SAP Customers Now Have an On-demand SAP Nota Fiscal Service to Support Brazil CTe

For readers interested in Brazil's CTe, you may find this announcement of interest.  Managed Service offering for SAP ERP in Brazil now supports the Conhecimento de Transporte (CTe) for transportation invoice validations

Invoiceware International extends their SAP ERP Compliance Dashboards for Brazil to support the Conhecimento de Transporte which was made mandatory by the Brazilian government in December 2011. The legislation announces five waves of compliance for different modes of transportation with the first compliance requirements starting September 1, 2012.  

Invoiceware International’s service fully supports all of Brazil’s electronic invoicing mandates on a single platform: including Nota Fiscal Eletronica (NF-e), both outbound and inbound processing for physical goods, Nota Fiscal Eletronica de Serviços (NFE-s), for services invoices in over 120 cities, and now the CT-e for transportation invoices.

Invoiceware International’s SAP ERP Compliance Dashboards for Brazil include:

• Compliance: Satisfies SEFAZ CT-e mandates for validation, archive and fiscal posting to your system of record
• Lower Freight Costs: Track your spending on transportation invoices for discrepancies and eliminate duplicate invoices and payments.  Automatic matching against Transportation Management Systems or blanket PO.
• Less Labor, Faster Processing:  Automatic reconciliation of inbound NF-e for acknowledged and pre-approved payment processing;

“The addition of the CTe Compliance Dashboards for SAP ERP rounds out our rapid deployment templates for Brazil Nota Fiscal compliance, said Scott Lewin, CEO, Invoiceware International.  “Organizations now have a single on-demand service that addresses all of the Brazilian regulations now and in the future, shortens implementations, and provides 24x7 local language support.”   

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Kevin Benedict, EDI and e-Invoicing Veteran, Consultant, Speaker and Writer

Follow me on Twitter @b2b_benedict

Join the SAP EDI and e-Invoicing group on Linkedin

Full Disclosure: I am an independent consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

SAP Nota Fiscal 2012 - New Brazil Mandate for Transportation Invoices

As expected, Brazil continues to add and update their Nota Fiscal legislation.  In this article I want to discuss developments around Transportation Invoices, as these will be mandated starting in September 2012.  

The Transporation Invoice, also known as the Conhecimento de Transporte (CT-e for short) was added to the legislation as a mandatory electronic document based on the 169th meeting of the Conselho Nacional de Política Fazendária – CONFAZ held on December 11, 2011. In the following section I summarize some of the common questions companies are asking.

What is the CT-e?

Brazil Transportation Document  – is issued and stored electronically in order to document the provision of transport services, whose legal validity is guaranteed by the issuer’s digital signature and authorization of use provided by the tax administration. Examples of use would be a Waybill (model 10) or an Invoice for Transportation Service (model 7 when transporting cargo).

What are the dates for compliance?

September 1, 2012 is the initial deadline with others following in December of 2012. There are waves of compliance defined by the government which are listed in the link to the general announcement.

 www.fazenda.gov.br/confaz/confaz/ajustes.  This link is in Portuguese, I am sorry if you can't read it!    Your web browser should be able to give you a basic translation of the material. This announcement also lists further timelines as well as a list of transportation organizations that are specifically called out in Annex One for compliance.

Are there benefits to our organization that we should consider along with the mandate?

There are definitely benefits to an SAP user, beyond just becoming compliant.  For example, we are seeing companies tackle the CT-e early and capitalize on the business processes which are accelerated due to the electronic requirement.  For example:

• Lower Freight Costs: Track your spending on transportation invoices for discrepancies and eliminate duplicate invoices and payments.  You can automatically match the electronic invoice against Transportation Management Systems or blanket PO.
• Less Labor, Faster Processing:  Automatic reconciliation of inbound NF-e for acknowledged and pre-approved payment processing. 

What is the key take away?  Ensure your back-end solutions have the ability to validate the CT-e and work with your freight forwarding and 3PL partners to understand the timeframes that they will transition to the CT-e.

