SAP COIL: CO-INNOVATION LAB PROJECTS - LOCALIZATION

Overview:

The SAP Global Co-Innovation Lab (COIL) Network hosts and facilitates a broad range of events and activities to foster project based co-innovation, enabling and extend the capabilities of our partners and SAP. Joint achievements of projects are showcased as packaged deliverables to gain broader momentum around their co-innovation and to make the topic more tangible. The COIL projects pages provide further insight. 

The following list outlines a high-level perspective for the major projects successfully completed between 2008 and today in the area of localization. 

ENGdB's DPFISC for SAP HANA - Complementary Tax Solution for SAP TDF

with Engineering do Brasil (ENGdB) [COIL Brazil, December 2015]

Engineering do Brasil (ENGdB), member of the Italian Engineering Ingegneria Group, is present in the Brazilian market, operating through six business units: Public Administration, Healthcare, Telco & Media, Energy & Utilities, Industry & Services and Finance.

In partnership with SAP Co-Innovation Lab (COIL), Engineering developed DPFISC for SAP HANA, a Brazilian Tax Solution, certified by SAP ICC, which uses SAP Tax Declaration Framework (SAP TDF), SAP UI5, SAP HANA and SAP HANA Extended Application Services (XS).

Being a SAP HANA native application, the product leverages performance and takes the most advantage of SAP HANA resources, with real-time analytical reports, user friendly responsive frontend and taxes compliance among multiple systems.

SAP Co-Innovation Lab (COIL) supported ENGdB with technical infrastructure (dedicated system landscape with all required components and regular updates of support packages and SAP Notes), technical support during the development phase, and facilitation of the interaction with the SAP TDF Development Team in relevant occasions. COIL also supported ENGdB during the ICC certification of DPFISC for SAP HANA, with additional system provision for the certification tests.

For additional information about ENGdB and DPFISC for SAP HANA, please see: http://www.engdb.com.br

Origen SAP Fiscal Dashboard - Complementary Tax Solution for SAP TDF

with Origen Technologies [COIL Brazil, December 2015]

Simplifying tax management processes is one of the biggest challenges for fiscal, accounting, financial and IT areas for Brazilian companies or multinationals with Brazilian operations. There are a multitude of options that companies unsuccessfully use to try and handle the complex legal and statutory compliance for Brazil: innumerous spreadsheets that are error-prone and generate more work and complexity or inefficiently implemented integrations, are all methods that are destined to fail and generate significant cost overruns over time. The reality is that inherent to doing business in Brazil is that local fiscal and tax compliance teams typically will face a “daily battle”  to handle the various tax and legal obligations needed to operate successfully in the country.

The SAP Tax Declaration Framework for Brazil (SAP TDF), which was launched in December 2013, is intended exactly to alleviate this pain point by providing a modern platform on SAP's high performance in-memory database SAP HANA where companies can consolidate all fiscal and reporting relevant data from multiple SAP and non-SAP backend systems in a Central Tax Repository (CTR).

The Origen SAP Fiscal Dashboard solution for TDF simplifies the whole tax management process related to tax planning, auditing and legal inspections support, and minimizes the risk of non-compliance. Below you will see the main product highlights:

• Fiscal Calendar: all team activities can now be planned and monitored from a single location;
• Year/Month-end closing: centralized access to key SAP transactions used in the closing process;
• Calculation reports (ICMS, IPI, PIS, COFINS and IRRF): simplifies management of payables and recoverable taxes through analysis by company, branch and dates;
• Legal Reports: groups the legal obligations of SAP standard + product Origen SAP Legal Reports, offering more than 10 additional legal obligations to the traditionally offered SAP standard base reports;
• Tax & NFe Analytics: implements the "Impostômetro" concept, allowing visualization of GL account balances for payable/recoverable taxes and also totals by NFe type; and
• Powered by SAP TDF / HANA: product is built on SAP TDF and HANA platform, enabling significant gains in performance, integration, real-time analysis capabilities, and increased simplicity due to the use of a single fiscal repository (CTR) and in-memory technology.

