FRAXION SPEND MANAGEMENT INTEGRATION FRAMEWORK OVERVIEW

Transcription

1 FRAXION SPEND MANAGEMENT INTEGRATION FRAMEWORK OVERVIEW Head Office: 4 th Floor, Waterford House, Waterford Road, Diep River, Cape Town, 7800; PO Box 722, Plumstead, 7801 T: +27(0) 861 FRX HLP ( ) F: +27 (0) W: E: support@fraxion.biz (Pty) Ltd Reg. no: 2000/026408/07 Directors: SL Jandrell, MF du Plessis, JF O Callaghan

2 Table of Contents Introduction...3 Integration Overview..3 Typical Information Flows...3 Master Data...4 Transactional Data..5 Integration Methods & Tools.6 File Import/Export...6 Web Services and Database 6 Frequency Control...7 Middleware 7 Integration Configuration & Management..7 Turnkey Integration Modules.7 Summary.9 (Proprietary) Limited 2

3 INTRODUCTION Integration with existing information systems is part of many Spend Management (FSM) implementations and is generally a very straightforward process. This document is intended as a relatively non-technical description of the typical data flows and methods used for integration between FSM and your internal systems. For a more detailed and technical discussion about your specific integration needs, please request a conversation with one of our integration specialists with our Professional Services Team. Integration Overview Your Spend Control processes do not operate in isolation they work hand-in-hand with your core financial management systems. They may also work in conjunction with key operational systems. That is why we ve continue to build the entire Spend Management suite with integration in mind. FSM solutions can be integrated with any type of software application you may have. We have integrated FSM solutions with many popular ERP and financial management systems, as well as with a wide range of industry-specific and special-purpose operational systems. Although every organisations information systems environment is different, we have refined our integration models and platforms so that only minimal work and adjustments are likely to be needed to integrate FSM into your environment. The FSM integration framework is well structured but also highly flexible. With it, you can utilise a combination of flat file import/export methods as well as real-time web services and data synchronisation capabilities. You can also use it in conjunction with any enterprise middleware tools your organisation may have in place. After years of experience integrating FSM into all kinds of organisations large and small, you can be confident that we have you covered with the right level of guidance and/or turnkey implementation. Typical Information Flows Spend Management can send, receive or share information with any system you have in place today, and do so in different ways. (Proprietary) Limited 3

4 For instance, you will likely choose to maintain master information such as your general ledger account codes within your ERP or financial system and pass that information to FSM so you have a single point of control and don t need to maintain that information within. Depending on the structure of your financial system, you may have Spend Management synchronise budgets and validate of account codes sourced from your financial system. These will be periodically passed to FSM. Similarly, you may choose to maintain supplier information within your ERP system and pass it to FSM. In general the information that flows between FSM and your other internal systems can be categorised as Master data or Transactional data. Examples of each category of information are described in more detail below. Master Data Common master data integration flows are as follows: Chart of Accounts from ERP to Spend Management: Account codes, descriptions and related information are typically loaded into FSM from your existing ERP or financial system. Multiple Charts of Accounts can be held within the FSM multi-company structure if needed. After the initial load, you may choose to automatically transfer the entire chart of accounts or only net changes to FSM daily or as changes occur. Budget lookups and Cost Centers to Spend Management: You may wish to import budgets along with your Chart of Accounts Cost Centers as described above. In this case current budgets can be accessed as part of the budget commitment checking process within FSM at purchase authorisations time, and any Cost Centers input by users can be validated against your Chart of Accounts. Suppliers from ERP to Spend Management: If you choose to maintain your suppliers in your ERP or financial system, you can extract, transform and load that information from where it is currently maintained to FSM. Users to Spend Management: In order to simplify maintenance of users in FSM, you can automatically create and maintain users based on information in your internal Active Directory, LDAP or HR systems. Your Active Directory can be synchronised with Azure Active Directory, providing centralized user account management and Single Sign On (SSO) capabilities. Users can also be imported directly to FSM using flat files, exported from any other systems (Proprietary) Limited 4