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Kevin Benedict, EDI and e-Invoicing Veteran, Consultant, Speaker and Writer

Follow me on Twitter @b2b_benedict

Join the SAP EDI and e-Invoicing group on Linkedin

Full Disclosure: I am an independent consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mexico SAT e-Invoicing 2012 Changes

For readers doing business in Mexico, these e-invoicing changes for 2012 will be important for you to understand.  If you would like more information on these changes you can find some good resources including whitepapers and webinars here.

Here are some of the important changes that I noted:

• Shipping Requirement: new requirement that all deliveries within Mexico must have the Comprobante (and UUID) as part of the documentation accompanying the truck for delivery.  Otherwise the truck and its goods can be impounded with fines demanded before release. This is a significant change for customers that do not have their logistics and invoicing processes linked together today. Contingency processing becomes a requirement much like it does in Brazil, so that your organization can ship even if the SAT systems go down.
• Paper: companies can continue to use paper as long as their annual revenue is less than 2,000,000 pesos. If annual revenue greater than this, then they must use electronic CFDI process.  Amount of each individual invoice no longer matters.
• Account Number:  emisor are expected to know and report the last 4 digits of the account numbers that their customers use for payment.  The SAT is researching how to implement this and may try strategies like using “special generic numbers” for those cases when emisor does not know in advance.
• Fiscal Address: the street and address will no longer be required, but the country, state and postal code still will.
• Installment Payments:  For installment payments, the emisor must send an invoice for each payment, plus an “informational” invoice to document the entire amount.  All invoices should be signed and sealed, and the UUID of the informational invoice (along with the date and total amount) should be referenced on each payment message.  (SAT needs to define how to tag or mark the informational invoice so that taxes are not double counted, but current thinking is that the “first” invoice transmitted will be considered the informational message. Also, since each “child” payment message will contain the reference numbers of the original parent invoice, they should be able to identify this way).

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Kevin Benedict, EDI and e-Invoicing Veteran, Consultant, Speaker and Writer

Follow me on Twitter @b2b_benedict

Join the SAP EDI and e-Invoicing group on Linkedin

Full Disclosure: I am an independent consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

RFID, e-Invoicing and Brazil's Nota Fiscal Eletrônica

I read an interesting article today by Alexandre Carvalho on SCN (SAP's Community Network) regarding RFID and Brazil's Nota Fiscal Eletronica. He described a government sponsored project that uses RFID in support of Nota Fiscal Eletronica.  Here are the details:

In August 2009, the Brazilian Government created the Brasil-ID project that uses RFID to automate the collection of data.  They will  identify, track and  authenticate products when they are in transit...the RFID will reduce the costs of insurance, and enhance the storage, distribution and logistics. For the Government, it will provide better control manufacturing, commercialization, goods transit and finally, the cost reduction and geo physical analysis for a product sales.  They will be rolling this pilot project out to over 80 companies in 2012 to support Brazil's e-invoicing requirements.  RFID will be used to automate the tracking and reporting of the goods.

I have been talking to the folks at Invoiceware about the latest requirements to be compliant with Nota Fiscal Eletronica, and I am glad I am not the one doing it.  I can see perhaps creating an in-house solution to support these requirements if all of your business was with one country, but most of the companies I talk to are supporting many Latin American countries, and there are different requirements for each.

As being compliant with all of these e-Invoicing requirements is NOT my core business, I would rather off-load the technical/IT requirements to a cloud based e-Invoicing service.

What are your thoughts?

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Kevin Benedict, EDI and e-Invoicing Veteran, Consultant, Speaker and Writer

Follow me on Twitter @b2b_benedict

Join the SAP EDI and e-Invoicing group on Linkedin

Full Disclosure: I am an independent consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Supporting the Mexico CFD v3.2 e-Invoicing Changes in 2012

I came across this article last week on the new regulations from Mexico's Servicio de Aministracion Tributaria (SAT) that may be of interest to companies doing business in Mexico.  The new compliance mandates are listed below.

