Southco

Southco believes first impressions are critical. They have built an unmatched portfolio of access hardware solutions, through innovation and strategic acquisitions. Southco offerings include over 25,000 standard catalog products and more than 50,000 custom products that have been created to meet customers’ design needs. In order to meet the ever-changing needs of their customers, Southco has built and invested in a strong global footprint of technical sales, marketing, engineering and manufacturing operations throughout the world.

Challenges

Southco processed large external file uploads, such as outsourced payroll files, as well as vendor files and more traditional finance Journal Entries. Excel was their preferred software for data manipulation and they needed a way to easily and accurately upload that data into their newly implemented SAP system.

They desired a financial spreadsheet loader similar in function to their previous customized spreadsheet loader. Prior to learning about Magnitude Process Runner GLSU, Southco had built an LSMW program to convert legacy AR and AP data files. Work had begun with a contractor to custom build another program to convert legacy General Ledger account balances into SAP. However, they were eager to avoid another internal customized software which was expensive and time-consuming to program.

Solution

At an SAP User Conference, an attendee from Southco noticed that Magnitude was well-referenced and decided to take a closer look at Process Runner GLSU. “We liked the fact that Process Runner GLSU let us do things ourselves rather than having to work with a developer,” says Southco’s SAP Business Analyst. “After speaking to other users and examining Magnitude and Process Runner GLSU, we found Process Runner GLSU to be extremely user-friendly out of the box. While other programs required a high level of technical knowledge, Excel-based Process Runner GLSU perfectly fit our needs. After successfully testing the product, we told the developer to stop what he was doing, and we would just take it from there with Process Runner GLSU.”

Southco’s previous spreadsheet loader required a programmer to make changes, while Process Runner GLSU has flexible templates that enable users to quickly and securely modify templates without having to rely on IT. “That saves us the money spent on the developer’s time and resources,” Southco notes.

Results

Easy to Customize

Southco uses Process Runner GLSU in a variety of ways, including processing payroll, Visa card expenditures, vendor invoices, and profitability analysis adjustments. The Finance department frequently uses the dropped header functionality to process multiple documents within one template – often as many as 20 to 30 documents within one template. In addition, plans are in place to build more custom warning messages when running Process Runner GLSU pre-validations for AP invoices.

Multiple Uses

Initially, Process Runner GLSU simplified the large legacy data file conversions from Southco’s previous system. The company estimates that they loaded approximately15,000-20,000 data lines without ever encountering issues associated with resources or response times.

Efficient

Process Runner GLSU eliminates the need for a custom LSMW program and the associated time and effort of engaging a developer. More workload can be handled by fewer people. Instead of repeatedly keying in the same data, Southco reuses templates, saves them and renames them to the current month.

Business Benefits

Process Runner GLSU fully complements the validation capabilities in SAP and contributes to better analytics. Entering data is now easier and much more accurate, which has delivered increased productivity. Secure sign-on through SAP ensures that the same robust security features of SAP are found in Process Runner GLSU.

To continue to save time and effort, Southco’s uses for Process Runner GLSU include:

• Processing freight invoices from various carriers
• Processing travel and expense reports
• Processing invoices from relocation service agency
• Additional GL legacy data conversions for European and Asia Pacific SAP implementations carriers
• Day-to-day financial process uploads in other geographies