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Regulations
Regulations
- 8 Steps to Document Controls for Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance
by Bryan Wilson (CPA, CISA), Principal, Acumen Control ERP, Inc
As an operational specialist, you might not have as much experience documenting internal controls as your counterparts in finance. The author of this article provides a step-by-step approach for the operational side of the business and explains the differences among the different types of controls.
- Accelerate Your Closing Process with mySAP ERP New G/L and New Functions
by Aylin Korkmaz, Manager, Accenture UK
Fast period closing enables quick identification, investigation, and elimination of accounting problems. Here's how to take advantage of mySAP ERP's new G/L and new functions in accounting for your fastest closings yet.
- Ask the SAP GRC Expert: Demystify Foreign Currency Valuation with F.05
by Drs. Stef Cornelissen, SAP Consultant, Proxyon B.V.
If your company has open items in foreign currencies, you need to know how exchange rate fluctuations are affecting your bottom line. Learn the ins and outs of a highly useful but sparsely documented transaction and gain a complete view of currency valuation.
- Automate Online Export Declarations to Germany with ATLAS
by Venkat Jammi, Lead Consultant, and Rajen Iyer, CPIM, PMP, Krypt (July 2010)
Understand ATLAS, the online automated export declarations system for outbound shipments from Germany, including the system architecture and how to implement it. Walk through the configuration and associated system setup to enable the process and the communication.
- Behind SAP’s Internal IFRS Project
by Davin Wilfrid (September 2009)
Like most global businesses with subsidiaries in dozens of countries, SAP’s reporting requirements are daunting. The looming switch to IFRS in the US has complicated things even further, requiring SAP to implement a parallel accounting structure to account for both US GAAP and IFRS reporting rules. See how the company was able to manage this complex project successfully, and how it plans to build on IFRS for the future.
- Benchmark SAP Application Controls to Increase Testing and Documentation Efficiency
by Richard Castle, Executive Director, Ernst & Young LLP
See how to use your SAP system’s table logging functionality to support a benchmarking strategy for application controls.
- Build and Implement a Rock-Solid Compliance Framework for Your IFRS Conversion Project
by Kehinde Eseyin, Systems Support Manager, TOTAL Nigeria PLC, Nigeria (July 2009)
Many countries already operate under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), while the US, among other countries, may be joining the fray. To simplify the conversion from your local reporting standard to IFRS and better manage the associated compliance risk, organizations must adopt strategies and best practices based on a proven compliance framework.
- Build Bullet-Proof Testing Strategies to Comply with Legal and Industry Regulations
by Mitresh Kundalia, Director, SAP Practice, Quality Systems & Software
Organizations need to design and develop effective testing strategies to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley and industry-specific requirements. These testing strategies and methodologies need to cover both normal day-to-day maintenance of business scenarios and major initiatives such as upgrades, fresh implementations, and more. See how to build and follow a five-phase plan to perform testing on your system and ensure compliance.
- Communicate with Customs Using AES in SAP GRC Global Trade Services
by D. Rajen Iyer, CPIM, PMP, Kryaa
Set up SAP Global Trade Services Customs Management to take advantage of Automated Export System communication with US Customs and Border Protection.
- Comply with Sarbanes-Oxley Regulations by Locking Posting Periods in CO-PA
by Jeffrey Holdeman, Principal Solutions Consultant, SAP
Discover how to use the Profitability Analysis (CO-PA) valuation enhancement to lock posting periods against changes in CO-PA data. See also how this solution helps meet Sarbanes-Oxley compliance for internal controls on CO-PA reporting.
- Comply with the New EEO Regulations for the 2007 Filing
by Danielle Larocca Signorile, Vice President of HR, Information Systems, Compass Group, The Americas
A new US Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) law change that became official in December 2005 requires you to add two different SAP classifications for race and job. To prepare to implement these changes in 2007, you need to map from the old job codes to the new and use a collection method to re-collect the race data and load it into your SAP system.
