SAP® Business One Release 8.8 – Features and Enhancements

The overall focus for SAP Business One Release 8.8 was on product quality, performance, stability and security. This new release comes with many feature enhancements, but many more of the improvements have been made at system level. SAP Business One release 8.8 is the single most robust and stable system that SAP have brought to market.

SAP Business One 8.8 brings a rich set of new and enhanced features and compelling business benefits to customers in the following four key areas:

1. Crystal Reports Functionality delivers compelling reports with stunning visualiusations, comprehensive report deployment options and saves valuable time.
2. Enhancements in Performance and Usability; a new user interface, speed improvement and detailed contextual error messaging are some of the key enhancements that allow customers to spend more time focussing on business and less worrying about technology.
3. New Streamlined Business Processes (such as data archiving) that enable customers to get business results faster, with more flexibility.
4. Integration and Collaboration with a focus on faster, cheaper, deeper and easier integration and development of solution extensions.

Crystal Reports

Users will have a one-product experience as they work with the new seamlessly integrated Crystal Reports functionality in SAP Business One.

• Crystal Reports Viewer – A WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) application that will provide users with an accurate print preview of reports and sales and purchasing documents and will enable exporting of reports to PDF and other formats. It also includes filtering functionality.
• Crystal Reports for SAP Business One – Users will be able to save reports and layouts to the SAP Business One database. Users will be able to create reports and layouts more easily using a new user-friendly abstraction layer of SAP Business One database tables. This means that users can start report definition without relying on the technical database names.
  
• Report and Layout Management – In SAP Business One 8.8, from the Main Menu, users will be able to access a new report and layout management window. In one location, users will be able to manage the properties of reports and layouts that are created in Crystal Reports software. In addition, users will also be able to define print sequences.
  

• Importing and Exporting – Using the new report and layout management window, users will be able to import and export layouts and reports that are created in or edited in the Crystal Reports software.
• Master Layout – Users will be able to create a master layout for a sales and purchasing document that can be applied to various other sales and purchasing document types. For example, a master layout that is created for a sales invoice can be applied to sales quotations or purchasing invoices.
• Support for Xcelsius – Users who have purchased an Xcelsius software license will be able to embed flash objects easily in reports to create stunning visual dashboards for what-if scenario modeling, and more.

• Accessibility of Source Documents – To drill down to a source master data window, users will be able to click the link when previewing reports in SAP Business One.
• Multiple Export Options – Users will be able to export reports as Microsoft Excel, PDF, and Microsoft Word format files for sending in e-mails, faxes etc.

Existing customers will be able to continue using existing reporting solutions such as Print Layout Designer, XL Reporter (from SAP Business One version 8.8 onwards, available as an add-on), and Query Manager, and will be able to run these side by side with Crystal Reports Basic 2008 for SAP Business One.

The Advanced Layout Designer (ALD) is not part of the reporting solution in SAP Business One 8.8

Enhancements in Usability and Performance

Significant efforts have been made to enhance the user experience and simplify procedures in SAP Business One 8.8. The following sections describe some of the new features and modifications to be implemented in the SAP Business One 8.8 release.

• New Skin - A new graphical user interface (GUI), SAP Signature Design, with a new look-and- feel. The new GUI is aligned with the GUIs in the rest of the SAP product range, but SAP Business One users will be able to switch to the previous SAP Business One GUI at any time.
• Address Saving in Marketing Documents - In A/P and A/R documents, in addition to saving a complete address with a format, SAP Business One will also save each address component in a separate field. This will enable users to re-organize the address components by using other address formats when generating various reports if needed. Users will also be able to change the value of each address component at the document level. This functionality will make it easier to integrate with external applications which require the address fields in a component structure, for example, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).
• Aging Reports - The customer receivables aging report and the vendor liabilities aging report will be enhanced, leading to increased efficiency in debt collection and liabilities payments.
  
