MTR Foods has now implemented an‘RTGS Automation Project’ to automate the process of revenue collection from its distributors, through demand drafts and cheques, without any manual intervention.
The IT solution is essentially an interbank money transfer facility that ensures seamless transaction between MTR’s branch offices and distributors. “We are the first company in the FMCG sector to have adopted and deployed RTGS Automation. It resulted in establishing an automated cycle of quick realisation of payments as well as shipments of products to the customer. Time cycle reduction of 3-4 days locally and 10 days overall was achieved,” explained Sanjay Sharma, CEO, MTR Foods, in an email to FnB News.
The solution follows a three-phase implementation process. In the first phase it worked on the development of SAP Upload Program without user interaction and email attachment extractor for pushing the hourly update to specified folder. Besides, it also creates scripts to communicate and transfer the hourly update to the SAP application folder.
The second phase included the configuration of Email Attachment Extractor; creation of data folder in SAP production server; communication to bank to send the hourly mail to specific email ID; and testing of auto-posting entries in development server.
The third phase covered procuring VeriSign SSL encryption certificate licence, sub-domain registration & configuration of file transferring route, development of Linux Script for file transferring to SAP Application Server and train end-users on daily report among others.
“The RTGS project was initiated in 2012 and achieved full realisation in 2013 took a cumulative time span of eight months by which time approximately all our 1,200 stockists were covered,” stated the MTR chief.
Other than RTGS Automation, which is essentially a collection platform, we have also automated payments through the Citidirect platform whereby our SAP and Citidirect, which is a Citibank solution connect seamlessly to automate payments to our suppliers, employees and other stakeholders. This solution has not only eliminated clerical effort but the entire process is paperless and devoid of any manual effort right through the process.
Both collection and payment platforms have been provided by banks, mainly Citibank, along with RBS for collections. The bank solution has been integrated with SAP’s ECC 6.0 version which seamlessly links up with the banks’ platforms to complete the financial accounting process in MTR books automatically error-free and without manual effort. Since the processes are automated solutions, there is no need for any reconciliation either, according to him.
Prior to RTGS Automation, all the financial transactions from distributors were deposited by the field sales staff. Only after payments were realised, the sales order were processed. However, this long drawn process led to payment defaults, delays in realisation and other issues typical of a manual process.
In addition, MTR has just gone live on a Business Intelligence platform from Qlikview. It provides business analytics throughout the organisation to speed up decision-making. The platform leverages on SAP’s transactional database to ensure that ‘Single truth’ prevails in the business. The solution provides these analytics 24x7 to all users anywhere and on any device desktop, tablet or smartphone. It eliminated the need to access SAP for data analysis and information which was time-consuming and affecting transaction cycle times.