- Corporate Governance in the US, Singapore, and India: How Does Sarbanes-Oxley Compare?
by Vivek Sadhale, Company Secretary and Head – Legal, Vikas Agarwal, Deputy Manager – Secretarial, Amit Atre, Assistant Officer - Secretarial, Persistent Systems Limited (March 2009)
Many parts of corporate governance codes are similar from country to country. The United States’ Sarbanes-Oxley Act is the most well-known code, and many countries’ efforts toward corporate governance resemble it. See how India and Singapore — two countries in much different socioeconomic climates than the US — handle corporate governance in comparison to the US.
- Create a Control Dashboard to Monitor Your Internal Controls
by Taylor Erickson, Manager, BearingPoint, Inc.
It is vital to track user exits to ensure the financial transparency of your company. The author introduces a programmable "control dashboard" that will enable you to recognize, document, and help audit the user exits in your company's system.
- Easily Maintain Workers’ Compensation Classification Data for the US
by Dawn Burns and Brad Walters, Senior Consultants, Electronic Data Systems
In this overview of US-based workers’ compensation, learn about the general functionality that SAP provides to keep your company in compliance. See how to set up the premium deductions and the workers’ compensation codes in Organizational Management.
- Five Keys to a Successful US Payroll Year-End
by Steve Bogner, Managing Partner, Insight Consulting Partners
Implement these five best practices when you prepare for year-end US federal, state, and local tax reporting requirements. Combined with SAP’s Payroll functionality, they will help you plan your year-end Payroll processes.
- Get Your System Clean with Risk Analysis and Remediation
by Frank Rambo,
Director, Regional
Implementation Group
(RIG) EMEA, SAP GRC
Become and stay Sarbanes-Oxley compliant with Risk Analysis and Remediation. Learn about its main features, technical architecture, and setup.
- Handle Partially Reclaimable VAT with Pro-Rata VAT Functionality in Your SAP System
by Kees van Westerop, Senior SAP Consultant, Kwest Consulting (October 2009)
Many organizations in the EU use Value Added Tax (VAT) on certain sales. However, not all sales allow VAT charges. If you’re a company providing products that are both VAT-eligible and VAT-ineligible, how do you account for this in your system? See how to set up and customize pro-rata VAT in your SAP system.
- How PCI Security Compliance Requirements Affect Your SAP System
by Eric Bushman, Director of SAP Solutions, Paymetric, Inc.
Card issuers are requiring merchants, banks, service providers, and card processors to take stringent measures to protect stored data. Establishing user security roles and minimizing end-user access to non-encrypted card data within your SAP system is essential for compliance.
- IFRS Adoption for US Companies: A Primer
by Anurag Barua, Senior Manager (July 2009)
Worried about the impending US conversion to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)? See some quick hints about things you should know and places you can look for information as the landscape changes.
- Improve Your Compliance by Using VSOE-Based Revenue Recognition
by Akhilesh Mittal, Consultant, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
You can break down revenue recognition into two considerations — when to recognize the revenue and how much to recognize. Discover the procedure in your SAP system to apply the vendor-specific objective evidence-based fair value process to address these issues. Determine how much revenue to recognize when individual software elements are bundled in a product.
- Is Your Foreign Currency Revaluation FASB 52 Compliant?
by Susanne Finke, SAP Consultant, ZANN Consulting Inc.
Compare methods of configuring and executing foreign currency revaluation in your SAP system to determine which method best suits your needs while meeting US Financial Accounting Standards Board Statement No. 52 (FASB 52) requirements, which govern foreign currency revaluation.
- Keep Up with Multiple Regulations by Controlling Multiple Data Retention Policies
by Judith M. Myerson, President/Owner (November 2009)
Follow four steps to help you identify, prioritize, and plan a data retention policy.
- Keep Your Web Applications Sarbanes-Oxley-Compliant by Running CUP for SAP NetWeaver Portal
by Frank Rambo, Director, Regional Implementation Group (RIG) EMEA, SAP GRC (October 2009)
SAP BusinessObjects Access Control 5.3 can connect to the SAP NetWeaver Portal for automated user provisioning. Requesters can use the Compliant User Provisioning (CUP) product capability to request access to SAP NetWeaver Portal and select group memberships, portal roles, and User Management Engine (UME) roles. During the approval process, you can execute a risk analysis on the level of iViews and UME actions included in the requested roles to ensure Sarbanes-Oxley compliance with respect to the Web applications accessible through SAP NetWeaver Portal.
