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SAP B1 implementation is really very flexible and you often do not need third party SB1 ISV add-ons and instead discover how you can establish your unique business data entry procedure within SAP BO standard functionality. In this small publication we would like to give you highlights on how to automate mid-size rentals business in SAP Business One ERP

1. Service Contract in SB1. If you have serialized item you can associate it with contract main form. However item and its serial (or alternatively manufacturing) number is optional. One of the scenarios might be when you have one principal item, which is mentioned in the contract and then you add multiple additions: parts, auxiliary equipment – all these part are subject to the rent and needs to be accounted accordingly. In the case like that you associate main item with contract in Service Contract screen

2. Additional items. These items could be serialized, but it is your choice, you might be Ok just with counting them in your inventory warehouse as temporary rented by quantity. Here is what is a bit interesting and what is not really on the surface – look how we add items to rentals contract. Create new service call document, click on Expenses tab and Expenses Detail, then Service Call Expenses screen click on New Document and now you see the document options – here pick Transferred to Technician. Transferred to Technician will suggest you to select from which warehouse it should be transferred and which is destination warehouse. In essence it is simple inventory item transfer between two sites, however it is associated with Service Call and it is in turn associated with Service Contract, in our case we deploy Service Contract as Rental Contract

3. Rentals Warehouse. We recommend you in Transferred to Technician window use specially created Warehouse – named something like Rentals

4. Contract Termination. In order to place rented items back to their normal location, you should create new service call or open existing one and create new Expense document, pick Returned from Technician option. Here you should select from Warehouse Rentals

5. Rented Items report. If you are SB1 consultant, you should know how to create either query or modify existing service report or even create Excel or Crystal Report, showing you details on your Rental Contract

Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum, http://www.albaspectrum.com, help ( @ ) albaspectrum dot com. Please visit our information portal Pegas Planet: http://www.pegasplanet.com, serving ERP systems community since 1993, local service in Chicago, Naperville, Atlanta, Miami, San Diego, Houston, Dallas, remote support in CA, IL, IN, NY, FL, AZ, WA, NV, MI, WI, QC, ON, BC and the rest of USA and Canada. For 2008 we have SAP BO promotion campaign where we will send our sales engineer and implementation consultant free of charge to you if you are in USA or Canada country side. You will pay only for consulting hourly rates, and we will pay for travel and lodging.

The lucrative system integration (SI) and consultancy business in the local technology sector has just become more competitive, especially among the partners of enterprise software giant SAP who are now locked in a race to dominate the market.

The main protagonists in the SI landscape are major players Bayantrade and Kaisa Consulting – both backed by deep resources with another firm, FastTrack, in danger of becoming a casualty in the battle for supremacy between the two competitors.

Bayantrade, which has evolved from an online marketplace to a “knowledge process outsourcer, is owned by a consortium of conglomerates that includes Ayala Corp., JG Summit, and Benpres Holdings of the Lopez family. Kaisa Consulting, meanwhile, is owned by the cash-rich Ramcar Group.

Things started to heat up last year when Bayantrade bought a competitor, ABM Computech Enterprises, and made it a subsidiary and part of the Bayantrade group. The acquisition allowed Bayantrade to expand its scope from the enterprise sector with ABM’s midmarket business solutions.

The group now generates collective revenues of more than P300 million per year, although ABM has retained it business structure, company name, operations, and management team. ABM was recently named by SAP Philippines as its second “Gold” partner.

Kaisa, on the other hand, has been busy growing its SAP education services. But, threatened apparently by the growing clout of Bayantrade, it was reported that it is contemplating on acquiring FastTrack, SAP’s first “Gold” partner.

In an interview, however, Kaisa Consulting managing director Teh Opinion said the company is merely exploring partnership with FastTrack and is not buying the company – yet.

“We’re talking to them because their offerings and services complement our focus on the enterprise,” said Opinion. The executive, however, did not expressly rule out the possibility that an acquisition may be initiated by the company.

In a phone interview, FastTrack’s managing director Kerwin Malabanan said he has not conducted any merger talks with Kaisa. The company, whose core competency is on SMEs, has been named SAP Business One partner in the Philippines for two straight years.