SAP Co-Innovation Lab (COIL) supported Origen Technologies with technical infrastructure (dedicated system landscape with all required components and regular updates of support packages and SAP Notes), technical support during the development phase, and facilitation of the interaction with the SAP TDF Development Team in relevant occasions.

For more information about Origen Technologies and Origen SAP Fiscal Dashboard, please see:http://www.origentech.com/

Pelissari's SOFICOM TDF - Complementary Tax Solution for SAP TDF

with Pelissari [COIL Brazil, December 2015]

Pelissari, since its establishment, worked complementing the SAP regarding Brazilian tax issues. In 2009 with the advent of SPED project designed by Brazil's Federal Revenue, Pelissari created the SOFICOM – a supplementary tax solution initially developed in ABAP and working natively in the SAP ERP, integrating features to the standard SAP solution and building new features complementing SAP’s standard scope. SOFICOM was also certified in this initial version.

SAP portfolio for Brazilian tax solutions has evolved into SAP TDF (Tax Declaration Framework) and so has SOFICOM. In 2014 Pelissari began a co-innovation project in partnership with SAP Co-Innovation Lab (COIL). The result of this project was the SOFICOM for TDF, leveraging the benefits of the SAP TDF platform and complementing with specialized functionality, offering:

• Single tax information repository;
• Single point of truth;
• Easy generation of ancillary obligations;
• Assurance of data and information integrity among different obligations; and
• Quickly information report

SOFICOM for TDF complements SAP standard and can get the maximum from HANA architecture, using SAP TDF’s shadow tables concept, on which nonexistent tax information can be easily complemented. SOFICOM assures that the complementary information will be stored in the shadow tables and therefore displayed in the views of each record that make up the ancillary obligations.

SAP Co-Innovation Lab (COIL) supported Pelissari with technical infrastructure (dedicated system landscape with all required components and regular updates of support packages and SAP Notes), technical support during the development phase, and facilitation of the interaction with the SAP TDF Development Team in relevant occasions. COIL also supported Pelissari during the ICC certification of SOFICOM for TDF, with additional system provision for the certification tests.

For additional information about Pelissari and SOFICOM, please see: http://www.pelissari.com.br/en/

Systax Tax Systems - Complementary Tax Solution for SAP TDF

with Systax [COIL Brazil, December 2015]

The Systax Tax Systems combines proprietary technology with the expertise of its consultants specializing in taxation. The main objective is to track the daily changes in tax laws, allowing the constant updating of tax parameters in customers ERP systems.

Systax’s purpose is to support companies to operate with correct rates and tax rules for ICMS and ICMS / ST of the 26 states and Federal District in Brazil, as well as the IPI, PIS and COFINS taxes.

Taking advantage brought by SAP Tax Declaration Framework (SAP TDF) on HANA as a platform, Systax developed a module to apply the tax rules on business transactions as soon as they are recorded in the ERP, triggering processes that allow not only the identification of inaccuracies but also, where possible, simplify and automate the applicable corrections in each case. As an example, if wrongly taxing determination is detected during the creation of an invoice, the Systax application can offer the possibility to generate a complementary invoice, correcting the problem more easily.

SAP Co-Innovation Lab (COIL) supported Systax with technical infrastructure (dedicated system landscape with all required components and regular updates of support packages and SAP Notes), technical support during the development phase, and facilitation of the interaction with the SAP TDF Development Team in relevant occasions. The SAP TDF has also brought some changes in the data structure for integration of tax rules Systax and automatic parameterization of J1BTAX tables.

