Multimatic Tracks Project Time to Billing with SAP PS and CATS
June 18, 2021
Multimatic Inc. supplies components, systems, complete vehicles and engineering services to customers around the world. CONTAX implemented SAP Project Systems (PS) and the SAP Cross-Application Timesheet solution (CATS) for Multimatic, replacing two legacy ERP solutions. Multimatic now tracks costs and revenues from time entry all the way to billing inside SAP.
At a Glance
The Customer
Multimatic supplies components, systems, complete vehicles and engineering services to customers around the world, with hundreds of employees worldwide. Its North American operations were moving from a legacy ERP solution to SAP, as part of a wider move away from non-SAP ERP solutions toward a more SAP-focused business model.
The Challenge
Most of Multimatic's projects are time and material, so time entry drives billing. Project and time management were not efficient and needed an integrated solution.
Each time entry had to capture the employee's location, working rates and the nature of the work, while keeping time entry as close as possible to how employees already worked. Multimatic also needed a more structured approval process to address inconsistencies in time entry.
Several company segments often work on the same project at the same time. Multimatic needed a solution that matched its internal globalization standards, let it report on each segment's contribution to a project, and still supported standard intercompany SAP business transactions.
The Solution
Multimatic partnered with CONTAX to implement SAP Project Systems and SAP CATS alongside its standard suite of SAP applications.
Global project standards
SAP PS gave Multimatic one set of global naming conventions for all company segments, with project definition rules and next available project number generation.
Budgets, costs and revenues
Multimatic maintains budgets and tracks costs and revenues through each stage of a project, integrated with SAP SD, SAP MM/PP, SAP FICO and SAP CATS.
Familiar time entry
CONTAX and Multimatic developed a hybrid solution: a bolt-on user interface for time entry, interfaced with SAP CATS using SAP EDI and IDocs.
Checked and approved
IDoc monitoring checks and corrects data inconsistencies, and an approval process in SAP CATS reviews time entries before labour data and value are released to SAP PS.
Email workflow
SAP email workflow notifies key business users in real time when a project is created, what stage it is at and what action is needed.
The Results
- Two legacy ERP solutions eliminated
- Visibility of all time and material and milestone projects in SAP, including billing and reporting, which were major hurdles in the previous set-up
- No more tracking down and reconciling different project naming schemes between business segments on joint projects
- Timesheet data is easily entered and tracked across projects
- Multimatic is set up to integrate further with SAP HR and Resource Planning
"We at Multimatic sincerely appreciate your efficiency, gracious customer service, and the level of detail and accountability you have demonstrated on the successful SAP PS and CATS roll out. This implementation of the SAP Project Systems has been a big step for Multimatic to take and will enable Multimatic to have a common standard across all Engineering and Manufacturing groups."
What's Next
With SAP CATS in place, Multimatic is in a position to integrate further with SAP HR and Resource Planning, two of the short to medium term goals in its SAP pipeline.
About CONTAX SAP Services
CONTAX implements and supports SAP solutions, including SAP Project Systems, SAP CATS and SAP EDI integration with IDocs. Learn more about SAP Services and SAP EDI Integration.
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