SAP data masking is increasingly getting important since companies are required to protect their sensitive data. All the non-production data is accessed by employees, contract employees and outsourcing companies providing SAP support services. All companies have non-disclosure agreements and data confidentiality contracts with employees and outsourcing SAP service companies. However, with increased access to SAP non-production systems to various participants, companies have to take concrete steps to protect the confidentiality and integrity of sensitive data (SD, MM, HR, FI, CO etc.).

The SAP data masking and data scrambling is required for the SAP data obfuscation to prevent unauthorized usage.

The SAP data masking or data scrambling technique should provide the following:

• Not reversible. The hashing or encryption method should be one-way.
• Impossible to determine original data from the scrambled data
• Resemble the original data such as telephone number or street address
• Maintain referential integrity. For example: if the social security number is a primary key and it is scrambled, then all of its occurrences in the linked SAP tables should get replaced to preserve referential integrity.

Approach for Data masking in the SAP ECC/SAP HR landscape:

• The Development and Quality systems data needs to be masked or scrambled
• The SAP Quality system is usually a copy refreshed from the SAP Production system
• The SAP Quality system sensitive data elements in the various SAP functional modules (such as FI, HR, SD etc.) need to be identified.
• The sensitive data needs to be masked / obfuscated.

Solutions for SAP Data masking / obfuscation:

• Custom development: Suited for data masking for a smaller set of data elements that are known to the customer. This approach allows control, future changes and at reduced costs compared to the commercial products in the market.
• Commercial Products for SAP data masking

Please contact us for a planned approach and development for SAP Data masking and obfuscation requirements, and our team would be glad to assist you.

Manish Agarwal

architectSAP
SAP :: Streamlined

SAP ECC, HR, CRM, SCM, BW, ABAP Development and SAP NetWeaver consulting, implementation, development and support services to SAP customers across diverse industries globally.

Have a question on SAP? Write to our SAP Architect : AskTheArchitect@architectSAP.com

(We promise a no-obligation consulting reply)

SAP customers are increasingly facing the challenges of SAP landscape management to keep their SAP systems running without interruptions. SAP customers are moving all their business operations to the SAP system for Financials, Sales, Procurement, Order management, Production, Warehousing and Customer Service. It is critical that the SAP system is always accessible with peak performance for transactions and reporting. SAP hosting in the Cloud with outsourced SAP management ensures an always available SAP system to the business. 

The SAP customers are facing the following challenges in managing the SAP landscape:

• New releases by SAP containing important enhancements
• New modules and SAP products being implemented by the business
• Complex SAP landscapes containing ABAP and J2EE stacks
• Reduced window for archiving and backups
• Requirement for disaster recovery procedures

At architectSAP, we are working with SAP Cloud Hosting providers to support the SAP customers for complete SAP management.

SAP customers have significant benefits through outsourced SAP Hosting in the Cloud:

• Avoid requirement for managing the hardware, and saving costs in data center space and system administration costs
• Professionally managed hosting ensures a high performant SAP landscape
• Avoid costs in SAP BASIS for SAP administration. The shared service model of the SAP Cloud Hosting ensures high quality and cost effectiveness in SAP BASIS activities.
• Archiving, Backup and disaster recovery requirements are managed by a highly competent team of the SAP Hosting provider
• SLA based support which provides the maximum effectiveness of your spend.

Please send us your questions, comments or assistance request, and our team would be glad to assist you.

Manish Agarwal

architectSAP
SAP :: Streamlined

SAP ECC, HR, CRM, SCM, BW, ABAP Development and SAP NetWeaver consulting, implementation, development and support services to SAP customers across diverse industries globally.

Have a question on SAP? Write to our SAP Architect : AskTheArchitect@architectSAP.com

(We promise a no-obligation consulting reply)

All businesses running SAP have the need for business process automation to reduce processing times and increasing accuracy of transactions. Businesses have need for business process automation across financials, sales, procurement, customer service, collections, HR and many others. With SAP running the core business operations, it makes a lot of sense for SAP customers to standardize on the SAP BPM product for managing business processes.

The current processes have the following characteristics:

• Paper based
• Need for approval from various stakeholders through physical signatures
• Archived into physical folders for future reference
• Due to the delay in entering the information into SAP, the sales or customer service departments do not have visibility into order status
• Due to movement of paper between offices, there are significant delays in approvals and order fulfillment.

For such business processes that have paper movement and authorizations, SAP BPM product provides the business process automation capabilities.

• Ability to provide an accurate User Interface to capture all the information in the paper forms
• Attach the scanned documents to the primary form to have a complete document docket. The original documents are scanned and archived. Thereafter, the scanned copy is inspected by the business users.
• Each business process step provides rich information from SAP and non-SAP systems which allow the business user to take a fully informed decision.
• The business process travels between multiple stakeholders. Each stakeholder conducts his or her work to complete their step of the business process. They add their analysis to their business step – the business process then moves to the next person in the process
• All approvals or rejections are recorded in SAP BPM which allow for future auditing.
• SAP BPM provides notifications through email such that the business user is aware of urgent actions on their part.
• The document management capability allows us to retrieve the electronic documents anytime later for auditing purposes. The physical documents are already in safe storage as per policy.

At architectSAP, we have provided compelling business benefits to our customers through process automation using the SAP BPM platform and the SAP NetWeaver platform.

Need Help:

Please discuss with us on your current paper based business processes. We would provide our recommendations on how to automate your paper processes in a practical manner using the SAP licenses owned by your organization.

