For today’s enterprise, SAP offers the go-to solution for enterprise resource planning (ERP). There are few areas of any business, of any size, which SAP does not cover. However, with its offering of on-premise and cloud solutions such as S/4, Ariba, Concur, Success Factors, and Field Glass, SAP positions itself as having the technological muscle to help an organization achieve its vision and goals.

An SAP installation, of course, entails a significant investment in time and revenue – the latter comprising of the cost of the software and any hardware which may be required to run it. Rather, any company serious about ERP will have had to commit significant investment in time and effort to ensure the investment pays off: literally ensuring ROI.

After a successful installation, involving a great deal of careful consultation and iterative rollouts, it sometimes transpires that the SAP installation is not realizing the benefits that it could. (Often, it is only after a system has been in place that users begin to compile ‘wish-lists’ of further features they would like to see).

Because data held in SAP is sacrosanct (the entire business relies on it), protecting the data from mis-entries, corruption or just general error becomes a huge issue. Staff can be trained and drilled, but sometimes, mistakes happen. Delegation of tasks to inexperienced personnel is but one activity that can spell disaster.

Additionally, the nature of SAP integration and the breadth of the solution’s functionality required to support local country requirements as well as corporate requirements, form a complex system – as it needs to be, of course. Unless staff are conversant with the system’s workings, errors can be made, data can be overwritten and sometimes workloads tend to build up onto the SAP-astute or tech-savvy, rather than be delegated to perhaps less able staff.

Into this situation steps Cordis Solutions, whose SAP-oriented solutions are designed to help SAP customers realize the full ROI that an SAP installation offers, but which do not come with the training and supervision headaches of SAP. Cordis’s solutions take into account how the workforce has changed its expectations of how “business systems” are used. Pre-requisites are now 24/7 availability, plus an intuitive and easy-to-use interface.

Cordis’s myFIdoc reduces training burdens and allows access from any mobile, but integrates directly into SAP’s financial functions. It uses a simple Excel-based platform, but allows a very granular control over journal entries, ensuring that both users and administrators are happy.

Andrea Croce from Britvic commented: “We’ve been delighted with myFIdoc. Our teams have quickly realized the benefits of using this enabling technology for interacting with SAP. As well as being quicker and easier to use, training takes just one hour. Being able to review and approve journal entries from hotel rooms or airport lounges is another great advantage.”

myFIdoc facilitates the posting of most general ledger, accounts payable and accounts receivable journals into the SAP ERP systems, but permits an approval process for higher value postings (if necessary) and entry into multiple SAP data silos from one Excel document.

The interface for users is highly customizable, and as mentioned, is available remotely – for users on the road, for example.

Arnold Wickström, Corporate Controller of web hosting services giant 1&1, said: “Implementing myFIdoc helped us significantly reduce the workload involved in posting invoices. Our controllers value the increased flexibility they get from the Cordis solution. By being able to control the layout of their myFIdoc interface, they can work more efficiently and more accurately. And these changes make no impact on the underlying data and systems, meaning that we still get clean, complete and validated data in SAP.”

As well as the parking of journal entries, to mention one feature, a History Tab allows users to retrieve previous entries – a boon for anyone whose entries involve repetition that ought not to be necessarily automated.

Additionally, myMasterData from Cordis allows changes to be written into SAP’s master data records without users having to understand the multitude of data fields and their sometimes incomprehensible/confusing nomenclature. Managers can set up distinct data sets to be read from and written in, ensuring little or no staff error when making changes to precious, mission-critical data.

Luis Ramos, CIO of Adveo, said: “We quickly realized the benefits of using myMasterData. Previously, we had many employees engaged in managing our master data, but now we give our users something that is intuitive and familiar. We also liked that myMasterData doesn’t require any additional infrastructure. We’re using the technology that our employees already have and use every day.”

The familiarity of the Excel interface for both products ensures a swift and easy staff uptake, with the need for additional training absolutely minimal. Plus, there are a range of dashboard views, which enable teams to monitor all progress, such as new record creation.

By acting as a gently-ramped conduit into the power inherent in SAP, and controlling access so as not to cause data managers undue alarm, Cordis’s solutions allow the significant time and revenue investments made in SAP to be better realized.

For a talk with a representative who has significant experience in all sorts of SAP installations and their potential, get in touch today.