Invoiceware International extends their electronic invoicing capability to support the newly announced regulations by Mexico's Servicio de Aministracion Tributaria (SAT). These new mandates are scheduled to take affect for all companies in July 2012 leaving only a few months for companies to configure their business processes and ERP systems.

The new compliance mandates being instituted for July 2012 in Mexico includes:
•    Shipping Requirement: Requires that all deliveries within Mexico must have the Comprobante (and UUID, a 32-character code assigned by the SAT) as part of the documentation accompanying the truck for delivery. Otherwise the truck and its goods can be impounded with fines demanded before release. This is a significant change for customers that do not have their logistics and invoicing processes linked together today.
• Installment Payments: For installment payments, the emisor must send an invoice for each payment, plus an "informational" invoice to document the entire amount. All invoices should be signed and sealed, and the UUID of the informational invoice (along with the date and total amount) should be referenced on each payment message.

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Kevin Benedict, EDI and e-Invoicing Veteran, Consultant, Speaker and Writer

Follow me on Twitter @b2b_benedict

Join the SAP EDI and e-Invoicing group on Linkedin

Full Disclosure: I am an independent consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Argentina e-Invoicing Evolution

Click Image to Enlarge

For those of you familiar with the invoicing process, it is interesting to view the evolution from paper invoices, to e-invoicing, to real-time e-invoicing.  Let's use Argentina as our evolutionary example:

First - Traditional Paper Invoice

•Closes the commercial transaction;

•Describes products and services, including costs for taxes & freight

•Includes accounting codes used for matching, assigning costs within an organization

•Auditable by Tax Authorities for Value Added Tax compliance

Second - Basic Electronic e-Invoice

•Electronic version of paper document - contains the same basic information

•Digitally signed by emitter for non-repudiation and authentication to receiver

•Validated by receiver to prove that the integrity of message remains in tact

•Electronic file is the legal invoice – paper visualizations for human comfort only

Third - Argentina e-Invoicing

•Multiple CFD Document Types (export invoice, credit memo, debit memo, etc.)

•Real-time integration of CFD Summary with Argentina Tax Authority (AFIP)

•Export Invoices - cannot release truck for shipment without CAE number

•All Invoices, CAE Code and Expiration Date required on printed output.

•Mandates for Export Invoices now, Mandates for other CFD Document Types Coming Soon

As you can quickly determine, the involvement by IT jumps as the invoicing process evolves.  First it is digitized, and then integrated with real-time processes and data exchanges.  The image above (click to enlarge), shows a list of Latin American countries and their current e-invoicing status.

If you work in a company that sells products and services in Latin America, the need to support these current and future e-invoicing requirements is obvious.  For SAP customers, SAP has recently announced the acquisition of Crossgate, a leading global e-invoicing service provider.  This acquisition will make it far easier for SAP users to support these requirements now and in the future.

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Kevin R Benedict - EDI and e-Invoicing Veteran, SAP Mentor, Analyst
Join the SAP EDI and SAP Information Interchange group on Linkedin
*Full Disclosure: I am an independent consultant that has worked with and for many of the companies mentioned.

Complexity, Costs, Global e-Invoicing and SAP

Complex Networks

I served as an EDI Manager for a large electronics firm in the late nineties, and I thought that was challenging enough.  However, these days I continually read about all the different changes around e-invoicing in each country.  Here is a recent blog article on changes to the e-invoicing requirements in Germany that I submit as a reference case.  It is hard enough keeping your EDI messages and mappings updated with your existing trading partners, not to mention trying to keep up with all the deadlines, mandates and systems requirements of each countries' tax authority.

Here is an example of complexity.  Brown-Forman, one of the largest American-owned spirits and wine companies sells its brands in more than 135 countries.  Each time they enter a new market it creates complex customer and supplier integration projects in order to comply with government mandates such as EU, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico's e-invoicing initiatives.  If you are growing rapidly, the cost of supporting these fast changing requirements can be enormous.

