Order to Cash Process (O2C)

This is the flowchart that I have created to depict the Order to Cash process.

Fiscal Year Variant in SAP

The Concept

The Customizing Process

Document Splitting Procedure in SAP

Here is a simple flowchart diagram to explain document splitting procedure in SAP FI.

Game of Compounding

In an earlier article we discussed about how to make your money work for you. And this is very much indispensable for an individual to forget it, and the fun in the game is due to a concept called as compounding. Albert Einstein has quoted it once, “Compounding interest is the greatest mathematical discovery of all time”. On every investment you generate a certain amount of money inform of returns, and this return can be regarded as the interest on the principle that you invested. And when this interest is added to the principle and the next interest is calculated on such new principle this process is called as compound interest, and the process keeps on going. Compounding works on two basic premises: re-investment of earnings and time.

And this is the most important feature in any of the investments. Compounding investment earnings can turn your small investments into a whopping sum after a period of time. The best way to take advantage of compounding is to start saving and investing wisely as early as possible. For this let’s play a golf game and try to understand the power of compounding.

The rules of the game are simple; there are 18 holes that you need to put. For the first hole that you put you will receive 10 paisa. And for each successful and subsequent put the stake will be doubled.

Lets see how this looks like on the graph.

And if you closely analyse the fun in the game starts from 12^th hole. But the sad thing is you cannot start directly from the 12^th hole. And if you join the game three holes after, i.e. 4^th hole is your 1^st hole then; you would end up with Rs. 1638.40 only.

‘Time is Money’ and not timing. Most of the people tend to ask this question, what the right time to invest is. I would generally suggest today and right now. The idea is simple: the earlier you start investing, the more likely it is that you would end up making more money. Now once you have decided to make the money work for you, next question that should arise where to take the advantage of this compounding. For this you need to wait a bit for my next article releasing soon.

Tame it Else Don't Blame it

In an earlier article we discussed about inflation and how it is calculated in India. With the inflation touching about 9.5%, the RBI has started taking corrective measures to tame such inflation, as even the fixed deposits with banks are also yielding negative returns. Recently, Mr. Duvvuri Subbarao, Governor RBI, raised the repo and reverse repo rate by 50 bps. So it becomes very important for us to understand various tools which a government can use to tame inflation.

Mainly, we have two important policies to control inflation, namely, Fiscal Policy & Monetary Policy. Both the policies affect the demand side of the economy, in the process of controlling inflation, i.e. they increase or decrease the demand of the people in the economy, does control the money supply. Here, in this article we will throw some light on the quantitative tools in the monetary policy.

MONETARY POLICY

It is the process by which the central bank of a country controls the supply of money, often targeting a rate of interest for the purpose of promoting economic growth and stability. In India, the central bank for framing monetary policy is named as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The official goals usually include relatively stable prices and low unemployment. Monetary policy is referred to as either being expansionary or contractionary, where an expansionary policy increases the total supply of money in the economy more rapidly than usual (i.e. intends to increase inflation), and contractionary policy expands the money supply more slowly than usual or even shrinks it (i.e. intends to decrease inflation). For this RBI has following commonly used tools:

• Open Market Operations
• Cash Reverse Ratio
• Statutory Liquidity Ratio
• Bank Rate
• Repo & Reverse Repo Rates

OPEN MARKET OPERATIONS

Also known as OMO, is the buying and selling of government securities or bonds in the open market by RBI. It is the primary means of implementing monetary policy. The main aim of it is to control the short term interest rate and the supply of base money in an economy, and thus indirectly the total money supply. RBI does it like, if there is excess money supply, the RBI intervenes and sucks it by issuing bonds, and getting the money from market and if the liquidity starts to dry up in the markets, the RBI intervenes once again and infuses liquidity by buying back the bonds that are with the investors.

CASH REVERSE RATIO

Also known as CRR refers to this liquid cash that the commercial banks have to maintain with the RBI, as a certain percentage of their NDTL (Net Demand and Time liabilities/deposits), ensuring safety and liquidity of deposits. Say for example if the CRR is 10% then a bank with net demand and time deposits of Rs 10,000 will have to deposit Rs 1,000 with the RBI as liquid cash, and the banks are net left with Rs. 9,000 to be disbursed as loans. Now to control money supply in the markets, RBI tend to increase such CRR which in turn leaves banks with lesser amount of money for being disbursed as loan. In above example, the CRR is hiked to 15%, then banks will have to deposit Rs. 1,500 and does are left with Rs. 8,500. The opposite may happen to increase the liquidity in the markets. This has to be maintained on fortnightly basis by all the commercial banks. The current CRR as on August 1, 2011 is 6%.