For additional information about Systax and its tax solutions, please see: http://www.systax.com.br/

SAP Tax Declaration Framework (SAP TDF) complemented by Partners

with various Partners [COIL Brazil, September 2014]

SAP Tax Declaration Framework for Brazil (SAP TDF) is an integrated tax management solution based on SAP HANA, which was designed and developed to address the complex tax regulation processes in Brazil. The solution contains a Central Tax Repository (CTR) on SAP HANA, which is the unified and consolidated source of tax information for the customer declarations. This is a huge value proposition for customers, as most of them have multiple tax information databases across various systems, eventually provided by different vendors and solutions, in order to meet the diverse tax obligations and regulations in Brazil. This diversity of data sources for the same information leads to inconsistencies and data quality problems, which impacts the tax declarations.

SAP TDF was designed to enable partners to develop and implement their complementary solutions to the framework. This gives customers a concise and unified approach to implement and use tax related solutions which are technically integrated and leverage the benefits of SAP HANA.

SAP TDF entered in the ramp-up phase in December/2013 and is general available since April/2014. Through the collaboration with SAP Co-Innovation Lab (COIL), some partners had early access to SAP TDF and technical support to develop new and/or migrate existing tax solutions on top of SAP TDF. COIL has provided a dedicated system landscape with all necessary SAP components (e.g.: SAP ECC, SAP SLT, SAP HANA, SAP NetWeaver 7.40), a four-days bootcamp and technical support through all the development.

The first partners engaged with COIL for SAP TDF were:

• EngineeringDB, to build a set of validations and legal reports on top of the CTR and completely integrated with SAP TDF;
• Sonda IT, to adapt their existing tax solution Comply to integrate with SAP TDF; and
• Systax, to complement SAP TDF with a fiscal audit solution, which verifies, evaluates and automates the correction of inconsistencies in the tax documents of the customer.

All these partners of the so called “Wave I” have extended their engagement with COIL and continue developing complementary solutions to SAP TDF.

A second wave of engagements started in June/2014 and is still ongoing. COIL continues supporting the partners in their developments and looks forward to related demo and showcase activities.

First localized version of Human Resource Management for SAP ERP for Belarus was developed by IBA in collaboration with SAP GS and SAP COILwith IBA [COIL Moscow, August 2014]

The first localized version of Human Resource Management for SAP ERP for Belarus was developed by IBA, based on their experience of implementing SAP ERP for Belarusian customers. It is now certified by SAP (see the press release) and released for the Belarusian market.

The solution includes the localization of main business processes, forms and reports, according to the Belarusian legal requirements for human resource management and payroll processes. The solution is realized as an Add-On and will be compatible with different versions of SAP ERP.

The project was run in collaboration with SAP Globalization Services (GS) and SAP Co-Innovation Lab (COIL) in Moscow, with an active support from SAP management in Belarus and CIS. The participation of GS made it possible for the partner solution to comply with SAP’s development standards, and GS have also shared their deep experiences of software localization. COIL was a technological and organizational platform for the project, including the handling of IP matters relevant to the partner solution.

EPAM localized SAP ERP Financial and Logistic for Republic of Belarus
with EPAM [COIL Moscow, July 2014]

EPAM Systems, an international custom software development company and IT-services provider with departments in USA, central and eastern Europe, announced the release of a SAP certified localization solution for SAP ERP –Finances & Logistics Operations Localization Add-On for Belarus.

The solution was developed in accordance with technological and methodological recommendations by SAP and can be installed as an Add-On on top of new SAP ERP installations as well as on existing productive ones. It covers business processes, forms and reports required by Belarussian legislation for financial and tax accounting.

“For the development of the Add-On, we took into account interests of various customers using SAP ERP. The solution was developed in fruitful collaboration of EPAM Systems with SAP Globalization Services (SAP GS),  and with SAP Co-Innovation Lab (SAP COIL). The collaboration agreement with COIL secured our IP rights and enabled us to work together with SAP GS specialists based on COIL cloud infrastructure,” said Arkadzi Barkhan, the chief of department of Corporate IT Systems Implementation, EPAM Systems.