Here is another example of complexity.  LSI Corporation provides silicon, systems and software technologies.  In their product and services portfolio are capabilities and services including custom and standard product ICs, adapters, systems and software that are used by many businesses to power solutions in the storage and networking markets.  LSI Corporation had been using traditional EDI translator systems to communicate with their trading partners.  However, in a recent change they selected SAP Information Interchange to reduce costs and have the direct connectivity to their trading partners using a standard SAP integration.  SAP recently acquired Crossgate, the developers of SAP's SAP Information Interchange.

Brown-Forman, the spirits and wine company mentioned above, also chose to use the managed global e-invoicing solution available in the SAP Information Interchange.

Why are these global companies choosing to outsource their global e-invoicing and EDI communications to a managed service?  Their core business is not EDI and e-Invoicing.  The effort to develop and maintain all of their own EDI communications and e-invoicing was cost prohibitive.  Think about it - you would need people dedicated simply to trying to learn and keep up with every country's fast changing requirements.  I know from personal experience that many countries make their requirements available only in the local language.  Translation talent is also needed to understand many of the technical documents.  

SAP users especially are at an advantage supporting global e-invoicing these days.  With SAP's recently announced acquisition of Crossgate, and its pre-existing SAP integration and support, SAP users have only to subscribe to the service and allow the SAP Information Interchange and associated services to handle the complexity.

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Kevin R Benedict EDI and e-Invoicing Veteran, SAP Mentor, Analyst and Blogger
Join the SAP EDI and SAP Information Interchange group on Linkedin
 *Full Disclosure: I am an independent consultant that has worked with and for many of the companies mentioned.

Thoughts on SAP's Acquisition of Crossgate

In case you missed it, several weeks it was announced that SAP plans to acquire Crossgate, the developers of SAP's SAP Information Interchange. SAP had for a long time been a significant investor and supporter of Crossgate.

In this article from ZDnet on the acquisition, they describe the purpose of the acquisition as, "SAP is looking to provide a market to connect customers to business partners. In a nutshell, Crossgate builds services that allow multiple trading partners to exchange data even if partners have different technology platforms." In other words, it is a managed services EDI/B2B hub.

In my early career I worked as an EDI manager. During that time EDI vendors were independent software companies selling EDI translator solution. Today, much of EDI is operated in the cloud and most of the vendors have been acquired by much larger companies. In addition, companies like Ariba have emerged and now compete directly with ERP vendors like SAP. ZDnet adds, "SAP’s acquisition of Crossgate appears to be a direct threat to Ariba." Let the fun begin!!!

EDI today reminds of a Facebook or Linkedin for companies doing business with each other. Everyone connects, completes their profiles and then looks for others to connect with. These are the roles that the SAP Information Interchange and Crossgate now play.

In addition to traditional EDI, the past few years has seen a dramatic increase in the number of nations requiring electronic invoicing (e-invoicing) between buyers and sellers. In Latin America for example, many countries (Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, etc.) are introducing and mandating very strict requirements. For most companies, simply monitoring and governing all of these changing requirements is a significant job, not to mention trying to technically support the real-time data exchange requirements. Many companies are quickly looking for a managed e-invoicing service provider to fulfill these requirements in the cloud and to provide integration with their ERP. SAP is now going to be in that business.

The SAP Information Interchange and the Crossgate e-invoicing services provide cloud based global e-invoicing for large companies around the world. They offer solutions for Mexico e-Invoicing, Brazil e-Invoicing, Argentina and over 35 other countries. This is a very interesting development indeed. 

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Kevin R Benedict EDI and e-Invoicing Veteran, SAP Mentor, Analyst and Blogger
-Join the SAP EDI and SAP Information Interchange group on Linkedin
-Full Disclosure: I am an independent consultant that has worked with and for many of the companies mentioned.

Podcast Interview with e-Invoicing Expert Jason Jones, Part 2

This is Part 2 (listen to Part 1 here) of an interview I recently recorded with Crossgate's e-Invoicing expert Jason Jones.  For those of you who may have missed the news, SAP has announced they are acquiring Crossgate.  Jason works full time managing e-Invoicing projects around the world and is one of the most knowledgeable people I know on the subjects of global e-Invoicing.