STATUTORY LIQUIDITY RATIO

Also known as SLR refers to the amount of liquid assets, such as cash, gold or other approved securities, that a commercial bank must maintain as reserves with itself other than the cash with  RBI (in form of CRR). This also is calculated as a certain percentage of their NDTL (Net Demand and Time liabilities/deposits), Say for example if the CRR is 10% and SLR is 25%, then a bank with NDTL of Rs 10,000 will have to deposit Rs 1,000 with the RBI as liquid cash and keep Rs. 2,500 with itself in declared format and thus are net left with Rs. 6,500 to be disbursed as loans. Now similarly, to control money supply in the markets, RBI tends to increase such SLR which in turn leaves banks with lesser amount of money for being disbursed as loan. In above example, the CRR is 10% and SLR is hiked to 30%, then banks will have to deposit Rs 1,000 with the RBI as liquid cash and keep Rs. 3,000 with itself in declared format and thus are net left with Rs. 6,000 to be disbursed as loans.  The opposite may happen to increase the liquidity in the markets. This has to be maintained on fortnightly basis by all the commercial banks. The declared way to maintain SLR is in form of cash, gold and securities approved by RBI. The current SLR as on August 1, 2011 is 24%.

BANK RATE

The bank rate is that interest rate at which RBI lends money to commercial banks, to control the money supply and the banking sector in the country. When RBI reduces the bank rate, it increases the attractiveness for commercial banks to borrow, thus increasing the money supply. When RBI increases the bank rate, it decreases the attractiveness for commercial banks to borrow, consequently decreasing the money supply. A change in bank rates affects customers as it influences prime interest rates for personal loans. The bank rate as on August 1, 2011 is 6%.

REPO & REVERSE REPO RATES

Repo means repossession or a repurchase agreement that is the sale of securities together with an agreement by the seller to buy back the securities at a later date. The repurchase price should be greater than the original sale price, the difference effectively representing interest, called as repo rate.

In monetary policy, repo is a collateralized lending by RBI to commercial banks which borrow money to meet short term needs, have to sell securities, usually bonds to RBI with an agreement to repurchase the same at a predetermined rate and date. In this way the lender of the cash is RBI, the securities sold by the borrower are the collateral against default risk, the borrower of cash is usually commercial banks. RBI charges some interest rate on the cash borrowed by banks. This rate is usually less than the interest rate on bonds as the borrowing is collateral. This interest rate is called 'repo rate’. The lender of securities is said to be doing repo whereas the lender of cash is said to be doing ‘reverse repo’.

A reverse repo is simply the same repurchase agreement from the buyer's viewpoint, not the seller's. Hence, the seller executing the transaction would describe it as a "repo", while the buyer in the same transaction would describe it a "reverse repo". So "repo" and "reverse repo" are exactly the same kind of transaction, just described from opposite viewpoints. Now the commercial banks with excess funds can park them with RBI in exchange of securities. The interest paid by RBI in this case is called reverse repo rate.

Repo Rate Example: say the repo rate is 10%, and commercial bank needs funds they can sell securities worth Rs. 10,000 (market value) to RBI, then RBI would pay Rs. 10,000 to the commercial banks and get the securities from them and after one year (assumed) the commercial bank would repurchase the sold securities from RBI by paying Rs. 11,000. The party that originally buys the securities effectively acts as a lender. The original seller is effectively acting as a borrower, using their security as collateral for a secured cash loan at a fixed rate of interest.

Reverse Repo Rate Example: Say, the reverse repo rate is 8%, and commercial banks wants to park their funds with RBI Rs. 10,000, then commercial bank would pay Rs. 10,000 with RBI and get the securities from them, and after one year (assumed), the commercial bank would resell the purchased securities from RBI by paying Rs. 10,800.

A reduction in the repo rate will help banks to get money at a cheaper rate. When the repo rate increases borrowing from RBI becomes more expensive, similarly, an increase in Reverse repo rate can cause the banks to transfer more funds to RBI due to this attractive interest rates. It can cause the money to be drawn out of the banking system and vice versa. The repo rate as on August 1, 2011 is 8% & reverse repo rate is 7%.