Source: MB.com

SB1 is getting its popularity in US, especially with 2007A version release. GP at the same time is strong and traditional application, current version GP10.0 has large number of customers to this time, June 2008. The pricing of two are similar (if you are looking at GP Business Ready). Small business accounting selection process is sometime a bit nervous and contradiction. So, please relax and read top level comparison:

1. ERP Application maturity. In other words, you need to decide where is the line, which you do not want to cross in the sense of being helping ERP application to get into its maturity (fixing bugs, getting all the required features incorporated into standard version, etc.) and also letting matured ERP to keep collecting dividends and funds to switch to retirement. Here GP is more mature, than SB1, at the same time SBO is already came through its market penetration mode and is very stable to be implemented. There are additional nuances in this comparison, such as maturity of adopted modules, outside of the scope of this small article.

2. Standard logic flexibility. Here, in our opinion, SB1 has more pluses, comparing to GP. Intuitive SAP B1 interface incorporates as high end GP matching modules as customer vendor consolidation, for example. In SB1 2007 you can do it as multiple partner reconciliation.

3. Available local support. Again in our opinion, you should expect to find more experienced local consultants from both application and technical sides for Great Plains. In the case of SB1 consultants are in process of getting more implementation experience and certifications.

4. Openness to customization and programmability. Actually both applications are positioned very good. SB1 has SAP Business One SDK or Software Development kit, Great Plains has eConnect (and of course Microsoft Dexterity).

5. Database Platform. Here we would like to mention that reasonable of SB1 clients are on Microsoft SQL Server 2005. The same is true about GP (or even more, GP is available on SQL Server only since version 8.0). This fact allows you to deploy such industry reporting tools as Crystal Reports, SRS, as well as just deal with data querying on SQL select statement level.

6. MRP brand. Here you follow your intuition - if you like SAP, who is ERP vendor or Microsoft, who is more diversified software and technology oriented company.

Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum
http://www.albaspectrum.com
help@albaspectrum.com
1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, serving Great Plains and SAP Business One USA and Canada nationwide.

Manufacturing SMEs using SAP Business One ERP can now get a basic integrated version of Crystal Reports reporting and business intelligence software.

Just a matter of months since SAP’s acquisition of Business Objects, SAP says it’s not only the first integrated solution but evidence of the companies’ commitment to SMEs.

Marge Breya, general manager and executive vice president at Business Objects, says that users can now connect diretly to data from the SAP application regarding all critical business functions to create reports and graphics.

“Our mission is to transform the way the world works by connecting people, information and businesses,” she says. “All companies, regardless of size, are looking to eliminate ‘knowledge shadows’ in order to simplify the decision-making process.

“Today’s announcement is an important step forward in helping small and midsize companies extend all information to all people, and ultimately close the gap between strategy and execution. The new combined offering will give [them] the business intelligence tools they need to transform their organisations and outmanoeuvre the competition.”

It’s based on Crystal Reports 2008 Visual Advantage, which allows users to analyse and report on information gathered from more than 35 data sources. With Xcelsius Engage 2008, business professionals will be able to create dashboards and data presentations, while end users share these dashboards live with their respective teams.

SAP says that a single copy is now generally available at no additional cost to SAP Business One customers on maintenance.

SAP purchased a company called Business Objects. Business Objects is the company that makes Crystal Reports, which has been around for a long time. SAP now offers integration from SAP Business One to Crystal Reports through an Add-On for any customers that are up to date with their maintenance agreement. The cost of the add-on is free; if you are a customer or partner, you can download the add-on and install it into your system. Of course if you do not install it yourself, then you can have a consultant install it for you for a fee.

The current reporting within SBO is either done through PLD (with Queries), XL Reporter, or just by offloading data from SBO to Excel. These reporting solutions are good, but a few of them are a little difficult for a normal user to utilize. Crystal Reports is a very common skill set and is probably the most commonly used reporting tool (even outside the SAP world).

SAP also recently announced that they will offer one free Crystal Reports “light” developers edition (the site states Available Mid-August 2008) so that companies can develop their own reports over the SBO data. The only issue is that the “light” version only allows you to work with the SBO data.