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Kevin R Benedict EDI and e-Invoicing Veteran, SAP Mentor, Analyst and Blogger
 Join the SAP EDI and SAP Information Interchange group on Linkedin
*Full Disclosure: I am an independent consultant that has worked with and for many of the companies mentioned.

Podcast Interview with e-Invoicing Expert Jason Jones, Part 1

In this podcast SAP Mentor Kevin Benedict interviews Crossgate's VP of Professional Services Jason Jones on the requirements for e-Invoicing in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.  This is a two part podcast.  You can listen to Part 2 of this interview here.

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Kevin R Benedict EDI and e-Invoicing Veteran, SAP Mentor, Analyst and Blogger
Join the SAP EDI and SAP Information Interchange group on Linkedin:

 *Full Disclosure: I am an independent consultant that has worked with and for many of the companies mentioned.

SAP Acquires EDI and e-Invoicing Company - Crossgate

Today it was announced that Crossgate, the developers of SAP's SAP Information Interchange, are going to be  acquired by SAP.  SAP had always been a significant investor and supporter of Crossgate, and many of us thought this would be the natural result of this relationship.

Here is the press release. 

Here is an article from ZDnet on the acquisition.

For those of you that may not know Crossgate, they build services that allow multiple trading partners to exchange data even if partners have different technology platforms.  It is a managed services EDI/B2B hub.

Crossgate manages global e-invoicing for large companies around the world.  They offer solutions for Mexico e-Invoicing, Brazil e-Invoicing, Argentina and over 35 other countries.

This is very interesting news indeed.  

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Kevin R Benedict EDI and e-Invoicing Veteran, SAP Mentor, Analyst and Blogger

Join the SAP EDI and SAP Information Interchange group on Linkedin

 *Full Disclosure: I am an independent consultant that has worked with and for many of the companies mentioned.

The Latest on SAP EDI, B2B and E-Invoicing at SAPPHIRE 2011

Here are a couple of sessions that anyone interested in EDI, B2B, e-Invoicing or the SAP Information Interchange by Crossgate at SAP's SAPPHIRE conference next week might want to attend. These appear to be end user led sessions so you can likely learn the good, bad and the ugly.

Session Date / Time:Monday, May 16 13:30-15:00
Session Title: Brown-Forman l SAP Information Interchange by Crossgate
Session Description:

Brown-Forman, one of the largest American-owned spirits and wine companies and among the top 10 largest global spirits companies, sells its brands in more than 135 countries. Entering new markets creates complex customer & supplier integration projects as well as the need to comply with government mandates such as EU and Brazil and Mexico's e-invoicing initiatives. Organizations looking to expand their business into new countries must be able to comply with these integration requirements. Learn how Brown-Forman transformed their approach to Business Network integration to lower the costs of electronically collaborating with their business partners while complying with government mandates. Please join this interactive session limited to 10-12 individuals to understand first hand from The Dow Chemical Company about the selection process, implementation, lessons learned, and key successes.

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Session Date: Tuesday, May 17 10:30-12:00
Session Title: LSI Corporation l SAP Information Interchange by Crossgate
Session Description:

LSI Corporation is a leading provider of innovative silicon, systems and software technologies that enable products which seamlessly bring people, information and digital content together. They offer a broad portfolio of capabilities and services including custom and standard product ICs, adapters, systems and software that are trusted by the world's best known brands to power leading solutions in the storage and networking markets. LSI Corporation had been using e2Open and Sterling Gentran to handle communications, but as part of their evaluation, SAP Information Interchange by Crossgate was recommended as a potential alternative to standardize on one network using normalized content to offer less costly and more efficient trading. In the end, LSI chose to wait on SNC but selected SAP Information Interchange due to the superior integration into PI, using standard idocs and reduced costs compared to the competition. LSI's goal is to reduce costs and have the direct connectivity to their trading partners using standard SAP integration. Phase 1 implementation began in January 2011 and is scheduled to be completed by August 2011 to replace Gentran. E2Open will commence shortly after SAP Information Interchange is live with Phase 1. Please join this interactive session limited to 10-12 individuals to understand first hand from LSI Corporation about the selection process, implementation, lessons learned, and key successes.

