CODA Group International Ltd, the finance systems specialist, today announced that its tool to help accountants close the books faster and with greater control – Fast Close by CODA 2.0 - has achieved “SAP® xApps™ Certified – Powered by SAP NetWeaver®” status from SAP AG.
Fast Close by CODA can interoperate with applications from SAP and other vendors that are compliant with the SAP NetWeaver platform to help users improve period-end close processes. The certification was achieved by demonstrating that Fast Close by CODA is compatible with the SAP NetWeaver Portal and meets all of the technical and business criteria established by SAP for its SAP xApps Certified status.
Fast Close by CODA integrated with the SAP NetWeaver platform helps make the financial period-end close process even more efficient and controlled for users of SAP solutions in accounting and/or controlling departments. It helps users define, manage and audit period-end accountancy activities such as making provision for bad debts.
During the course of certification testing, CODA demonstrated the process of Bad Debt Provision, automatically extracting relevant data from the mySAP™ Customer Relationship Management (mySAP CRM) and mySAP ERP Financials applications, presenting it in a simple format to the Financial Controller for review, and then posting the approved journal back to mySAP ERP Financials.
ERP applications such as those from SAP manage users’ financial data, but the nature of the tasks involved in closing the accounts each month means that many activities take place outside of those applications, generally involving many manual tasks. Fast Close by CODA is designed to address the growing need for business process management and brings increased control, visibility and auditability to the overall process.
Fast Close by CODA helps finance departments using SAP solutions, or ERP systems from other vendors, to get control over the period close, automatically scheduling the tasks, standardizing the whole process and making it visible to the financial controller. This ensures that every step taken is recorded and retained for future audit.
Jeremy Roche, CODA Group CEO, said: “Many customers are looking for a tool that can integrate with their ERP application to help them close the books in a faster, more controlled manner. This release of our product is specifically designed to operate with SAP applications to help customers automate critical month-end-close processes.”
“SAP xApps Certified solutions enable continuous business innovation and provide customers with the flexibility to respond quickly and profitably to business change, while leveraging and protecting existing IT investments,” said Kevin Ichhpurani, vice president, Global Software Solution Partner Program, SAP. “By certifying ISV solutions that complement the SAP xApps family of composite applications, we continue to deliver to our customers innovative and flexible solutions built on SAP NetWeaver that provide end-to-end business processes for solving concrete business problems.”
Availability
Fast Close by CODA for SAP solutions is available now and can be implemented in a staged approach that delivers a clearly demonstrable early return on investment. Taking no more than a few days to get started with a pilot project, it causes minimal disruption to the finance team and ensures that benefits can accrue at each stage of implementation, with no need for high risk, ‘big bang’-type projects.
Once implemented, the user interface of Fast Close by CODA takes on the same look and feel as existing SAP applications, as defined by the user, to help ensure consistency and user familiarity, thus minimizing training costs and skills issues.
Background: SAP xApps Certified Status
Through SAP xApps Certified status, partners and ISVs like CODA deliver on the promise of enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA) following the principles and standards of SAP’s composite architectural guidelines. Composite applications that are certified by the SAP Integration and Certification Center reuse, integrate and orchestrate functionalities from existing application assets in the context of an enterprise SOA, with only selective development of new functionality where needed to fill gaps. A composite application provides new application functionality, supports analysis followed by action (other than mere read-only views), and enables the execution of business processes from start to finish. It has the potential of repeatable deliveries to multiple customers.
