation.
EBS Workbench delivered exactly what we were looking for:
In addition, we also benefit from the extensive SAP expertise "beyond" the bank statement and were able to improve several issues in our processes with the advice and helpful tips.
We from the Finance & Accounting department of Dehner Garten-Center can absolutely recommend the tool EBS Workbench, the consulting by BPI as well as the cooperation with BPI.”
Key user from Finance, Treasury & Accounting, Dehner Garden Center in Rain*
*)Due to company policy of the customer, name of the contact person cannot be published on this page, but we will be happy to arrange a bilateral contact with the responsible contact person of the customer.
"Improving our existing automatic bank statement processing in SAP was an important project for our finance department last year. Our expectations for the solution were:
We have been working with EBS Workbench for a year now. The support by BPI works excellently.
Despite the special situation that no on-site appointments were possible due to Corona restrictions, the planned go-live date could be kept. Even after that, the support provided by the BPI employees was characterized by fast response times and on-time delivery.
The Add-on allows changes and adjustments to be made by the finance department and implemented independently of IT.
Our expectations were fully met.
The rate of no-touch automatic bookings has increased by from 65.94% to 80.95%.
For bookings that cannot be fully automated, EBS offers numerous options to support the users in the day-to-day work (e.g. use of payment advice data or automatic creation of proposals for more extensive bookings).”
Key user from the finance department, medium-sized company in the food industry*
*)Due to company policy of the customer, name and company cannot be published on this page, but we will be happy to arrange a bilateral contact with the responsible contact person of the customer.
"I am a big fan of automatizations and embrace them in all areas of a business – in this case in our SAP S/4HANA Finance project.
The EBS Workbench add-on is a highly valuable tool has a visible positive magnitude on our business. I will go ahead in list the benefits we are already seeing:
Denisa Simion, Consolidation and Compliance, Finance / Accounting & Reporting, Huf Hülsbeck & Fürst
"VION N.V. was looking for a tool to achieve a higher degree of automation for bank statement processing and cash application in SAP.
The shared service center in NL manages payment transactions for 40 entities in SAP covering a total of about 70 bank accounts at various national and international banks.
Due to industry / business requirements, our accounting processes are quite complex and different amongst our entities. As an example our reference numbers are originating from various external IT Systems and we have to manage collections on behalf of our subsidiaries which requires cross company code clearings in SAP – just to name a few.
Before engaging with EBS Workbench, we were not satisfied with our automatic matching rate and we were quite dependent on IT resources. Our expectation was to increase automation substantially and becoming independent from IT.
We started implementing EBS at 19 entities. As a first result our existing automation rate was instantly doubled.
The rollout to the remaining entities has been performed by the responsible power-user in the Shared Service Center.
During the implementation of EBS and the related training to our people, we immediately experienced the benefits of EBS:
We look back on a pleasant and professional collaboration with BPI."
Monique van Straten – Zijlstra, Supervisor Cash Management Team Shared Service Center, Vion Food Nederland BV, The Netherlands
"While building up a shared service center in the Netherlands, KAO' s Finance members are on the constant lookout for improvement and the leanest processes possible. For our Cash allocation, we have definitely made the right choice with EBS Workbench from BPI and it is a great success.
EBS Workbench helped us tremendously to automate the cash allocation of our 18 different entities, for which we also have several banks and currencies.
It is not only the tool, for which we got training, guidance & support, but it is also the people from BPI who were amazing.
We had 2 key BPI people that constantly advised us on Finance as well as IT decisions and shared global best practices. We all always find exceptions, and even there BPI was able to provide solutions.
We saved time from tiring manual daily inputs, that we now use on other projects."
Jean-Pascal Kountar - Team Lead EMEA Cash&Banking FSSC/ EMEA - Kao Business Services B.V., The Netherlands