Starting point

In the face of recession, fiercer competition and lending standards being tightened by banks, many companies with a large amount of accounts receivable are looking to ABS transactions as an alternative form of financing. Apart from being relatively cost-effective, securization improves a company’s liquidity and reduces its debt (off-balance-sheet treatment).

Challenge

Choosing an ABS model, however, calls for well-coordinated processes since the management of ABS transactions can be a costly drain on a company‘s financial and human resources. According to the German KfW (Reconstruction Loan Corporation), it takes a company six to nine months to sell its receivables after the decision-making process has been completed. The most part of this time goes on adjusting and extending the company’s IT systems to make them fit for the processes involved in the management of ABS transactions.There is, for instance, a great deal of effort involved in communicating with the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) and in the posting processes of ABS transactions:

• Compiling list of receivables to be sold
• Communication with the SPV
• Manual management of follow-up processes (e.g. management of accounts receivable pledging indicators, value adjustment ...)
• No automatic posting of ABS transactions in SAP
• No status update in SAP
• No reporting options for your ABS receivables portfolio in SAP
• ...

Solution

SOPLEX AL – the SAP software solution by SOPLEX for managing ABS transactions

This SAP solution allows you to organize the complete process of managing ABS in your SAP system.

• Contract management (eligibility criteria)
• Management of ABS contracts according to a fully customizable set of rules
• Flexible choice of ABS partners
• The complete process is managed within SAP
• Automatic file transfer to the SPV
• Status updates
• Integration into the customer master record and customer line item display
• Integration of the SAP e-mail functions
• Integration of e-mail functions
• Interfaces to other systems, such as SAP BW, dispute management …, can be implemented

Features

SOPLEX AL – modern ABS transaction management with SAP

• File management
• Manual creation of individual files
• Automatic creation of mass files from FI-AR
• Automatic compilation and transfer of the receivables
• Automatic import of decisions from the SPV
• Status monitoring
• Workflow for automated processes
• Payments received from the SPV are posted automatically and open items are cleared
• Automatic posting of the complete ABS transaction
• Automatic control of follow-up processes (e.g. blocking customers or orders)
• Control of deadlines, events, and resubmissions
• Automatic task control
• User worklists
• AL information system – reports by the click of a button

Business impact

SOPLEX AL is the SAP solution for the flexible management of ABS transaction in SAP.

• Flexible choice of partners
• Full process transparency in SAP
• Streamlining administrative processes
• Reduced effort for routine processes
• Comprehensive reporting tools
• Reduced effort for managing ABS

Technology

SOPLEX AL is add-in software for SAP

• Own namespace
• Programming language ABAP/4
• No modification of the SAP system
• Implementation via SAP transports
• Multilingual versions
• No additional hardware required
• No third-party software required
• SAP authorization concept
• Easy to implement