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Kevin R Benedict EDI and e-Invoicing Veteran, SAP Mentor, Analyst and Blogger
Join the SAP EDI and SAP Information Interchange group on Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2884582&trk=anet_ug_grppro
*Full Disclosure: I am an independent consultant that has worked with and for many of the companies mentioned.

SAP Awards 2011 Pinnacle Award to EDI and e-Invoicing Partner

SAP will hand out their 2011 SAP® Pinnacle award in the category of “Software Solution Newcomer of the Year” on May 16 at SAPPHIRE® NOW, SAP’s international customer conference held in Orlando, Florida, May 15 – 18.  SAP's Pinnacle awards are presented annually to leading SAP partners that have excelled in developing and growing their partnership with SAP and driving customer success. Winners were selected based on over 150 nominations in 18 categories received from partners and SAP employees.

The 2011 award winner is Crossgate, a company co-owned by SAP and the developers of the SAP Information Interchange by Crossgate.  They are both a managed EDI services provider and a global e-Invoicing services provider that utilizes a cloud computing model.  SAP's field sales teams are reselling these solutions as the SAP Information Interchange.

Last month Crossgate and Hubwoo, both companies that are in the SAP investment portfolio, announced an alliance to better support the SAP customer base with shared business networks and cloud-based procurement and EDI/B2B services.

As more countries mandate electronic invoicing and companies seek more efficient ways to send B2B data exchanges, I believe you will see an increasing demand for these kinds of services.  It appears from SAP's interest in this space that they also anticipate this market trend.

Listen to recent interviews with SAP's Carter Johnson and Hubwoo's Rinus Strydom on these topics.

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Kevin R Benedict EDI and e-Invoicing Veteran, SAP Mentor, Analyst and Blogger Join the SAP EDI and SAP Information Interchange group on Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2884582&trk=anet_ug_grppro
*Full Disclosure: I am an independent consultant that has worked with and for many of the companies mentioned.

B2B E-Commerce Newsletter - May 3, 2011

The B2B E-Commerce Newsletter consists of the best articles, including the links to the original source, that I come across in my daily research on issues related to global e-invoicing, EDI, B2B E-Commerce, e-billing and cloud procurement.  I hope you find it useful.

Now for the news:

Ninety-seven percent of businesses believe that effective use of e-invoicing would help companies to achieve operational efficiency but adoption is hampered by the inability to offer suppliers the possibilities to transact electronically and suppliers being forced to use multiple portals


http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110406005742/en/Basware-Businesses-Globally-Cite-E-Invoicing-Key-Unlocking

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Western Union and 3i Infotech, an information technology and business process outsourcing (BPO) company, have signed an agreement to deliver complete electronic billing and payment solutions to clients of both companies.

http://payments.banking-business-review.com/news/western-union-3i-infotech-to-deliver-e-billing-and-payment-solutions-050411

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City governments within Massachusetts have adopted e-billing programs for the delivery of real estate and property bills.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110405005632/en/Paper-Tax-Bills-Replaced-E-Bills-Time-Massachusetts

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Swiss federal communications office Bakom has introduced electronic bills with effect from 01 April. Bakom customers can use the e-bill function if they have an online account with PostFinance or a bank. Bakom is the first government office to offer the e-bill service, which will be rolled out across all federal administrative offices by end of 2012.

EDI and B2B Expert Podcast Series: Hubwoo's Rinus Strydom, Part 2

This is Part 2 of SAP Mentor Kevin Benedict's video podcast interview with Hubwoo's CMO Rinus Strydom.  You can listen to Part 1 here.  Last week Hubwoo and Crossgate announced a strategic partnership that involves both companies sharing their EDI/B2B business networks, and utilizing each other's services.  I am reading between the lines here, but this seems to be much more strategic than the average "strategic" alliance.  To me this seems like a direct competitive challenge to Ariba.  Both companies are in SAP's investment portfolio.  Both run managed services hubs, although with different primary focuses.  Both are SAP partners, and both companies have products sold by the SAP sales teams.




