In a Optimizing Working Capital with Business Suite 7, Business Networks, and Standards, I gave an overview of the ISO 20022 business-to-bank messages that BS7's Bank Communication Management (BCM) supports. BCM is part of Treasury Applications from SAP in ERP Financials. My colleague Juergen Klingbeil coined the term "B2Bank" to refer to "business-to-bank" connectivity.
As I explained, B2Bank connectivity allows a corporate ERP system to initiate payments, ascertain payment status, and obtain reports on bank account balances and booked entries. Toward the end of the blog, I mentioned that BCM works seamlessly with two other Treasury Applications, In-House Cash and Cash and Liquidity Management. Working together and exploiting the B2Bank connectivity, these applilcations enable corporate treasuries to manage the daily cash management workflow on a fine grained basis.
The figure below, adapted from a slide created by Juergen Klingbeil, illustrates the cash management workflow and how B2Bank connectivity impacts it:
The B2Bank connectivity provides the ERP system with bank account reports that include intra-day and end-of-day balances and booked entries. This allows timely reconciliation and gives treasuries the ability to assess liquidity of multiple accounts. Based on those assessments, treasury personnel schedule outgoing payments, including remitances to creditors and fund tranfers among the company's accounts, doing so more frequently than is possible without B2Bank connectivity. The connectivity also allows treasury to monitor the status of the payments once they are initiated. Overall, the treasury gains better control over working capital.