• Alternative Control Account - This enhancement will enable users to change control accounts at document level. When creating invoices, the default control account is taken from business partner master data. Users can change it by selecting another control account from the drop-down list.
• Change Log -  In SAP Business One 8.8, a change log will be provided for all windows where users can set G/L accounts. This enhancement will give auditors easier verification and auditing of G/L entries.
• Closing and Canceling Documents - System messages will be added or revised to clarify the consequences of closing or canceling documents in SAP Business One.
• Copy Exchange Rate from Source Document to Target Document - The handling of exchange rates of foreign currencies during the creation of target documents from base documents is enhanced to ensure consistency. A new option will enable users to copy the document and row exchange rate from the base document to the target document. This option will apply to both the Copy From/To functionality and the Document Generation Wizard.
• Document Generation Wizard - The sorting criteria for the base documents will be expanded to enable processing by document number, business partner reference number and more. In addition, a new option will be added to enable partial delivery of sales orders. The consolidation criteria for processing target documents is refined as well, and will be more flexible.
• Down Payments - The down payment functionality will be enhanced to improve the business process, VAT reporting and user interface.
• Duty Calculation on Landed Costs - This enhancement will allow users to calculate duty on landed cost expenses that are indeed subject to duty. In addition, the duty calculation and distribution when landed costs are associated with an item will be modified. Duty will be calculated and apportioned on the total costs of the items, that is, including landed costs.
• Error Message Documentation - Detailed documentation will be added to hundreds of error messages that appear in SAP Business One. Context-sensitive information about the cause of an error and its solution will be accessed through an embedded link in the error message itself. In addition, the error messages themselves will be improved, to be much clearer and more accurate. An enhanced system log message window will open by default as a docking window.
• Gross Profit - Methods for calculating gross profit will be improved, bringing even greater transparency to the gross profit report. Users will be able to view a gross profit report for both item-based and service-based sales transactions.
• License Server - The SAP Business One license server will be modified to support multiple license files on one license server installation. Furthermore, the license server will verify the software version with the license to ensure better software maintenance.
• Payment Wizard - In SAP Business One 8.8, users will be able to select transactions across a broader range of due dates and document dates. Payment runs will not be finalized if any of the transactions fall below the defined minimum amount. The handling of locked periods in the Payment Wizard will be improved.
• Performance Enhancements - Improvements will reduce the time required to open, process, and navigate between sales and purchasing documents. In addition, the time required for generating balance sheets, profit and loss statements, and trial balance reports will be reduced.  Multiple-user concurrent operation will become easier and smoother. Fixed Assets add-on performance is also greatly enhanced.
• Pick and Pack - The SAP Business One pick and pack process will enable users to enforce or over-ride credit and commitment levels on pick lists for specific business partners. In addition, the Pick and Pack Manager will allow users to release items to a pick list even when there is no available quantity to release, such as when merchandise exists but has not yet been entered into SAP Business One.

• Save as Draft Availability - An option to save documents as drafts will be added to the context menu wherever it is supported by SAP Business One. This way, when a user needs to save a document as draft, it can be done through the context menu and not only from the File menu.
• Security enhancements - SAP Business One 8.8 supports advanced encryption algorithms and mechanisms for stronger protection of customer data. The login process for end users will be simplified, requiring authentication using SAP Business One user name and password only. Database login and password authentication when changing servers will no longer be necessary; therefore unauthorized database access is restricted. In order to improve data integrity in the database, a new permission will be defined to allow specified SAP Business One users to run only selected Read-Only queries on the company database through SAP Business One's query editors. The default manager user will be aligned with other SAP Business One users in terms of company password policy to prevent security breaches in SAP Business One.
• Serial and Batch Numbers - As of SAP Business One 8.8, there will be improved quality of serial number and batch number handling. For example, batches located in different warehouses will be handled as a single object; batch properties may be the same regardless of the batch location. The new serial and batch number system comprises several components, each responsible for its own functionality and data, making the system highly maintainable and expandable.
• Tracing and Logging - Enhanced mechanisms will collect and store system messages related to the SAP Business One application and databases in a Tab delimited text file, configurable from application windows, that can be used for tracking problems, and for accelerating the analysis and resolution processes.
• User Types - In SAP Business One 8.8, the pricelist 2008 changes will be implemented. This  includes the implementation of the limited financial, logistics and CRM users and the indirect access user. The access control and licenses of registered add-ons will be controlled in a more intuitive way.

New Streamlined Business Processes

Following are some of the enhancements to increase compliance with customary, localized, and functional requirements as requested by partners and customers.

• ATP Report - Available-to-promise (ATP) is a business function that provides a response to customer order enquiries based on analyses of all open sales, purchase and production orders. it generates listings of available quantities of requested items. ATP supports order promising and fulfilment, allowing companies to manage demand and to match it to production plans.