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Kevin R Benedict EDI and e-Invoicing Veteran, SAP Mentor, Analyst and Blogger
Join the SAP EDI and SAP Information Interchange group on Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2884582&trk=anet_ug_grppro

*Full Disclosure: I am an independent consultant that has worked with and for many of the companies mentioned.

EDI and B2B Expert Podcast Series: Hubwoo's Rinus Strydom, Part 1

This video podcast is with Hubwoo's CMO Rinus Strydom and covers a wide range of topics from e-invoicing and EDI to cloud procurement.  Hubwoo and Crossgate, both companies that SAP has invested in, announced an alliance last week that is also discussed in detail.  The fact that SAP resells both of their solutions also hints at the strategic importance of this new partnership.

This is Part 1 of this video podcast, you can listen to Part 2 here.



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Kevin R Benedict EDI and e-Invoicing Veteran, SAP Mentor, Analyst and Blogger
Join the SAP EDI and SAP Information Interchange group on Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2884582&trk=anet_ug_grppro

*Full Disclosure: I am an independent consultant that has worked with and for many of the companies mentioned.

Business Network Transformation and EDI Revisited

In today's world of multi-enterprise supply chains, 3PL (third party logistics providers) and discrete manufacturing environments, companies can no longer be satisfied with business processes that stop inside the four walls. These business processes are extended outside the four walls through various EDI and B2B messages that can be sent in real-time to their relevant business network partners. The visibility provided by real-time data exchanges ensures that management can make decisions based on accurate and timely information and analytics.

Often the ability to communicate and extend business processes to your business network partners is inhibited by out-dated EDI/B2B methodologies and strategies.  EDI and B2B data exchanges are more important today than ever before but need to be considered in a new light.  New and different strategies must be adopted to ensure that quick and cost effective methodologies are implemented that enable large numbers of new business network partners to be quickly added or changed as markets and products change.  Traditional, costly, multi-year on-boarding EDI projects have not well and are not the answer today.

In an article by Scott R. Sykes, Principal of Supply Chain Solutions at SAP America,  Understanding and Managing Supply Chain Risks, Sykes writes about companies taking greater risks nowadays with increasingly complex and extended supply chains.  Sykes describes them as follows, "Supply chains today are growing continuously more complex, interconnected, and global."  Extended supply chains are no longer the concern of one company but rather all participants.

For decades SAP has been focused on developing business solutions that work together to form one large homogeneous ERP solution.  Much of this goal has been accomplished, and they now seem to be focusing significant amounts of attention on the next frontier - making one large homogeneous business network.  This involves making it easier for their solutions to speak to the world.  This is likely the reason they initially partnered with and invested in both Hubwoo and Crossgate.

SAP solutions are fueled by business data.  SAP solutions both produce and consume business data.  The data required is not all self-generated.  Much of the business data is produced by external business network participants (trading partners) in the form of Purchase Orders and Invoices (just two examples of thousands of different business documents that are exchanged between business network participants).

Over the last decade we have all witnessed the transformation of SAP solutions from many disparate components, to an integrated system based on a defined set of standards and technologies.  The process of transforming a trading partner community into a homogeneous business network will follow a similar path.  Utilize a defined set of standards and technologies and organize them in a manner that can be cost effectively implemented in a reliable and seamless manner.

This week's announcement that Hubwoo and Crossgate have formed an alliance to, "combine their B2B networks so that enterprises can gain access to hundreds of thousands of active trading partners globally through a single connection" is a giant step toward SAP's vision of business network transformation.  This is relevant to SAP customers because SAP is a significant investor in both companies and resells both of their solutions.