Please send us your questions, comments or assistance request, and our team would be glad to assist you.

Manish Agarwal

architectSAP
SAP :: Streamlined

SAP ECC, HR, CRM, SCM, BW, ABAP Development and SAP NetWeaver consulting, implementation, development and support services to SAP customers across diverse industries globally.

Have a question on SAP? Write to our SAP Architect : AskTheArchitect@architectSAP.com

(We promise a no-obligation consulting reply)

SAP Financial Supply Chain Management (SAP FSCM) suite of modules and applications provides a solution to improve your AR processes. SAP FSCM provides Dispute Management which gives your accounts receivable or debt department 100% transparency for customer invoicing and billing issues.

Benefit

• Open items, credits to customer, and decision making are all visible through a single access point
• Accelerates invoice settlement and processing customer invoice complaints.
• Reduces manual processing time related to those cases of end users
• Improves collections and reduce day sales outstanding cycle of the company.

SAP FSCM Dispute management deals in dispute cases with accounts receivable.

• Dispute management is integrated with account receivable accounting and Biller Direct.
• SAP FSCM Dispute management creates specific account related cases of receivable and helps to resolve those cases with various underpayments by customers.

SAP Dispute management optimizes account receivables collection processes. SAP Dispute management also provides centralized control on dispute cases.

Each dispute is completely documented to capture the following information:

• dispute reason,
• details of the customer
• dispute priority (very high, high, medium or low)
• related financial transactions
• payment history

In SAP, new Dispute case can be created at the time of processing an incoming payment or financial transaction.

• SAP provides a common initial screen with transaction code – UDM_DISPUTE.
• This transaction provides information of dispute cases
• We can search dispute cases with person responsible, processor, case id, external references and many other options for searching the dispute cases.

In clearance or reversal of dispute cases or resolved cases, financial document get updated accordingly in background.

To close the dispute case, processor can take decision to do it manually or automatically through the system.

• In customizing, we can define which procedure will be taken.
• If case is not resolved completely, then it will be voided, this means the case is still exist in the system but not in consideration.
• SAP also provides mass activities to carry number of dispute cases.

Need Help:

In case you need assistance on SAP FSCM, please contact us. Please send us your questions, comments or assistance request, and our team would be glad to assist you.

Nilesh Rathi

architectSAP
SAP :: Streamlined

SAP ECC, HR, CRM, SCM, BW, ABAP Development and SAP NetWeaver consulting, implementation, development and support services to SAP customers across diverse industries globally.

Have a question on SAP? Write to our SAP Architect : AskTheArchitect@architectSAP.com

(We promise a no-obligation consulting reply)

SAP Financial Supply Chain Management (SAP FSCM) suite of modules and applications provides a solution to improve your AR processes; it provides functionalities for electronic billing, managing billing disputes, collections management and credit risk management. As such, SAP FSCM has compelling benefits to the business through reduction in working capital and managing of bad debt through effective efforts by the AR team for managing customer collections. In this blog, we provide an overview of the SAP Financial Supply Chain Management components of the overall FSCM solution.

SAP Financial Supply Chain Management FSCM contains:

• SAP Treasury and Risk Management (FIN-FSCM-TRM),
• SAP Biller Direct (FIN-FSCM-BD),
• SAP Cash and Liquidity Management (FIN-FSCM-CLM),
• SAP Collections Management (FIN-FSCM-COL),
• SAP Credit Management (FIN-FSCM-CR),
• SAP Dispute Management (FIN-FSCM-DM)
• SAP In-House Cash (FIN-FSCM-IHC).

SAP FSCM provides Treasury and risk management module which is integrated with Financial, Banking, Information System, and Accounting for managing financial transactions and financial risk in the business.

SAP FSCM provides Biller Direct module; this is an important capability in web-based invoicing and payments. Through SAP Biller Direct, customers and suppliers can access invoicing and payment information via business portal of the company. SAP FSCM biller direct provides seamless integration with accounting system and lets you handle electronic payment and settlement processes with customers or suppliers.

In SAP FSCM, cash management and Liquidity Management is a tool which improves ability to forecast and react to cash and liquidity positions. All components are preconfigured for real-time reporting and analysis of your liquidity position.

SAP Collections Management is the module which helps you to improve the productivity of your collections. By making it easy for agents to identify problem accounts or issues, you can greatly increase collection rates.

Credit Management in SAP FSCM accelerates the ability of your credit managers to extend or reject customer credit limits. Your credit score system for each customer is greatly improved through the real-time aggregation of your own credit data and information from third-party credit scoring agencies.

SAP FSCM provides Dispute Management which gives your accounts receivable or debt department 100% transparency for customer invoicing and billing issues. Open items, credits to customer, and decision making are all visible through a single access point – SAP FSCM Dispute management accelerates invoice settlement and processing customer invoice complaints.

Using SAP in-house Cash, you can see net accounts, group cash receipts and payments on a regional basis, and also reduce transaction costs for intercompany payments.

Need Help:

In case you need assistance on SAP FSCM, please contact us. Please send us your questions, comments or assistance request, and our team would be glad to assist you.

Nilesh Rathi

architectSAP
SAP :: Streamlined

SAP ECC, HR, CRM, SCM, BW, ABAP Development and SAP NetWeaver consulting, implementation, development and support services to SAP customers across diverse industries globally.

Have a question on SAP? Write to our SAP Architect : AskTheArchitect@architectSAP.com

(We promise a no-obligation consulting reply)