I am seeing more and more planned implementations ofSAP in Brazil. Many companies are either looking to consolidate legacy systems onto a centralized SAP system, or they are looking to transition Procure To Pay processes into a Shared Service environment. Regardless, I wanted to provide the key considerations for SAP Brazil implementations. Many of these are often overlooked during the discussion of bringing Brazil into the SAP or Shared Service process.
There are 3 primary evaluations you have toconsider:
- Localizations – this is actually the most underestimated part of the project, and this is critical to the success of the next two topics. Your organization needs to ensure you have local Brazil/SAP experts. This project is much more than installing a few J tables. Ensure you have solid and current tax advice from your taxadviserand you have individuals that have strong experience implementing SAP in Brazil. I have seen companies underestimate the implementation by as much as 6 months of work.
- Reporting – understand how you will be managing the SPED reportingfor your company. Many organizations, especially as the Brazil government pushes more standardization with the SPED reports, are looking to have these reports produced directly out of their SAP system so there is only one system of record.
- Operational Nota Fiscal — now that you have your system configured to produce the correct fiscal data and you have the ability to formulate the weekly, monthly, and quarterly reports; it is time to review your day to day NFe solutions. Ensure you review the following, as they are all unique and have different issues:
- Nota Fiscal Entrada
- Stock Transfer
- Digital Goods
- Drop Ship
- Outbound NFe Goods & Contingency Printing
- Outbound NFe for Services – 120 different city issues
- MDF-e if you are shipping with internal resources
- Inbound NFe for Goods – AP validations
- Inbound NFe for Services – AP validations
- CTe – Transportation Invoices – Inbound Validations
- Eventos – Recipient Acknowledgement
- IMPORTANT Note: because of the inbound validation requirements or Shared Service center consolidations, I am seeing companies focusing on AP only projects. Ensure you reach out to the AR team as well, there will be synergies with the project teams although they often run separately.
Companies can be very successful in implementing SAP in Brazil, but you need to understand the unique nature of the Brazil compliance processes as well as how they affect your SAP templates. If you research these 3 key functional requirements, you will be well on your way to a successful and on time go live.
