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The world goes global and the SAP communities encounter the challenge of implementing SAP abroad.

SAP is a global company and provides help and material in this area. However, the target group for the SAP country manuals I have seen, are the local implementation teams, who know their local ways and need to know more of SAP. What I am looking for is a guide for people who know SAP but are not familiar with the local regulations. You could say that let the local consultants take care of the implementation. I have nothing against that, but this not how it works in the real world. Companies running SAP buy companies in distant countries and want their implementation partners to integrate these new companies into their SAP. I think SAP could be a little more helpful in this area.

Last year I had tree experiences in that area. I had to implement the changes in asset accounting in Japan, the year-end closing in Italy and Greece.

SAP Japan had provided excellent material. The co-operation with the japanese controller was easy as the SAP material was provided in both languages.

The SAP country information for Italy made me really mad. There were only pathetic documents for 3.1 with Italian screen prints. SAP market place or SAP community offered no better. Google found a couple of desperate discussions about the subject. The documentation for the RFSUMB00 looked more or less like a field list. No explanations what to enter in the fields or why. If you are somewhat familiar with abap code, the source coce of the program gives you a much better picture (SE38). It is surprisingly well commented.

My first impression of the country manual for Greece provided by SAP Helllas was positive. However, the description of year end closing procedures was not very helpful. A quote: " The Greek legistlation claims the presence of opening postings on the journal. To do so each company has to execute a special program." Which? They don't tell. So also this was a trial and error project.

This inventing the wheel cost the SAP customers big money. It also has the disadvantage that many implementations are accomplished with the "minimun requirement principle" creating unhappy customers with limping systems that do not have the country specific features implemented in full range.

Below a couple of links to SAP globalization material. In the download area you find my description of the RFSUMB00 closing program.

SAP presentation: News in localization

SAP localization pages - here you find the localization information for different countries. Requires a SAP Oss ID