CONCLUSION

Like every coin has two sides, similarly even inflation can have good and bad effects, i.e. why they also call inflation a double edged sword. Many economists suggest that they will use resources like the central bank to create and maintain certain levels of inflation as necessary for our economy. Practically they mean to say, a little bit of controlled inflation is a good thing but a very high and uncontrolled inflation is a bad thing. A little bit of inflation is like a tax on idle money. It prompts people to get their money out of the pocket or low interest accounts and put it to work on investments. And this investments works in the favour of the concept of capital formation in an economy and does in the growth and development of it.

Make Your Money Work For You

The richest investor & third richest person in the world, Mr. Warren Buffet, quotes “Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” And so, even he did not become the richest person in a day. He started his investment at the very age of 11 years, and many a times found quoting as that he started a bit late, otherwise he would have become richest person earlier. Today he has assets valued for more than $ 50 Billion. He says “in this world there are two ways to earn income; one is to exchange you labor for dollars and the other is to have your money earn money for you.” And this process of money working for you is the phenomenon of INVESTMENT.  

SAVINGS & INVESTMENT

Before we understand investment, it is important to understand savings. Savings are the unspent incomes, or deferred expenditures. A simple formula to calculate savings is:

INCOME  –  EXPENDITURE  =  SAVINGS

Now an individual can keep such amount saved, with himself in his pocket or a piggy bank. But there are few issues when he is doing this as, firstly it may be stolen or lost & secondly due to inflation it looses its value, as it is kept idle. And for these reasons these savings should be invested.

We can define investment as the process of, ‘Sacrificing something now for the prospect of gaining something later’. Some examples of investment:

• A government employee opens a deposit account with post office.
• A person buys the shares of Tata Motors.
• A farmer buys a land for farming.
• A cricket fan bets on a cricket match.(surprised?? For details: patnisaurabh@gmail.com)

WHY ONE SHOULD MAKE INVESTMENT?

This question is often asked by the people, why should they invest??? Investments are both important and useful in the context of present day conditions. Here are some factors to answer it.

• Income: In the last two decades, our economy has witnessed a consistent growth. Due to which the overall demand for all the resources, including human has increased. And this demand has come with the rise in salaries, perks and other benefits. And more the income more would be the demand for investment, in order to bring in more income above their regular income.
• Inflation: As discussed above if an individual, keeps the savings in his pockets, the inflation tends to erode the value of such savings, as the time passes by. And to be paced with the inflation, the investments have to be made by the individual, to cover such a decline in the value due to inflation.
• Taxation: The government, in lieu for encouraging the savings in the economy, tends to provide various tax exemption opportunities for making an investment into selective avenues. And if the individual happens to invest in it, he tends to save some tax liabilities.
• Interest Rates: To take the advantage of the rising interest rates and trying to generate more income.
• Future goals: To achieve ones future goals like, children’s higher education, buying a house etc, smoothly proper and regular investments are necessary.
• Risk & Return: To take a calculative risk in order to generate that extra mile of returns.

WHERE TO INVEST???????????

Now as we know that there are many different types of investment options are available, like shares, debentures etc. It is very important to make an appropriate choice, as per ones requirement. The selection of an investment option by an individual would be based on certain criteria, let us first discuss those criteria or factors that could influence such a selection.

• Returns: This is the main factor that influences the selection of an investment option. Everybody would try to select an investment which provides the highest possible returns. Returns are the monetary benefit, which an investment option generates over the amount of money invested in it. The returns in general are measured in percentage. An investment can generate basically two forms of returns, categorized as:
• Incomes: This is the return, which an investment generates at a regular interval. This type of return is generally has a fixed rate. Example for such type of returns can be dividends and interest.
• Capital Gains: This is an increase in the value of an investment that gives it a higher worth than the purchase price. The gain is not realized until the asset is sold. A capital gain does not correspond to a particular time interval. It gets affected by many factors like the performance of the asset, demand and supply for the same etc. A capital loss is incurred when there is a decrease in the capital asset value compared to an asset's purchase price.
• Risk: Traditionally risk is viewed as something ‘negative’. "Risk is the chance that an investment's actual return will be different than expected". This includes the possibility of losing some or all of the original investment. This is a very important factor which will influence the selection of an investment option. If an individual aspire for higher returns from an investment, then generally he has to take a higher amount of risk.
• Liquidity: The degree to which an asset or security can be bought or sold in the market without affecting the asset's price. Liquidity is characterized by a high level of trading activity. And higher the liquidity of an asset, easier it is possible to buy or sell the asset at the desired price and quantity.
• Lock in Period: It is the period during which an asset cannot be sold or redeemed earlier than scheduled date, without incurring penalties.
• Tax Benefits: The Income Tax Act of India provides tax rebates for the investment into certain assets, varying for different options.
• Convenience of owning: It is one factor, which analyzes how easy it is for an individual to gain the access to the investment option for buying and selling of the same.