SAP GRC Nota Fiscal eletrônica (NFe 10.0) Mobile Application via SAP NetWeaver Gateway for Goods Incoming Verification v2.00

with Cienci [COIL Brazil, December 2012]

Cienci, has developed the second release of itsmobile application integrated with SAP GRC NFe 10.0 (Brazilian Localization Add-on) running on Android, iPhone / iPad, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile.

In this new release Cienci has added functionality for batch (“lote”) verification. The mobile application thus enables an onsite full validation of the Nota Fiscal electronica (NF-e), in order to confirm the amount of physical goods receipt with the actual planned/ anticipated shipment. The validation is realized via input of the received quantities by complementing / replacing the use of NF-e Logistics Workplace (Web Dynpro), overall making the process more practical and fast.

COIL has supported by providing a virtualized landscape and technical knowledge transfer during the development process of the application. Further information can be obtained from Cienci.

SAP GRC Nota Fiscal eletrônica (NFe) Mobile Application via SAP NetWeaver Gateway

with Cienci [COIL Brazil, May 2012]

Cienci, jointly with the Co-Innovation in Brasil, created a mobile application integrating with SAP GRC NFe (Brazilian Localization Add-on) running on  Android, iPhone / iPad, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile.

The scope of this project is the mobilization of the verification process for the entry of goods, touching the Goods Incoming Verification within SAP ERP  and NF-Inbound Normal Purchasing within SAP GRC NFe. The mobile thus application enables an onsite validation of the Nota Fiscal electronica (NF-e), in order to confirm the amount of physical goods receipt with the actual planned/ anticipated shipment. The validation is realized via input of the received quantities by complementing / replacing the use of NF-e Logistics Workplace (Web Dynpro)., overall making the process more practical and fast.

COIL supported by providing a virtualized landscape and continuous technical knowledge transfer during the development process of the application. Further information can be obtained from Cienci.

FirsteamAgro SIA solution for Farm Operations

with Firsteam Agro [COIL São Paulo, February 2012]

FirsteamAgro, a joint venture between Firsteam, Inflor and individual associates developed a solution for Farm Operations, named SIA, directly embedded within SAP ERP. COIL Brazil supported FirsteamAgro with general architecture assessment, helping leverage the most appropriate and state of the art components for the development. Further information can be found via the press release from FirsteamAgro.

LexConsult protoypes Fiscal Framework for Brazil leveraging SAP HANA

with LexConsult [COIL São Paulo, November 2011]

Brazil has one of the most complex taxation in the world. There are more than 70 taxes in the federal, state and municipality spheres. In order to be compliant with the laws it is required to generate, audit and manage various legal reports. Today, companies acquire tax software to cover these specific local needs that extracts from the SAP systems and and manipulates the data outside of the very. In this way, there is the possibility of those companies not being compliante in the long run due to differences in the date within SAP ERP database and the complementary solutions database. This externally handled process also leads to a delayed (one or two days) generation of analytical and summary reporting on top of this data.

Jointly with the Co-Innovation Lab São Paulo, Lexconsult built a simple prototype that is able to demonstrate the potentiality of an integrated tributary framework solution. The prototype is utilizing data from the ERP system, like a ‘nota fiscal', which is instantly replicated to the SAP HANA system using SLT mechanisms, and then extracted and shown with BO reports/tools. The prototype was shown for the first time to the public during the SAP Co-Innovation Day 2011 in São Paulo [see COIL events link on http://coil.sap.com ].

Cienci builds goods incoming verification prototype based on SAP NetWeaver Gateway

with Cienci [COIL Sao Paulo, November 2011]

Cienci developed a prototype for mobilizing the process of Goods Incoming Verification, which complements the SAP solution GRC NFe 10.0 (Brazilian Localization: Notas Fiscais de Entrada). The mobile client was built on Android and the integration with the SAP GRC NFe 10.0 was created using SAP NetWeaver Gateway. The prototype was built with some key functionalities and it was presented live at the Co-Innovation Day 2011 in São Paulo [see COIL events link on http://coil.sap.com].

