Enron Mail

From:stephen.schwarz@enron.com
To:sally.beck@enron.com
Subject:Unify AR -- SAP Plans
Cc:
Bcc:
Date:Wed, 19 Apr 2000 06:03:00 -0700 (PDT)

FYI. Here it is. I think this might do it. It would at least set the stage
for any further discussion that might be necessary.

Stephen
---------------------- Forwarded by Stephen P Schwarz/HOU/ECT on 04/19/2000
12:59 PM ---------------------------

Enron North America Corp.

From: Stephen P Schwarz 02/29/2000 03:13 PM


To: Sally Beck/HOU/ECT@ECT, Inja Chun/HOU/ECT@ECT, Pamela
Lebrane/Corp/Enron@ENRON, Melissa White/HOU/ECT@ECT, Leslie
Reeves/HOU/ECT@ECT, Susan Harrison/HOU/ECT@ECT, Brenda F Herod/HOU/ECT@ECT,
Bryce Baxter/HOU/ECT@ECT, Lisa Csikos/HOU/ECT@ECT, Rita Wynne/HOU/ECT@ECT,
Bob Klein/HOU/ECT@ECT, Evelyn Aucoin/HOU/ECT@ECT, Cynthia
Morrow/Corp/Enron@ENRON, Regan M Smith/HOU/ECT@ECT, Kenneth M
Harmon/HOU/ECT@ECT, Brent A Price/HOU/ECT@ECT
cc:
Subject: Unify AR -- SAP Plans

The attached memo details our proposal of a week ago to use SAP AR rather
than Unify AR. As of this morning, we finalized our decision to use the SAP
AR system and to turn off Unify AR when SAP is implemented. Please direct
any questions to myself at X33179 or Melissa White at X35704.

Please feel free to forward this memo to anyone I may have forgotten who is
interested.

Stephen
---------------------- Forwarded by Stephen P Schwarz/HOU/ECT on 02/29/2000
01:15 PM ---------------------------

Enron North America Corp.

From: Stephen P Schwarz 02/18/2000 04:17 PM


To: Bryce Baxter/HOU/ECT@ECT, Lisa Csikos/HOU/ECT@ECT, Rita
Wynne/HOU/ECT@ECT, Mechelle Stevens/HOU/ECT@ECT, Susan Harrison/HOU/ECT@ECT,
Brenda F Herod/HOU/ECT@ECT, Brent A Price/HOU/ECT@ECT, Melissa K
Ratnala/HOU/ECT@ECT, Leslie Reeves@CCMAIL, Evelyn Aucoin/HOU/ECT@ECT, Laura E
Scott/CAL/ECT@ECT, Cheryl Dawes/CAL/ECT@ECT
cc: Melissa White/HOU/ECT@ECT, Dorothy Ricketts/HOU/ECT@ECT, Kimberly
Perkins/HOU/ECT@ECT, Trang Le/HOU/ECT@ECT, Christy Sweeney/HOU/ECT@ECT
Subject: Unify AR -- SAP Plans




Two years ago Enron North America made a decision to use Unify AR for cash
application rather than SAP AR. We decided at the time that SAP AR would be
kept in sync with Unify AR by the Unify/SAP interface. We believe that the
business logic for that decision has changed, and are now recommending that
Unify AR be permanently turned off and all AR functions be performed in SAP.
I have briefly summarized the change in business situation below.

Two Years Ago Today
Netting allowed by legal and credit ONLY if netting contract was already in
place. Netting encouraged by legal and credit wherever possible, regardless of
existence of signed agreement.
Netting limited to one counterparty and legal entity at a time. Canada nets across
counterparties.
Netting performed in physical only, financial settlements to maintain
separate net statement process. ENA considering netting physical and financial
together.
All account coordinators were to apply their own cash. Cash applied centrally in
Power, Financial and Canada Individual coordinators apply cash only in
physical Gas.
Cash was to be applied at the line item level to track variances and to
facilitate calculation of cost of funds by commercial team. Although gas
settlements is applying cash for some invoices at the line item level, this
functionality is not being used by power settlements and will not be used by
financial settlements. The company has not made any move towards calculating
cost of funds by commercial team.
The Account Inquiry functionality in Unify was thought to be a key on-line
tool. Old habits die hard...most users appear to be printing reports and reviewing
data, rather than using the on-line functionality.
Overapplication of cash was not to be allowed. Overpayments would be
classified as "on account", with issues tracked in a case management system. Case
management system does not exist. Allowing overapplication helps the account
coordinators track overpayments easier than leaving cash on account.
The counterparty/legal entity combination on the deposit needed to match the
counterparty/legal entity combination on the Enron invoice. Given the number of legal
entities Enron has, along with the number of entities our counterparties
have, this seems like a hopeless battle. Allowing cross-application of cash
seems easier.
Corp required that intercompany settlements had to be "settled" with cash
movement. Corp no longer requires intercompany settlements to be "settled" with cash
movement.

Converting to SAP AR simplifies the Unify/SAP interface in the following ways:
Bank deposits into SAP do not have to be split off into Unify
Cash entries in Unify do not have to be interfaced back to SAP
Unify netting entries do not have to be interfaced to SAP
Payables information does not have to be interfaced from SAP to Unify

Given the change in attitudes towards our netting business process we face
two problems in Unify.
Controls built into Unify are already obsolete.
Unify does not maintain all products in one database, making efforts to net
across products in the future (physical with financial, for instance)
impossible.

Our understanding of the netting process in SAP indicates that there are no
controls (which sounds good at this point) and that we would retain the
automatic netting entries when the payable is netted with the receivable
within SAP. However, we emphasize that netting would be done in SAP, not at
the time of finaling a payment in Unify.

To repeat, we are recommending that Unify AR be turned off and we convert to
SAP AR. We will schedule a meeting the week of February 22 to discuss.
Please call me at X33179 with any questions or comments. We WILL make this
decision by February 28 because the SAP timeline does not allow any
additional time for consideration.

Stephen