Before this add-on was announced, products such as Third Wave’s – Crystal Wave were the only way that you could integrate crystal reports into the SBO menu. Third Wave’s solution appears to be much more advanced than the free integration with SAP (but it gets the job done). The Third Wave solution allows you to replace the current reports on the marketing documents, place named reports right on the menu (with parameters), and associate reports with any screen in SBO (and will take screen fields and pass them to the report). Additionally they have some pretty advanced document emailing capabilities and integrated activity management.

If you do not already have a reporting solution for SAP Business One, now is the time to take advantage of this tool from SAP. Check out the SAP Portal (username and password required) to get the add-on.

Chandigarh-based solution provider, OST Electronics has tied up with SAP to provide the Business One ERP solutions to SMBs.

“I believe that our expertise in the SMB segment will give promising results to Business One. We have a strong presence in cities like Chandigarh, Himachal and J&K,” said  Dinesh Sharma, Managing Director, OST Electronics.

OST itself is implementing Business One within the company to streamline its business operations. “The rollout of SAP in our organization has been a good learning experience for our team, which will come handy in providing the solution,” asserted Sharma.

Affordability will play a critical role for Business One. “SMBs are price conscious and, hence, to convince them to deploy SAP ERP we will have to show them a strong ROI. Also we will be providing customization services on the Business One platform which we believe will be our USP,” he added

Two employees of OST will undergo training and certification from SAP.

Boston – Business Objects used its Influencer Summit here Tuesday to announce a number of new product releases and enhancements playing to the theme of closing the gap between strategy and execution, including an SMB-focused announcement it promises will provide strong opportunity for the channel.

Executives from SAP (NYSE: SAP) and Business Objects told analysts, media and bloggers that they see a convergence happening in the business applications arena where business intelligence (BI), governance, risk, compliance and enterprise performance management (EPM) tools are all converging.

By marrying strategy and execution more closely through a more tightly integrated suite, strategy can be translated into execution and, as importantly, execution can also influence strategy, said Jonathan Becher, senior vice-president of marketing at Business Objects. Their answer for the market is an SAP back-end with Business Objects as the user interface.

The first integrated fruits of the Business Objects acquisition see a basic version of Crystal Reports integrated into SAP Business One, SAP’s suite for the SMB space. Existing customers will also receive a copy of Crystal Reports, and users will be able to connect data from Business One and more easily create visually-compelling reports.

Paul Clark, senior director, corporate product marketing with Business Objects, said having Crystal Reports as part of Business One will make the suite a more feature-rich and user-friendly offering to pitch to potential clients. And as it’s the basic version of Crystal Reports that’s baked-in, there’s also the opportunity for the partner to up-sell once the client sees the power of the platform. The full version would allow users to pull data in from other, non-SAP data sources, and add more functionality.

“There’s an up-sell opportunity there for partners, and a very big part of the Crystal Reports business historically has worked exactly like that,” said Clark.

Business Objects also released BusinessObjects Xcelsius Present, a single-user version of its data-visualization tool that allows users to manipulate Microsoft Excel spreadsheet data in interactive, visually compelling ways and share the functionality via Microsoft PowerPoint and Adobe PDF files. Clark says VARs will more likely sell the enterprise-versions of Xcelsius, but the company hopes the Present edition will gain traction at the user-level and in the SMB with its US$195 price-point.

CitiXsys, a leading provider of software solutions for the Retail and Wholesale Distribution Supply Chain, recently appointed Bharat Gupte to its Board of Directors. With over 30 years of financial, operational and marketing experience, Bharat has been instrumental in helping companies globally achieve business growth and profitability and led organizations through successful mergers and acquisitions.

“Bharat brings an incredible wealth of knowledge and experience to CitiXsys from having helped run various organizations to the pinnacle of success,” said Kamal Karmakar, CEO of CitiXsys. “Bharat has spent several decades overseeing the operations of many multi-million dollar companies. His track record of driving business growth and propelling positive business changes will be a key asset in taking CitiXsys ahead. We look forward to benefiting from his insights and experience,” he added.