• Data Archiving - A new utility will enable users, who have been working with SAP Business One for at least two years, to archive closed transactional data (such as closed sales and purchasing documents, reconciled journal entries, etc.) related to previous financial periods that have been already closed. The data archiving utility will facilitate previewing of the expected results of the process, so that the user knows which documents will be removed from the database, how much database size will be reduced, and more. The user can then decide whether to run the archiving process, or to further engineer the selected transactional data first.
  
• Journal Entry Currency Settings - The default settings in the form settings window for journal entries will be changed to meet user expectations. With SAP Business One 8.8, if foreign currency rows are added to a journal entry, and the value in the local currency adjusted, the value in the foreign currency will remain as is, and will not be recalculated.
• Multi-Units of Measure - SAP Business One will provide a basic multiple units-of-measure functionality, enabling users to modify values such as Items per Unit and Unit of Measure in marketing and inventory documents and thus providing enhanced flexibility for managing items which are sold or bought in various units of measure.
• Negative Rows in Credit Memos and Returns - In SAP Business One 8.8, it will be possible to post A/P and A/R credit memos, goods returns, and returns that contain negative rows.
• Negative total in A/P and A/R - This enhancement will allow users to generate A/P and A/R documents with a negative total. It is applicable to A/R and A/P invoice, A/R and A/P credit memo, A/R delivery, A/R return, A/P goods receipt and A/P goods return.
• TDS – Tax Deducted at Source (India) - This function will enable users to withhold income tax at source when income arises or accrues.
• eTDS (India) - This enhancement will enable users to generate an eTDS return statement to send to the tax authorities for income tax deducted at source.
• EU Sales Report (UK and Germany) - A new wizard, which will be implemented based on Crystal Reports, will enables users to generate the EU Sales report.
• Intrastat (Europe) - With an improved wizard-based environment, Intrastat will also handle nil declarations and correction declarations, and will include partial deliveries and credit memos in Intrastat declarations.

Integration and Collaboration

The SAP Business One customer and partner ecosystem has been growing rapidly, offering both groups unprecedented access to best practices, industry domain knowledge and useful tools. In SAP Business One 8.8, several enhancements have been made to the software development kit (SDK) with a clear focus on making things simpler for our software solution partners (SSP). Improvements have been made to various SDK components that will now allow SSPs to build solutions that have a greater level of efficiency but which are much less resource intensive, for example. Additionally, we have focused especially on making enhancements that increase the usability of the applications developed by the SSPs and improving the integration with the Microsoft .NET platform, both of which have a direct impact on the simplicity and efficiency of such applications.

• Improved Performance - Data access in the Matrix and Grid control – commonly used in partner add-ons – is improved, and an enhanced multiple add-on connection will make RecordSet procedure calls much more efficient. Changes to the SAP Business One infrastructure and on-demand loading of metadata will make working with the DI API objects faster.  New UI API Controls are added and over 30 DI API Objects have been created or enhanced.
  
• Solution Packager - This tool will help SAP partners to deploy industry solutions more easily by creating new companies from packages that they generate by themselves. It includes a utility to help partners create an industry solution package - with specific configurations, add-ons and other ISV data – and a deployment wizard.
  
• SAP Business One Upgrade Wizard - This new tool will support an automatic and safe upgrade of SAP Business One and includes a Rollback mechanism, enabling a reversion to the pre-upgrade version of SAP Business One.
• Alignment with SOA - SAP Business One is aligned with SAP's overall service-oriented architecture (SOA) strategy by building a layer of services for updating and communicating with the core application.  These standard SAP services enable developers to easily create business documents, such as sales orders or purchase orders, and to be notified when specific business events occur within SAP Business One. SAP Business One includes the infrastructure for building reliable and secure business services. The version will also include a set of business services that provides out-of-the box, pre-configured integration content to connect subsidiaries/branch offices with headquarters running SAP ERP. B1iSN will be provided as a development platform for SOA capabilities and additional service packs that address specific business needs will be created.  We aim to have a compelling set of offerings that enable customers and partners to adopt this service-enabled technology in a gradual non-disruptive way. All of this provides the following benefits:

• Faster and cheaper development of integration add-ons
• Easier integration of SAP Business One with SAP and third-party systems
  
• Stable and consistent interfaces across SAP product lines