LexConsult SGTLEX ICC Certification

with LexConsult [COIL SÃO PAULO, OCTOBER 2011]

In October 2011, Lex Consult successfully certified their SGTLex 4.0 solution within the certification category of ABAP and executed by SAP's ICC team, North America with the guidance of COIL São Paulo. The correlated SAP interfaces have been "ABAP 7.0 - ABAP Add-On for SAP NetWeaver Application Server 7.00". Further information can be found on the Partner Information Center.

LexConsult SGTLEX Integration Development

with LexConsult [COIL São Paulo, July 2011]

The Brazilian government has been investing since 2006 in a national-wide IT program called "SPED", aiming at reducing complexity and the "Brazil cost" for conformity & compliance. Among the several initiatives of the program (for example "Nota Fiscal Eletronica"), there are the so called "digital bookkeeping", or electronic reporting files (such as EFD, ECD, EFD PIS/COFINS etc.). While SAP and several other partners are focusing on the generation of the file, LexConsult has innovated at focusing on the tax/fiscal auditing with their SGTLex 2.0 solution. 

With SGTLex, the Brazilian companies can be assured that the electronic reporting files they're submitting to the government are valid according not just to the layout but also in terms of the tax laws & definitions for their specific operations. At this project, COIL has provided LexConsult with a landscape and knowhow transfer. Goal was the integration of their solution to SAP ERP, bringing to SAP users the result of the validation of the legal reports, making the tax reporting business process easier and more efficient, and adding value to SAP customers & users.

Discovery System V3 Localization in Japanese [Conventional Server]

with Fujitsu [COIL Tokyo, April 2009]

The purpose of this project was to set up a master image of SAP Discovery system for SOA version 3 (DS V3)* Japanese version, on Fujitsu's Primergy TX300 SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) model server with Microsoft Windows OS Japanese version and Japanese language imported into ERP(NW) and Solution Manager. Main portion of MDM master data is translated into Japanese, and the Procurement scenario as one of the main DS demo scenario is also adapted to Japanese.

Fujitsu provides this DS V3 Japanese version for customer as an appliance product. After releasing SAS server model, this project was executed according to a strong request from Fujitsu for aiming at the lower price using SATA server model to broaden adoption in the market.

Discovery System V3 Japanese Localization

with HP - [COIL Tokyo, August 2008]

The purpose of this project was to set up a master image of SAP Discovery system for SOA version 3 (DS V3)* Japanese version, on HP's ProLiant ML370 G5 server with Microsoft Windows OS Japanese version and Japanese language imported into ERP(NW) and Solution Manager. Main portion of MDM master data is translated into Japanese, and the procurement scenario as one of the main DS demo scenario is also adapted to Japanese. HP provides this DS V3 Japanese version for customer as an appliance product.

Discovery System V3 Localization for Japan [Standard Platform]

with Fujitsu - [COIL Tokyo, June 2008]

The purpose of this project was to set up a master image of SAP Discovery system for SOA version 3 (DS V3)* Japanese version, on Fujitsu's Primergy TX300 SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) model server with Microsoft Windows OS Japanese version and Japanese language imported into ERP(NW) and Solution Manager. Main portion of MDM master data was translated into Japanese, and the Procurement scenario as one of the main DS demo scenario was also adapted to Japanese. Fujitsu Japan
provides this DS V3 Japanese version for customer as an appliance product.

* The SAP Discovery system for SOA offers a head start on the road to a full SOA implementation by providing a vehicle for easily prototyping and testing service-enabled composite applications. The SAP Discovery system for SOA comes preconfigured with standard SAP software components for developing
and delivering service-based applications, including all the documentation, interfaces, functionality, data, and guidance necessary to run a complete, end-to-end business scenario. For more detail about the SAP Discovery system for SOA, please refer to the dedicated site at SDN.

Source: by Hans-Joachim Odlozinski - SAP Co-Innovation Lab Projects - Localization