- Make Identity Management Sarbanes-Oxley-Compliant by Leveraging Integrated SAP Solutions
by Frank Rambo, Director, Regional Implementation Group (RIG) EMEA, SAP GRC (June 2009)
Efficient processes for identity management (IDM) are a challenge to many companies — in particular when access- and authorization-related risks must be managed and taken under consideration prior to provisioning access privileges. SAP BusinessObjects Access Control 5.3 comes with a Web service-based interface intended to provide risk analysis and mitigation features to IDM solutions. See how to integrate one such solution, SAP NetWeaver Identity Management 7.1, with SAP BusinessObjects Access Control 5.3 to obtain a highly cost-efficient solution for compliant IDM.
- Meet Your Complex ITAR Requirements Using Agreement and License Types
by Rajen Iyer, Practice and Program Head, Kryaa
See how to set SAP GRC Global Trade Services to use the appropriate agreement and license type for your imports and exports.
- Monitor Compliance with the New US DOL's FairPay Overtime Initiative
by Danielle Larocca Signorile, Senior SAP Consultant
To ensure compliance with the US Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) new FairPay law, your company must identify workers who earn less than $23,660 per year or $455 per week to confirm that they are configured to be eligible for overtime. The author shows you how to set up an audit to identify these employees using SAP Query.
- Part 2: Set Up
Preference
Processing to
Delineate Customs
Tariff Priorities
and Manage Risk with
Global Sourcing
by Rajen Iyer, Practice
and Program Head,
Kryaa (December
2008)
See how to set up and perform preference processing within your global customs practices through your supply chain in both SAP ERP Central Component and SAP GRC Global Trade Services. Preference processing allows you to capture and determine the duty preference, drawback, and allowance based on the country of origin and tariff for the product.
- Prepare Your R/3 System Now for the International Accounting Standards Deadline
by Drs. Stef Cornelissen, SAP Consultant, Proxyon B.V.
Impending deadlines for compliance with the International Accounting Standards (IAS) will require hard work on the part of many accountants and R/3 specialists. The problem posed by IAS is that, in most cases, two or more sets of figures have to be managed because of the differences among IAS, US GAAP, and national fiscal reporting.
- Prepare Your SAP Financials System for the Single Euro Payments Area
by Juergen Weiss, SEPA-now Consulting
Become familiar with the regulations of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) and its consequences for companies doing business in Europe. Get an overview of the SEPA functions delivered within the SAP Financials system and understand for which SAP releases they are available. Learn how you can activate and configure the SEPA functions in the SAP Financials system.
- Prepare Your SAP System for Electronic VAT Declaration
by Kees van Westerop, Senior SAP Consultant, Kwest Consulting (August 2010)
More and more countries in the EU are allowing electronic declaration of Value Added Tax (VAT) reports. See the configuration and technical settings you can implement in your SAP system to enable you to electronically submit VAT to tax authorities.
- Quick Tip: 5 Steps to Accept or Reject Residual Risks
by Judith M. Myerson, President/Owner (September 2009)
Follow a five-step process in SAP BusinessObjects Risk Management for evaluating risks that remain in your system and may threaten your compliance with major regulations.
- Quick Tip: 7 Reasons You Don't Need to Reconcile VAT and Intrastat Reports
by Kees van Westerop, Senior SAP Consultant, Kwest Consulting
See the differences between Value Added Tax (VAT) reporting and Intrastat reporting that show why it is not possible in some situations to reconcile VAT and Intrastat reports.
- Quick Tip: A Little-Known Program Eases Uploads of Commodity Codes
by Kees van Westerop, Senior SAP Consultant, Kwest Consulting
Save time by maintaining commodity codes using a standard available upload program. By using this program, you can avoid the process of customizing, thus allowing end users to maintain the commodity codes on their own.
- Quick Tip: A-123 Requires Federal Agencies to Achieve Compliance Too
by Anurag Barua, Director of Consulting, EDC Consulting
Learn about a regulation that federal agencies follow for compliance and risk management.
- Quick Tip: Comply with Capital Goods Reporting for France, Spain, and Portugal
by Kees van Westerop, Senior SAP Consultant, Kwest Consulting (June 2009)
You can set your SAP system to automatically create an adjustment posting to report capital goods invoices separately, as required by some countries.