5 Other candidate master data sets for import into Spend Management will include: -Companies -Projects -Addresses -Currency -Taxes and rates -Locations -Custom Lookups -Catalog Items Transactional Data Common transactional data integration flows are as follows: Invoices from Spend Management to ERP: Once invoices are matched and approved within FSM, they are typically passed to your Accounts Payable system for payment. These are usually passed at least daily regardless of the AP payment cycle. Employee expenses from Spend Management to ERP: Similar to the way supplier invoices are handled, approved employee expense reports are usually sent from FSM to your Human Resources or Accounts Payable system for generation of reimbursement cheques. Other candidate transactional data sets for export from Spend Management will include: RFQ / RFP -Sourcing Requests -Purchase Orders to Suppliers -Purchase Orders to ERP -Receipt Notes -Remittance Advice Other candidate transactional data sets for import to Spend Management will include: -RFQ / RFP Response (Proprietary) Limited 5

6 -Sourcing Awards -Advanced Shipping Notices -Proof of Delivery -Supplier Invoices -Supplier Credit Notes -Payment Advice from ERP to Spend Management Integration Methods & Tools Spend Management can be easily integrated with any external system. A variety of proven methods and tools are available to fit any environment. Integration methods and tools include: File Import/Export File Import / Export is an interactive activity, that can easily be performed by Administrators, via the web browser interface. Content: The source system provides a file containing a complete refresh of the data. For example all suppliers currently held in the finance system. There must be a key column. Format: Flat files are CSV format. Spend Management has a column mapping system, to provide for a variety of file formats. File data may be cleaned, validated and transformed in Microsoft Excel prior to upload, or upon download. File location is at the users (Administrators) discretion. Web Services and Database Spend Management is a cloud based application, and will provide a web service and local data store for automated and high frequency integrations. The web service is installed locally to the organisation, and accesses and synchronises import and export data changes from the FSM cloud storage to the local data store. The local store will be a SQL Server Express database, which contains bi-directional delta records, those records which have changed between the two systems. (Proprietary) Limited 6

7 The local data store can be written to and read by custom integration tools and middleware for posting and retrieval from the local ERP. Spend Management will also implement vendor specific ERP integration modules which will provide turnkey read and write from the data store to the target ERP. Custom procedures and tables can be easily constructed for synchronisation via the local data store to support any special requirements, such as custom lookups. Frequency Controls Scheduled: Integration processes can be scheduled to run with a very high degree of flexibility from every few seconds to, for instance, the last day of the month. Near real time: Integration processes can be driven by Windows services which poll the Spend Management local database every few seconds looking for data which has been flagged to be exported. A similar process can be used with the Web Service to synchronise to the cloud storage. Middleware Spend Management integration processes can be configured to read/write to just about any middleware product using the methods outlined above Integration Configuration & Management Integration configuration such as data mapping, custom tables or fields, scheduling, and code updates will be done via a Spend Management Integration Management Console, part of the FSM administrative tools within the application, to provide a central point of control. Logging and processing errors are maintained both locally and in the cloud. Turnkey Integration Modules Spend Management has integrated with many major ERP and financial systems, as well as a wide range of industry-specific and special-purpose business systems. Turnkey (Proprietary) Limited 7

8 integration modules which build on the local web-service middleware layer mentioned above are planned for the near future. Even if you have an older ERP or financial management system, we can always find a good way to achieve the desired level of integration using some combination of these methods and tools. Integration Overview Diagram (Proprietary) Limited 8

9 SUMMARY Spend Management solutions are all built with integration in mind. When you implement any part of the FSM solution suite, we will work closely with you to put in place a seamless flow of information between your FSM applications and your existing internal systems, and in the future, between your suppliers and their systems. The integration methods used will be highly reliable, easy to manage, and easy to adjust as your information systems environment evolves over time. Many integrations are put in place in a matter of days especially if you use one of the ERP or financial systems with which we have already integrated. But we are also happy to tackle even the most complex multi-company, multi-erp, multi- application environments. We have integrated FSM into many such organisations and have become experienced at handling them from the research phase through to implementation and testing. (Proprietary) Limited 9