Here, is a comparative table between some of the commonly used investment avenues, based upon certain criteria’s.

(This comparison is based on my personal experience and the information available on various concerned websites.)

Thus investment and that to right investment is necessary for every person dreams of becoming rich, and lotteries, slot machines, betting, etc will not make it happen. Truth is, every time you waste your money on the lotteries, you put yourself farther and farther, from financial success. Every penny you waste on it, makes you poorer, and someone else richer. Thus, a prudent investor will always stick to the basics and will reap the benefits of his investment for a very long time.

WISH ALL MY READERS HAPPY INVESTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P2P Process

INTRODUCTION (PROCURE TO PAY PROCESS)

All enterprises and corporate aspire to improve their bottom line. Basically, there are two ways to do it, either to increase the top line or reducing the cost. Increasing the top line or the revenues in today’s competitive markets is not a very good option. That’s why, now a day’s the sourcing and procurement functions are being examined, by the companies, in order to find ways to cut costs and control spending. Thus, for all such enterprises the procurement process is very important, so here in this article we will try to focus on the P2P process of an enterprise.

STEP 1: IDENTIFICATION OF REQUIREMENT

This is the first stage, at which the user department (say, Maintenance, Production, Sales and distribution, administration, accounts etc) identifies their requirements, that is what are the items they require and based upon which they create a document called as the Purchase requisition /Purchase request (PR). This document normally contains description of material, quantity, approx cost, material requirement date, preferred or standard vendor etc.

STEP 2: AUTHORIZATION OF PR

Then, the PR is to be first approved by the head or the senior authority of the user department. At this stage, the authority may return the PR to the originator for modification or can approve it.

STEP 3: FINAL APPROVAL OF PR/ROLE OF INVENTORY CONTROLLER

Once the PR has been authorised by user department then it is available to the inventory controller, or the materials management department, who are responsible for handling all the materials in the organization. Inventory controller shall review the PR and shall check the open Purchase Orders (PO), any other scheduled or planned delivery for the material. If there is any planned delivery or any existing open PO then Inventory controller can return the PR or request the user department to revise the quantity of the material (if required). After the approval of Inventory controller, the approved PR is available to the Procurement department.

STEP 4: PROCUREMENT

After final authorization of PR, that it is found out that there is no planned delivery of such a material, it is available to procurement department. The department shall check for any existing contract for the material. If any contract exists then a call-off shall be generated and shall be sent to the existing supplier. In case no contract exists then the procurement department shall initiate supplier search and floating enquiries.

STEP 5: IDENTIFICATION OF SUPPLIERS

If no pre-contracted supplier exists, then the procurement department shall interact with the user for the possible suppliers or search on the internet or use referrals or search data base, etc. to identify the suppliers for the said material.

STEP 6: FLOATING OF ENQUIRIES

Once the suppliers are identified, procurement department shall send the Request For Quotations/Proposal (RFQ/RFP) to the supplier, based upon the PR. RFQ normally contains description, technical specifications of the material, quantity of the material, term and conditions, delivery date of the material, date of submission of the RFQ, quality standards, validity of the suppliers offer, etc.

STEP 7: RECEIPT OF TECHNICAL QUOTATIONS

After sending the RFQ/RFP to vendors, the procurement department shall receive the quotations from the suppliers. These technical quotations contain the information pertaining to the technical specifications of the material, if there are any. Normally, vendors are instructed to send their quotation in a sealed envelope, mentioning only RFQ reference number on it. Quotations are normally opened and signed by two or more persons of the procurement department.

STEP 8: TECHNICAL EVALUATION OF QUOTATIONS

Quotations are sent to technical department for technical evaluations of the quotations. Here, technical department shall shortlist the quotations based on the technical specifications.