- Quick Tip: EEOC Proposes Employee Classification Updates
by Danielle Larocca Signorile, Executive SAP Consultant
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has proposed two changes that would affect the way HR professionals classify employees in the United States. The EEOC has proposed that the number of race and ethnicity categories on which employers report be increased to seven, and that the officials and managers category be divided into three subcategories.
- Quick Tip: Six Steps to a Successful Localization Project
by Christine DiLacqua, President, CQ2 Consulting LLC
If your company conducts business within the Pacific Rim, it is crucial to evaluate your ability to meet local language requirements. With a focus on Asian countries, the author suggests six helpful hints aimed to address the translation concerns of a globalization/localization project.
- Remediate Issues within Financial or Operational Compliance Initiatives in a Single System of Record
by Frank Rambo, Director, Regional Implementation Group (RIG) EMEA, SAP GRC (August 2010)
Too often, controls are managed using inadequate tools (e.g., point solutions, document repositories, and spreadsheets) that require too much manual tracking and updating. With SAP BusinessObjects Process Control 3.0, you can streamline issue identification and remediation with automated task notification and workflow-driven remediation plans.
- Report Foreign Payments with the SCB Indicator to Comply with Foreign Trade Regulations
by Kees van Westerop, Senior SAP Consultant, Kwest Consulting
Get an understanding of the State Central Bank (SCB) indicator, which you can use to fulfill legal foreign trade regulations. See an overview of the mandatory and optional customizing settings that are necessary to process the SCB indicator in the correct way in your SAP system. Discover where to find the SCB indicator within the financial transactions in your SAP system.
- SAP E-Recruiting Part 3: Source Talent Globally While Supporting Local Regulations and Business Needs
by Mark Ingram, Solution Manager, SAP Labs, LLC; and Mitch Burton, Principal Consultant, TRM Technology
Recruiting practices not only determine the quality of your employees but also must comply with local and international business laws. Learn the important considerations for using SAP E-Recruiting in a global environment. Most of these tips for using SAP E-recruiting are also valid for single-country deployments.
- SAP NetWeaver 2004s: Data Upload Feature Enhances Sarbanes-Oxley Consolidations Compliance
by Peter Jones, Platinum Consultant, SAP
SAP NetWeaver 2004s includes automatic data uploading functionality that replaces the Microsoft Excel-based method. It features a new consolidated process using Real-Time InfoCubes and Real-Time DataStore objects.
- Sarbanes-Oxley: How It Affects You and What You Should Do About It Now
by Michael Nadeau, Publisher, Wellesley Information Services
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 will affect the logistics and supply chain teams as well as your company's financial people. What will be your role in bringing your organization into compliance? What areas do you need to be concerned with? This article frames the tasks that you and your team are likely to perform as a result of the Act, and provides advice for getting started.
- Sarbanes-Oxley: How Will It Affect You?
by Taylor Erickson, Senior Principal, Virtuoso, LLC
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOA) was enacted by the United States Congress to prevent accounting scandals and reporting problems from recurring, and to rebuild public trust in business practices. This article is a quick guide that outlines provisions of the Act that are of particular interest to HR organizations tasked with helping their companies achieve compliance.
- Sarbanes-Oxley: Seven Steps to Ensure Your Internal Controls Cover Your Risk
by Taylor Erickson, Senior Principal, Virtuoso, LLC
As the deadlines approach, does your SAP financials team have a plan in place for compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOA) of 2002? No? That's not unusual, as many companies are struggling to learn what system and process changes the Act will require. But where do you begin this learning process? The author provides a seven-step method to assess how your FI/CO system measures up.
- Set Up Purchase Account Management to Fulfill EU Legal Requirements
by Kees van Westerop, Senior SAP Consultant, Kwest Consulting
Within several European Union countries it is legally required to report within the G/L the acquisition costs of materials that are put on stock. The SAP system uses functionality called Purchase Account Management to meet this requirement. Discover what this functionality is, how to set it up, and what the result looks like.
- Set Up Tax Codes to Properly Report Deferred VAT
by Kees van Westerop, Senior SAP Consultant, Kwest Consulting
Deferred Value Added Tax (VAT) is a special VAT that you only need when reporting to the tax authorities after the related invoice has been paid. See how to do this in the SAP system by linking a special target VAT code to a deferred VAT code.
