ERP Brazil: SAP Business One – localized Portuguese version

In previous short articles we have been discussing the options for international company (branches of multinationals with headquarters in US, UK, Australia, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain) to implement so-called localized MRP in Brazil.  We covered Microsoft Dynamics NAV, AX, CRM.  This small article is dedicated to SAP and its mid-market and small-to-midmarket MRP application – SAP Business One.  SAP BO in Brazil is available in March 2006.

• Local taxes and regulations.  CNAE, CPF, IE, IEST, IM – localization supports these rules and taxes
• Multilanguage.  SAP BO has advanced language support in comparison to other localized ERPs: Oracle E-Business Suite, Navision, Axapta, JDEdwards – in SAP Business One you can switch language (from Portuguese to English for example) in the same user session for the same company.  Multilanguage support in our opinion enables tight control to financial officers in headquarters for their Brazilian or any other overseas subsidiary.
• Transactional consolidation.  SAP integrates SAP BO into its family of ERP systems.  SAP BO has transaction consolidation module.  Just to give you some excurse – you can use two mechanisms to get cross companies consolidated reporting – using data puling (and original currency historical exchange rate multiplication) mechanism – typical example would be FRx reporting for Great Plains, Solomon and other ERPs.  Second and more reliable way is – transaction consolidation – when you physically move transactions (adjusted for the reporting currency) to the image of your subsidiary and then run report over your branches databases.  Transactional consolidation makes SAP Business One attractive ERP option for Spoke-and-Hub ERP integration model, when subsidiaries use SAP BO and consolidate transactions to the corporate ERP – mySAP or SAP R/3
• Multicurrency.  It is supported in all modules (just in case if you have experience working with multicurrency, available for the GL only).
• Customizations.  SAP Business One SDK enables you to tune screens as needed, if you think that end-user intuitive modification is not sufficient.  If you need to deploy local programmers – they should be experienced in COM objects programming.
• Competition.  As you can expect – you see two types of competitors – local ERPs (Microsiga and Datasul to name major) and international: Oracle E-Business and JD Edwards, Microsoft Navision, Axapta and Solomon (Great Plains is not localized, but local support is available through Alba Spectrum)

If you need help – give us a call: São Paulo: +55-11-3444-4949, USA 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, Europa: +44-20-8123-2580, +45-36-96-5520 or help@albaspectrum.com