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Kevin R Benedict EDI and e-Invoicing Veteran, SAP Mentor, Analyst and Blogger
Join the SAP EDI and SAP Information Interchange group on Linkedin: .
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2884582&trk=anet_ug_grppro

*Full Disclosure: I am an independent consultant that has worked with and for many of the companies mentioned.

Big News in the World of SAP EDI and B2B!

It is not every day that you read big news in the EDI world, but today is one of them.  Here is the news.

PARIS, April 18, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Hubwoo , a leading global provider of Cloud Procurement services powered by SAP® software, and Crossgate, a global leader in business-to-business (B2B) integration and e-Invoicing compliance, today announced a strategic global alliance.  Read more

Why is this big news?  Here it is - Under the terms of the alliance, Hubwoo and Crossgate have combined their B2B networks so that enterprises can gain access to hundreds of thousands of active trading partners globally through a single connection.  SAP's co-CEO Jim Snabe has been preaching the gospel of business network transformation for several years, and this is a big step in that direction - dare we say tipping point?

It gets even better.  SAP is a major investor in both of these cloud-based EDI/B2B companies.  Both utilize SAP technologies.  Both are resold by the SAP sales force.  You can bet that SAP was a match maker in this union.

Ariba has the potential to be the big loser in this new alignment.  It is very difficult and expensive to be an independent B2B HUB in a world dominated by large ERP vendors.  Think about the expense of trying to be all things to all people, rather than all things to one SAP.  This is a definite move by SAP to compete with Ariba and to make it difficult for Ariba to compete in the SAP ecosystem.

Jason Busch who writes for Spend Matters also wrote about this announcement today and added his analysis here.

Learn more about the SAP Information Interchange from SAP's Carter Johnson:

• EDI and B2B Expert Podcast: SAP's Carter Johnson, Part 1

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Kevin R Benedict EDI and e-Invoicing Veteran, SAP Mentor, Analyst and Blogger
Join the SAP EDI and SAP Information Interchange group on Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2884582&trk=anet_ug_grppro

*Full Disclosure: I am an independent consultant that has worked with and for many of the companies mentioned.

New SAP Information Interchange by Crossgate Training Video

I came across this video on SAP's EcoHub site for the SAP Information Interchange.  The subject is how to improve your EDI and B2B system using SAP's cloud EDI service.

This video quotes a report that emphasizes the amount of data coming from outside and enterprise:

• 34% of the data your company uses comes from outside sources
• 56% of companies have consolidated EDI/B2B systems
• 47% of companies are expanding their trading partners and B2B transactions

The growth trend for EDI and B2B data exchanges is only going to continue:

• 47% observe customer service escalation demand
• 45% see increased complexity in their business networks
• 23% see increased supply chain risk exposure

All of these numbers simply mean that B2B and EDI are very important.  Today's trends are for companies to move EDI and B2B systems into a cloud computing environment in a managed EDI service model.  SAP is adopting this model and offering it to their existing customer base and to their new on-demand clients.

The emerging demands for e-invoicing in many countries around the world are also a big motivator for companies to seek a managed service to support all of these global requirements.

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Kevin R Benedict, EDI and e-Invoicing Veteran, SAP Mentor, Analyst and Blogger
Join the SAP EDI and SAP Information Interchange group on Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2884582&trk=anet_ug_grppro

*Full Disclosure: I am an independent consultant that has worked with and for many of the companies mentioned.

EDI and B2B Expert Podcast Series: SAP's Carter Johnson, Part 2

This is Part 2 of a very interesting discussion with SAP's Carter Johnson on the latest developments in the world of SAP EDI/B2B.  You can listen to Part 1 here.  We are discussing EDI, B2B, SAP Information Interchange, cloud computing, business networks and why SAP is now getting involved in EDI/B2B.



Be sure to follow me on Twitter @B2B_Benedict.

************************************************
Kevin R Benedict
EDI and e-Invoicing Veteran, SAP Mentor, Analyst and Blogger
Join the SAP EDI and SAP Information Interchange group on Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2884582&trk=anet_ug_grppro

*Full Disclosure: I am an independent consultant that has worked with and for many of the companies mentioned.