STEP 9: RECEIPT OF COMMERCIAL QUOTATIONS

Once the technical evaluation is over, the procurement department shall send the advice to shortlisted suppliers for commercial quotations. These commercial quotation will contain details about the payment terms, discounts etc. After receiving the commercial quotations, these shall be opened by two people. Quotation comparison statement is prepared by the procurement department to compare all the quotations of the supplies and suppliers are short listed for negotiations.

STEP 10: NEGOTIATION

Based upon the commercial quotation, the procurement department will short list the suppliers and will invite then for negotiations. The negotiation can happen on various grounds like, reduction in the prices of the materials, quantity and price breaks, delivery terms and conditions, freight charges, payment terms etc.

STEP 11: SELECTION OF THE VENDOR

After negotiations with all the selected vendors, the revised quotations are prepared and vendor is finalized for award of contract based on the weightage to the commecial, technical parameters, previous performance of the vendor, delivery dates of the material, etc.

STEP 12: AWARD OF CONTRACT

After the vendor is finalized, LOI (Letter of Intent) can be sent to him and he may be asked to deposit security or bank guaranty before signing the agreement. Agreement can be of Fixed or Blanket (the same can be mentioned in the RFQ).

STEP 13: PURCHASE ORDER (PO)

The procurement department then shall raise the purchase order against the contracts and then is send to the supplier.

STEP 14: PO ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

After receiving the PO the supplier sends the acknowledgement to procurement department and they record the acknowledgement. If any ERP is being used for procurement functions then supplier can remotely download purchase orders and can acknowledge the PO.

STEP 15: ADVANCE SHIPMENT NOTE (ASN)

The supplier sends the Advance Shipment to procurement department as soon as he ships the material to the buying organization. This note normally contains shipping date, transporter’s name, airway bill number, number of packages, weight of the packages, receiving location address, description of goods, etc.

STEP 16: GOODS RECEIPT

When the goods are received at the warehouse of the organization, the receiving staffs checks the delivery note, PO number etc and acknowledges the receipt of material. After the material is received the same is checked for quantity in case of discrepancy the same is reported to the vendor. After the quantity verification the material is kept at inspection locations and material inspector is called for inspection of material. If material is rejected by the inspector the same is sent back to the vendor or the vendor is asked for the rectification at the site. The sound material is moved to respective warehouse locations.

(i)GOODS RECEIPT – ACCOUNTING ENTRY

                RECEIVING INVENTORY A/C Dr.

                To GR-IR A/C

(Note: With this entry, the goods are received in the organization, hence the inventory has to debited, but since the invoice is not received yet, thus the vendor cannot be credited, and thus a clearing account is used as GR-IR A/C i.e. Goods Receipt-Invoice Receipt A/C)

(ii) GOODS ISSUED TO THE DEPARTMENT - ACCOUNTING ENTRY

(Note: As the inventory department issues the goods to the user department, the accounting entry should be passed on, on the basis of the nature of the material and the use of it.)

(a)If goods are used in consumption:

EXPENSE A/C Dr.

                                   To RECEIVING INVENTORY A/C

                                (b)or,if goods are used as assets:

ASSET A/C Dr.

                                   To RECEIVING INVENTORY A/C

               

STEP 17: INVOICE RECORDING

Vendor sends the invoice to accounts department of buying organization for claiming payment. This invoice is entered in to the system.

(i) INVOICE RECORDING - ACCOUNTING ENTRY

GR-IR A/C Dr

            To VENDOR a/c

(Note: Since now the invoice is received, thus the vendor is credited, and the clearing account ‘GR-IR A/C i.e. Goods Receipt-Invoice Receipt A/C’ gets cleared)

STEP 18: PAYMENT TO SUPPLIER

And in the last the supplier is paid as the terms of the payments and the invoice.

(i) PAYMENT TO SUPPLIER - ACCOUNTING ENTRY

VENDOR A/C Dr

To BANK A/C

CONCLUSION

The very processes and documents in procure to pay cycle may differ from company to company, but a generic process more or less remains the same. During the process we have seen various documents being created and the accounting entries that happen (if any). These documents and the accounting entries and name of the accounts used may differ from various ERP or accounting systems, but the basic things remain the same. Here, we have seen how the accounting entry happens in SAP-FI and the integration points between FI & MM. To conclude, refer to the image below to understand the flow of the things in a P2P process.