Situation Handling – Case Notification for Managing Financial Transactions

Product Information

Betty Guedez

December 2nd 2022

Situation Handling – Case Notification for Managing Financial Transactions

Updated as of release 2022 S/4HANA Cloud

Hello there!

I am Betty Guedez, Finance Product Expert at SAP S/4HANA RIG and I come back today with another Situation Handling scenario, this time of interest to Treasury and Risk Management Back Office and Front Office responsible teams.

For those who interact with Treasury, Financial Investments and Market Rates, uncertainty is a feeling they would prefer not to have in a million years. In fact, receiving precise information of any fact that can have any kind of influence in the value of a financial asset is critical. The difference between a big gain and the most dramatic loss could be an event that was missed or underestimated.

Today we will use a typical example of a Spot Forex Transaction.

This is one of the most popular financial transactions in a Treasury department. Typical steps on an operation like this are as follows:

. Once availability for financial investments has been determined, a front office clerk seeks and finds rates, conditions and in general, terms that apply to the transaction. Chooses the one that suits better the financial policy and proceeds to close the deal, creating a For Ex transaction in the system.

. A confirmation letter (or deal ticket) is usually exchanged between parties. There could also be an internal letter issued at this point, for audit and control purposes. Sometimes, correspondences are handled by another clerk, especially when volumes are high.

. Now, the sooner the better, a Back Office clerk proceeds to review the conditions (rate, amounts, delivery date) and settles the transaction (this is usually assumed as a verification step). Once settled, the transaction is ready for the next step, which is posting to G/L.

. A payment clerk is usually in charge of processing payment requests and bank mandates, as agreed on the confirmation letter.

Depending on the company size and liquidity level, portfolio rules and market offer, the number of   transactions to process in the system could be high. Bear in mind that in Treasury departments, running against time is part of daily life.

As there are people in different roles (and probably different locations as well) taking part in the end-to-end process of a financial agreement like this, an automated way to notify everybody when they need to take actions with one (or many) transaction is of great help in a hectic dynamic of a Treasury department.

Does the scope of actions that can be taken include more activities than sending Correspondences, Review and Settle contracts, trigger Payments Requests?

Yes, it does. A financial transaction is a deal where periodic activities must also be executed, to receive funds, to make payments and so on. Financial investments also have a lifetime cycle with maturities that need to be handled in time, as well.

Also, period end closing adds more tasks to this business process.

Is it a Business Workflow the only way to keep everybody aware that there are transactions waiting for an action?

No, there are also some other options that fall into the Intelligent Technologies category and Situation Handling belongs to this set of tools.

What do we have in Situation Handling for this?

Starting SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2208, we have more scenarios to cover different needs in a variety of business scenarios.

The new template FIN_TRM_FINTRANS_PROCG is available in the Manage Situation Types app and allows configuration experts to create a new situation type, to inform specific groups of users when a financial transaction requires their action, like Settlement, Posting, Expiration, Maturity.

Notifications on My Home

How do we activate these notifications?

Situation Template FIN_TRM_FINTRANS_PROCG (Category FSCM_TRM) is the one to configure to receive these notifications in our Fiori Launchpad.

First, access Fiori app Manage Teams and Responsibilities, in which you will define who will receive alerts on this business activity.

On the first screen, hit Create.

Creation screen is now displayed. Proceed assigning a name to your Team

Manage Teams and Responsibilities – Definition

Let’s say our receivers are Back Office guys, that need to be notified every time a forex deal is closed, to check and settle as soon as possible.

Proceed with the details for to have your new Back Office team receiving notifications when new transactions are entered into the system by Front Office team.

Choose a Team Type, entering TRM in the search criteria:

Manage Teams and Responsibilities – Team Type

Select the one labeled as BOE, provide a description and continue with Responsibility Definitions.

4Manage Teams and Responsibilities – Responsibility Definition (1)

Please provide the criteria offered in the screen, so BOE team receives those transactions of their strict interest (Bear in mind that people shall receive just the information they need).

Manage Teams and Responsibilities – Responsibility Definition (2)

Once provided the selection criteria for Responsibility Definition, now proceed with team members:

Manage Teams and Responsibilities – Team Members

The assignment of team owner and members depends on the roles assigned to users. All of them must have Back Office privileges. If any, provide sub teams that would also be receiving these notifications (trainees, for example).

Once the content of every selection field has been completed and the team defined, proceed to Create the team. Now it is time to proceed with the Situation Template.

In the app Manage Situation Types

Manage Situation Types – Select Situation Template

 Type “TRM” in the search criteria and the template will appear

Manage Situation Types – Create Situation Type

Select FIN_TRM_FINTRAS_PROCG and hit Copy, a similar screen to the following shows up

Manage Situation Types – Create Situation Type – Admin Information

Assign an ID and leave Display Sequence as Medium, then proceed with Conditions tab.

Processing Order is defaulted to 1, as the Situation Type is a single-step one.

Set to Status: Open is defaulted.

Send Notification: Select if notifications will also appear on each team member Fiori Launchpad: otherwise, they will just be seen in My Situations app.

Now a decision that should have been taken upfront gets relevant:

Is the team going to receive all notifications of all the stages of every single forex transaction in the company code?

30 Filters give the possibility to tight or expand this selection as needed.

To avoid overwhelming the team with hundreds of notifications (we focus on Spot Forex transactions (60A, 60I) created and ready to be settled), let’s narrow this thru the right filters.

Manage Situation Types – Create Situation Type – Conditions

Schedule the background job to process batches of transactions with the conditions above.

Manage Situation Types – Create Situation Type – Batch Job Scheduling

Bear in mind that notifications will be sent once the job is executed, so it is important to set the schedule to collect as many transactions as possible.

Adjust the message if required thru adding variables to make it more explicit:

Manage Situation Types – Create Situation Type – Time Variables

Proceed the same way with Notification and finally check Resend, in case it is needed.

Manage Situation Types – Create Situation Type – Notification Settings

Create Spot/Forward Transaction

Create a TRM relevant transaction

Saved

Notifications to Back Office will be shown on Home screen and on My Situations app.

Launchpad – Situation Handling Notifications

Notifications by user

In this case, we also chose to send notifications to users (top right corner), but the ones on My Situations app are normally sufficient.

Specifically in Treasury and Risk Management, there are many different notifications for every activity that can speed this crucial business process on our customers daily operations.

I hope this information helps.

Please keep safe and healthy.

Brought to you by the SAP S/4HANA RIG

Would the user perceive the notification before opening the My Situation app?