Case Study: Infor (SSA Global)

Brief

Infor are a $2 billion dollar turnover company who own & develop the following ERP systems, BPCS, Baan, MAPICS, System 21, Infinium, Protean, PRMS and Masterpiece (to name a few). They are the third largest ERP providers in the world behind SAP and Oracle.

The software industry are by far the most knowledgeable and critical industry to sell software solutions to. They know the pitfalls of software and demand the best solutions to use internally. Their cash application & electronic payment requirements are similar to many other industries though.

Here was the business process before our solution was implemented:

• Electronic payment process not linked directly with ERP information.
• No use of email remittances, paper costs were close to $2 per remittance.
• Separate solutions being used in different regional localities
• Laborious payment reconciliation process
• Electronic payments being completed with numerous banks across EMEA.
• Electronic payments not being used in North America incurring the costs of check printing.
• No use of positive pay files.
• Different electronic payment systems used in APJ region.

Solution

In January 2004, SAI and SSA Global embarked upon a European wide rollout of some of Cashbook’s flagship applications including Electronic Vendor Payments. This decision by SSA was a powerful endorsement by SSA Global of our electronic payment solution and an important development for the product and our customer base.

Countries that initially went live with Cashbook Electronic Payments are Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, France, Spain and Italy, with a second phase rollout taking place in Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Holland & Belgium.

Since the original implementation SSA Global have also consolidated some country operations into Regional Shared Service Centres, a business scenario that matches well with Cashbook’s multi-country, multi-currency and multi-bank payments platform.

In October 2006 Infor (the new owners of SSA Global) purchased global Cashbook licenses & implemented Cashbook in Singapore for the APJ region (entirely remotely without any onsite support requirements). In addition North America implemented electronic payments & email remittances for employee expenses.

Electronic Payments and e-Mail Remittances Advices allows suppliers to be paid quickly while delivering substantial ROI to an AP department in terms of bank fees, stationary and postage costs.

The key features of the solution are:

• Can be adapted for any Bank globally
• Standard payment process no matter what bank/currency or ERP you are using.
• BACSTEL-IP compliant software
• IBAN (International Bank Account Number) & non-IBAN payment formats can be generated.
• SEPA Compliancy
• Complete audit trail
• Auditable security surrounding vendor/employee bank account details
• Integrated with Cashbook Bank Reconciliation Module & Automatic Email Remittance Module.
• Multiple sites, environments or ERP systems can be catered for.

Results

Key benefits of this project included:

• Consolidate payments platform across entire region, removing the need to use and maintain local systems.
• IBAN compliant solution.
• Email remittance solution.
• Reduced processing time for SSA Global paying their suppliers in up to 20 different business units
• One Standard electronic payments process replaced multiple, heterogonous methods in different countries (check, bank wire, giro etc.)
• Ability to consolidate multiple unit activities into SSC environment
• Ability to change and update banks at will, without modifying underlying solution
• Positive payment files generated for cheques being printed in the USA.
• Successful European-wide implementation has since led to rollout to other global regions

Customer Comment: