SAP Business One for service companies
SAP Business One Cloud is a popular choice for management consultancies, IT service providers, and engineering firms. Competitive and pricing pressures are constantly increasing, as are customer demands for performance and speed. SAP Business One supports service companies – automatically, centrally managed, and in real time. Particularly in invoicing and project controlling, SAP Business One Cloud offers service companies tailored, optimized processes.
Writing and calculating offers
SAP Business One Cloud for service companies includes various features that significantly professionalize and simplify the calculation and creation of quotations. In SAP Business One, quotations can include services in the form of items, but also in the form of so-called service items (with descriptive text). The quotation calculation allows for gross profit determination, provided that corresponding items or services are procured from suppliers.
SAP Business One includes framework agreements for contract management. These agreements specify purchase quantities for particular business partners. Individual invoices can always refer to the agreed framework agreement. The corresponding call-offs are recorded in the background.
Recording and invoicing working hours
Service providers regularly invoice for services rendered based on time and materials. Therefore, they typically require a time and attendance tracking system. Several providers have established themselves in the market for time and attendance tracking solutions. Ideally, data from the existing time and attendance application should be automatically transferred to SAP. A solution for this is available:
SAP Business One Cloud features a cloud adapter that easily connects to existing time and attendance systems. This allows for the transfer of working hours to SAP Business One timesheets via a cloud-to-cloud connection, and even the creation of pre-entered invoices within SAP. These interfaces reduce the time required for data entry and invoicing, while simultaneously improving quality by eliminating manual data entry errors. The following solutions are already connected to SAP Business One Cloud and ready for immediate use: www.timebutler.de and www.clockodo.com.
Service providers often document their services in a service description. This description is typically attached to an invoice so the customer can understand the costs incurred for each service. SAP Business One offers templates for invoice printing and service descriptions, which can be customized to meet specific customer requirements. If a time and attendance application is used, the service description can be directly imported from that system and attached to the invoice.
Simplify invoicing and keep receivables transparent
Service companies typically don't create invoices on the same day the service is provided. Usually, services from the previous service period are billed on a specific date. With SAP Business One, invoices can be easily generated by either copying a new invoice from a previous document (e.g., a sales order) or by referencing a framework agreement. Invoices can also be easily generated from timesheets.
The SAP Business One Mailer generates PDFs from invoices and automatically attaches them to the corresponding email. A description of the services rendered can also be easily included in the attachment. The invoice can be sent either manually or automatically.,
In addition to intuitive invoice creation, SAP Business One features bank statement processing that allows for the automated import of incoming and outgoing payments. A system reconciliation process matches previously issued outgoing invoices with their respective incoming payments, and vice versa. Once a match is successful, paid invoices are closed and removed from the open items list.
Unpaid invoices remain in the open items list, ensuring complete transparency regarding outstanding receivables at all times. The dunning assistant analyzes this list and generates corresponding dunning proposals for different dunning levels.
Controlling projects and employees
Service providers are often commissioned by their clients for projects with a defined start and end date. SAP Business One has its own project module that enables project controlling. Individual documents, as well as working hours, can be assigned to this project. In conjunction with a framework agreement, planned hours can also be scheduled, potentially for different seniority levels. These tools create a solid data foundation. Within the framework of project controlling, projects can be specifically evaluated with regard to the following key performance indicators (KPIs):
- Planned vs. actual working hours
- Planned vs. Actual Revenue
- Planned vs. Actual Costs
- Gross profit: Sales vs. costs
For service companies with consultants, it is advisable to create cost centers for each consultant. This allows services rendered and costs incurred to be viewed collectively, and the contribution to the company's success to be measured per employee.
Integrated solutions deliver advantages
SAP Business One includes integrated financial accounting. Every tax-relevant document automatically generates a debit/credit journal entry in the background. Digitized documents therefore do not need to be digitized a second time (often manually in some cases). For this reason, exporting the journal entries for further processing by the tax advisor using the existing DATEV interface is highly recommended.
CRM systems can also be connected to SAP Business One Cloud. In this case, quotes are typically created in the CRM system. Resulting customer orders are managed in SAP Business One. Recorded working hours (PZE) are then combined with corresponding service items in SAP Business One and invoiced. This way, all information converges in a fully integrated, end-to-end system: SAP Business One Cloud.