From 2000 to 2005, Bharat served as the Managing Director of Redwood Venture Partners, a private equity firm. Prior to joining Redwood Ventures, he served as President and COO of the Optical Components Division of Oki Semiconductor (a division of Oki Electric Industry, a member of the Nikkei 225). Before heading operations at Optical Components, he was Vice President and General Manager of Standard Products, another business unit of Oki Semiconductor with high growth in products targeted at the communications segment. In 1998, he was appointed a member of Oki Semiconductor’s Board of Directors. Before joining Oki in 1989, he served as Director of Marketing and International Sales for Inova Microelectronics, successfully repositioning the company as an SRAM supplier. Still earlier, he was a Directorate Marketing Manager with Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) for a $50M product line.

Bharat’s past experiences includes executive management positions in multi-billion dollar organizations both domestically and internationally. He sits on the boards of LumaSense Technologies, Niksun and Stratosphere Solutions. He has also served on the boards of Optovation (photonics subsystems), Gtran Inc. (optical subsystems), Nextnine (software services), Tavanza (wireless RF), GWS Photonics (semiconductors), Axcel Photonics (photonics) and Kromos (satellite communications), Lambent Technologies (sold to Induslogic in 2006). Other companies he has worked closely with include Gtran Wireless (cellular products), Nazomi (cell phone accelerators), Ashvattha (wireless RF components) and Pranalytica (Security systems).

Bharat was also instrumental in executing Tavanza’s sale to Celeritek (Nasq:CLTK); Gtran Wireless sale to Flextronics (Jan 2004); Mesh Networks sale to Motorola (Nov 2004) and Axcel Photonics to a private investor. He has been actively involved in successful mergers that include Kromos with AnaCom Inc. and Optovation with Laurel Networks. He led the successful IPO of Magma in November 2001. In addition he also served as an advisor to Opelin, an automatic remote backup storage software company that was later sold to Hewlett Packard in 2007.

Bharat has an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and also holds an engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi.

About CitiXsys:

CitiXsys is a leading provider of products for SAP® Business One in the Retail and Wholesale Distribution Supply Chain. The largest SAP® Business One Solutions Partner globally, CitiXsys also provides implementation, integration and customization services to SAP partners and customers worldwide. CitiXsys clients have realized the promise of the CitiXsys Advantage: innovation, on-time service delivery, rapid return on investment and high quality products and solutions.

CitiXsys helps clients across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific regions and Africa realize high business impact and value from improved retail, wholesale and distribution solutions in the Business One landscape. Acknowledged as a leading Business One Solution Provider by industry analysts and experts, CitiXsys clients include globally recognized companies such as American Express, SAP, Swarovski Optik, Greiche & Scaff, Britannia, Wellborn Cabinet, Inc., Biotique, Colio Wines, Margaret Howell and Alcan.

CitiXsys has been acknowledged as the SME Global Innovation Partner by SAP, and is the recipient of the SAP® Pinnacle Award, a global recognition given by SAP to CitiXsys in 2008.
The company has its corporate headquarters in New York City and offices in the U.S, Canada, U.K, Australia and India. For more information please visit: http://www.citixsys.com

All product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. SAP® and other SAP® products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP® AG in Germany and in several other countries globally. Data contained in this document serve informational purposes only. Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to CitiXsys are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. CitiXsys undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations.

We are Outsourching Company seeking a professional candidate to the position are:

SENIOR ACCOUNTANT STAFF (SAS) -Temporer

• Male
• S1 graduate from reputable university with min. 2 years experience.
• Able to do daily accounting transaction such as AR Aging analysis, AP Export Import, and Treasury function.
• Able to handle transactions in Treasury with internet banking sytem.
• Computer literate, familiar with Microsoft Office (especially in Windows excell)
• Graduated from a recognized university, majoring in Accounting is a must.
• Hands on experience using computerized accounting software and emails;
• Well knowledge of Indonesia GAAP. Understanding IFRS would be an advantage;
• Self-starter with an inquiring mind, and be able to work independently and/or in a team;
• No obstacle to work long hour and under pressure of deadline
• English minimum passive
• SAP Business One/SAP R3 experience is an advantage.