- Simplify Segment Reporting with the New General Ledger
by Aylin Korkmaz, Manager, Accenture UK
Find out how the new General Ledger (G/L) in mySAP ERP differs from the classic G/L. With its new segment functionality, you do not need to create a Special Purpose Ledger to meet different compliance standards.
- Streamline Your Parallel Accounting with the New G/L Ledger Solution
by Aylin Korkmaz, Manager, Accenture UK
See how to set up parallel accounting with the ledger solution in the new G/L with three procedures: ledger definition, currency valuation, and asset accounting.
- Tackle Changes to Inventory, Cash Flow, and Benefit Regulations with SAP ERP
by Kehinde Eseyin, Systems Support Manager, TOTAL Nigeria PLC, Nigeria (January 2010)
Review some accounting standard changes, including changes to foreign exchange rates, inventory, and benefits, and see how the SAP ERP system can address them.
- The New SAP Management of Internal Controls Application Aims to Ease SOA Compliance
by Dr. Karol Bliznak, SAP AG
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOA) deadline is imminent and similar legislation is expected soon in Europe and other regions. To help you comply with SOA requirements, SAP has created an application called SAP Management of Internal Controls (MIC). The author discusses what you need to install MIC and how it can meet your specific requirements. He provides an example that shows the ways in which MIC streamlines an internal controls project.
- Two SAP-Enabled R2P Process Controls for Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance
by Bryan Wilson, Principal, Acumen Control ERP, Inc
Requisition-to-pay (R2P) is a key operational process that auditors for Sarbanes-Oxley Act compliance will expect to see controls. Fortunately, R/3 Materials Management (MM) has a number of configuration controls that you can use for this purpose. The author explains two, recording purchase requisitions and releasing purchase requisitions, and shows how you might use them in your compliance efforts.
- Upgrades Part 5: Ensure that Your Enhanced Infotypes Comply with Unicode
by Mohamed Khalid Yousif, Certified Senior SAP HR Consultant, Vijay Madala, Senior SAP ABAP Consultant, and Piotr Zalewski,
Certified Senior SAP Technical Consultant
When upgrading from R/3 4.6C to a more recent release, many companies encounter a severe error with user exit PBAS0001. You can fix it by following these steps.
- Use Authorization Trace to Track Checked Authorization Objects
by Lawrence Chung, FI/CO Consultant
The authorization trace feature in transaction ST01 can help you trace all authorization objects being checked at different levels. See an example showing how to use it and how it affects compliance issues in your system.
- Use Change Documents for Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Testing
by Qian (Sharon) Tang, System Program Manager
The time for Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 testing is now. Find out how to leverage existing hidden system resources to help fulfill some of the crucial Sarbanes-Oxley Act mandates.
- Use Recycling Administration for Better Environmental Fee Reporting
by Dietmar Giljohann, R/3 Business Systems Analyst
Environmental regulations differ throughout countries, leading environmental fee reporting to be very difficult. See how an SAP add-on — SAP Recycling Administration — works to keep your data consistent and in line with the different regulations.
- VAT Changes Coming in 2010: Are You Ready?
by Kees van Westerop, Senior SAP Consultant, Kwest Consulting (April 2009)
Because of the continuous extension of the European Union (EU) and the lack of alignment of local Value Added Tax (VAT) rules, VAT-related fraud is increasing and has resulted in unequal competition among suppliers in different countries. To reduce fraud and give suppliers equal treatment regardless of their country, VAT rules for services between EU countries will change starting in 2010. Learn about the consequences for your SAP system.
- What the Wizards Don't Tell You About Intrastat Reporting
by Kees van Westerop, SAP Consultant
Enterprises based within a member state of the European Union (EU) are legally required to report their goods movements to and from other member states. These reports are called Intra European Community Trade Statistics (Intrastat) reports. In most cases, this requirement also applies to European subsidiaries of American companies. The author explains how to set up Intrastat in R/3, how it is integrated within the R/3 modules, and how to create the reports. He also gives customizing tips not covered by the SAP-provided wizards that guide you through the process.
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