Data Uploads to SAP Dragging You Down? Remove Bottlenecks with Automated Financial Data Entry

For many finance professionals, handling large data uploads to their ERP is a dreaded but necessary part of the job. The key challenge here is consistency. More than any type of software, ERP systems like SAP, rely on consistent data across the board. Every capitalization, punctuation, and abbreviation must be standardized so each ERP module can correctly identify and correlate the data. A lack of consistency could yield conflicting insights across ERP modules, making it harder to ascertain the right solution.

And it’s a headache for finance teams to upload large amounts of data, like payroll, to their SAP ERP due to SAP’s 1,000-line limitation. Achieving the necessary alignment of data can take hours of manual work, pouring through spreadsheets to find each discrepancy. It’s such a time drain that many larger organizations may choose to build an internal IT solution. But as many of you will know, these high lift IT projects are their own beast – a few months at least if your IT team has capacity. But if they’re stretched thin, as many are in such a tech-driven market, then you can expect even longer delays.

The Flow on Detriment of Manual Processes

When re-evaluating ERP data processes, like large data uploads, finance teams must also consider the subsequent impacts of burning precious hours on these tedious manual tasks. It’s safe to assume that other time-critical activities like month-end close will suffer. Your team may spend hours rekeying general ledger entries and processing large files. They will struggle to validate data before uploading it to SAP and are stuck relying on a backlogged IT department to accomplish their projects.

With poor integration between databases and SAP, data accuracy may be another hitch for your team’s large data upload process. Any instance of manual data entry increases the inevitable risk of human error. This applies even more pressure to the validation of data integrity before posting to SAP.

The Missing Link in Your Data Upload Process

You need a system that sits between your team and your ERP and will translate and validate your data before it hits SAP. Having an automation tool that works within Microsoft Excel — the finance team’s tool of choice — will empower your accounting and finance team, simplifying and automating large data upload processes.

Process Runner GLSU is that tool.

Graybar Struggled with Manual Data Upload Processes

Since implementing SAP, Graybar faced challenges in loading large amounts of financial data into the system. They found a need to input more than 1,000 line items to pay invoices electronically. Although an SAP transaction code was being used, they needed a specific format for the text files, which required creation of additional tools … but the process was slow and difficult to format. Validations were not possible and there was a line-item limitation.

“Our in-house solution was cumbersome,” said Kent Sorenson, Manager – Accounting, at Graybar. “If something went wrong, finding the problem meant using another transaction code. It was not user friendly. It only identified one error at a time, and we’d have to post again. Our productivity was slowed down.”

Process Runner GLSU allows Graybar users to do more data entry in less time. What took up to an hour now takes minutes to post. The time saved is now spent on analyzing and making decisions about the data. Before, users would take shortcuts such as posting summary level detail and eliminating fields to save time. Graybar posts 400 to 800 lines regularly, often numbering the thousands. This is most common at year-end, with up to 9,000 lines posted for single journal entries.

“In today’s economy, you must have correct information in order to make a fast decision. You can’t doubt your information, and you can’t take two weeks to send it back for verification before you decide to open or close a branch, open a new line of business or enter a new market…Process Runner GLSU has increased our data integrity on all levels, from finance to marketing. Users have commented on the quality, volume and accuracy of the data. Business analysts within IT are advocates of Process Runner GLSU because the reporting is so thorough. Process Runner GLSU gives better analytics and allows our business units to focus on improving the bottom line.”

Discover the Benefits of Automation

Quick to install, Process Runner GLSU immediately empowers your finance team to work faster and smarter with powerful automations and pre/post data validation features. Streamline business processes and financial operations without adding complexity. Eliminate cumbersome manual processes and tedious tasks that consume significant time and effort.

The six upsides to posting large amounts of data to SAP by using Process Runner GLSU are:

1. Flexible Functionality — Process Runner GLSU is user-friendly, which allows your team to use it in many ways. For example, if your team uses Process Runner GLSU to pay “non-invoice” vendors, all payments — including sales tax — are made by uploading all payment requests to one Process Runner GLSU template, then forwarded to AP for payments and GL for sales tax payments. You can eliminate manual entry on hundreds of “non-invoice” vendors. And that is just one way flexibility is built into it.
2. Easier Acquisition Uploads — Easily upload receivable balances into your customer sub-ledger with Process Runner GLSU. It can reduce a day’s work to half an hour.
3. Reduce Petty Cash Reconciliation Errors — Process Runner GLSU also solves petty cash problems. A Process Runner GLSU template can be created and forwarded to petty cash custodians who use it as they would their initial spreadsheets. The template allows AP to avoid rekeying and correcting their errors during reconciliation.
4. Business Benefits — Fewer data entries and less re-posting means time saved in every area of accounting. Specifically, the new Process Runner GLSU payroll interface delivers great time savings and fewer errors on entries of more than 1,000 lines. Also, for cash postings, the prior day’s banking is downloaded from the bank into an Excel-compatible spreadsheet. Using macros, the information is transferred into a Process Runner GLSU template, reducing input time from two hours to 20 minutes.
5. Validate Data Integrity — Before posting to SAP, validate your data and analyze the results in a single report for quick and efficient error handling and correction. Stop wasting time rekeying general ledger entries.
6. Empower Finance Teams ­— Utilize a finance-friendly interface that eliminates the need for IT support, development, or coding. Streamline monthly close processes and simplify entry of general ledger, accounts payable, and accounts receivable transactions with flexible and customizable templates. This self-service tool can be installed and set up in 90 minutes.

Let Process Runner GLSU Do the Heavy Lifting on Your SAP Data Uploads

By adding Process Runner GLSU to your ERP, you simplify SAP financial data entry and automate financial transactions directly from Excel while improving productivity. You can automate more than 40 SAP FI (finance) transactions for a faster, streamlined month-end close. And attach source workbooks to documents in SAP to save time and create spreadsheet templates in 60 seconds to save time in the future.