SENIOR ACCOUNTANT (SA)

• Male/Female
• S1 graduate from reputable university with min. 5 years experience.
• Having an experience in Big 4 accounting firm is preferably considered.
• Able to do the job as multitasking area, hard worker with high integrity and responsibility
• Able to do daily accounting transaction such as AR Aging analysis, AP Export Import, and Treasury function.
• Able to handle transactions in Treasury with internet banking sytem.
• Having experience in making monthly and yearly financial statement and preparation of tax admin report such as monthly reporting for WHT art 21, 22, 23, and VAT IN/VAT OUT - also updated with tax regulation.
• Computer literate, familiar with Microsoft Office (especially in Windows excell)
• Graduated from a recognized university, majoring in Accounting is a must.
• Having 5-6 years of proven experiences in accounting firm and/or manufacturing environment;
• Hands on experience using computerized accounting software;
• Well knowledge of Indonesia GAAP. Understanding IFRS would be an advantage;
• Self-starter with an inquiring mind, and be able to work independently and/or in a team;
• Fluent in English both written and orally.
• SAP Business One/SA R3 experience is an advantage
• No obstacle to work long hour and under pressure of deadline.

If you meet the requirements, please do send your application, cv, recent photograph, and expected salary to:

PT. Prismas Jamintara
Plaza Dm 6Th Floor
Jl. Jend. Sudirman Kav.25
Jakarta 12920
Phone (021) 5229917 - 21 , Fax (022) 5229922

Up.Ms. Asti Suryandari or by email to
asti.suryandari@prismas.co.id / anggi. hakiki@prismas.co.id / sari@prismas.co.id / eva@prismas.co.id /

THE small and medium enterprises (SMEs) need to improve themselves in terms of information technology (IT) and human capital.

SAP South East Asia vice-president and Singapore country manager, Kowshik Sriman, said SMEs tend to be “a bit apprehensive and fearful of IT because they are not used to it”.

He told StarBiz that SMEs need to be confident in adopting technology. “Those that can overcome this apprehension can look forward to handsome rewards.”

Kowshik, who is also head of SME business for SEA, said one of the key concerns of SMEs was IT implementation within the organisation.

“SMEs generally don’t have big IT departments, so they want to know how fast a solution can be deployed.

“At SAP, we try to bring down the complexity of deploying our solutions significantly,” he said, citing the company’s Fast-Start Programme and Business One solutions as examples.

SAP claims that with its Fast-Start Programme, companies will be able to get industry-specific business processes up and running in six to eight weeks, compared with a few months to a year previously.

While there are technology providers offering solutions that can potentially help reduce costs, complexity and time to market, Kowshik believes that SMEs ultimately must be willing to take that first step to change.

“SMEs generally have more aggressive growth targets compared with large enterprises. I believe the key turning point for SMEs comes when they make IT decisions,” he said.

He said SMEs that have put in place the right processes and tools would be better equipped to execute and achieve their business strategies and targets.

He also said SMEs that were innovative would know how to adapt and benefit from changes in market dynamics.

“There are always temporary aberrations in the market that will affect businesses. Sometimes when these things happen, it gives an opportunity for stronger SMEs to emerge,” he said.

He cited IT tools as one of the pillars that could help businesses adapt more efficiently to market changes.

On human capital, Kowshik said SMEs should device measures that would help combat talent attrition.

“People are your biggest asset, more so if you are an SME. However, some have expressed concern on talent leakage,” he said, suggesting that SMEs develop a unique value proposition from a human resources perspective to retain talent.

He said he knew many people who would prefer to work for SMEs than large firms because they want to be part of the company’s growth story.

“Individuals feel proud when they know they have contributed and made a difference to company growth,” he said.

Despite uncertainties in the economy, Kowshik believes opportunities are aplenty for local SMEs, as Malaysia’s economy is relatively robust unlike some others in the region.

“You can have a recession or a credit crunch in the US, but there’s minimum flow through to Malaysia. I don’t see too much pessimism from our partners, customers and business leaders.

“There is a certain amount of optimism and confidence that the economy will be able to sustain,” he said.

SMEs now make up about 40% of SAP Malaysia’s revenue and customer base.