With the December 31, 2013 deadline around the corner, it is now more critical than ever to make sure that you have a strategy in place in order to stay compliant and avoid costly fines. Being able to quickly change and adapt your ERP system and business processes to meet these mandates is a costly and time consuming operation. Unfortunately, most organizations are not prepared for the upcoming changes and will underestimate the work load involved in meeting these new mandates. The business impact of CFDI is vast and will affect Account Receivables, Logistics, and Account Payables.
- Accounts Receivable: This is the most important aspect of the legislation and will be the downfall of many implementations. Outbound billing to end customers in Mexico will require significant changes that not only affect your ability to create a legally valid invoice, they also affect your ability to collect. With CFDI, the outbound process is real-time, requires significant changes to the SAP system, and affects your ability to hip.
- Logistics: Unlike the legacy batch invoice processing, the real-time CFDI process requires that a PDF representation of the approved XML with a government signature accompany the shipment. By requiring a physical representation of the invoice on the truck, a process similar to the Brazil Nota Fiscal requirements, it is imperative that companies have contingency built into their business processes, so that validation doesn't get in the way of customer shipments.
- Accounts Payable: Inbound receiving and payment of domestic purchases are also affected by the legislation. Whether you are utilizing local resources or have transitioned to a Shared Service, all supplier XML invoices need to be collected, validated and archived for a period of 5 years. The massive transition to CFDI will have two major effects on AP operations. First, the payables staff will be inundated with electronic XML invoices that needs to be validated in real-time and archived on premise for 5 years. The overwhelming majority of companies have been validating invoices manually. Many AP teams will see a 300-500% increase in electronic invoicing, so manual efforts will be stretched to their breaking point. Second, as many suppliers will be new to the CFDI process, a manager can expect to receive a high percentage of invalid invoices. Companies do not want to process government invalid invoices as this will create audit risk and tax deduction implications.
Because everyone who uses SAP has configured their pricing configuration, applied customer specific business processes, and are upgrading SAP at their own pace; there is no standard out of the box SAP solution. Don't forget the SAP work that is required -- it's the most difficult.
