DIFF Treasury Solutions powered by Google Cloud Cortex Framework

Enterprises running SAP Finance and Controlling are always looking to create greater efficiencies by combining these data sets with financial data from other platforms to monitor intraday asset allocations and hedges. To embark on this journey, many companies choose Google’s Data Cloud to integrate, accelerate and augment business insights through a cloud-first data platform approach with BigQuery to power data-driven innovation at scale. 

Next, they take advantage of best practices and accelerator content delivered with Google Cloud Cortex Framework to establish an open, scalable data foundation that can enable connected insights across a variety of use cases. Today, Google Cloud is happy to announce our partnership with DIFF Consulting, with its deep expertise in SAP Finance, its numerous successful implementations, and its ability to assist your organization in deploying their treasury solutions on top of Google Cloud Cortex Framework. Read on for a recent example.

As corporate treasury functions evolve from traditional cash management into a more expansive role that also includes liquidity strategy and forecasting, treasurers are looking for better reporting capabilities that will allow them to predict liquidity and model cashflows. As experts in the field, DIFF Consulting has frequent interactions with key treasury stakeholders, and has experienced their demand for better reporting capabilities that can:

1. Integrate financial data from their ERP systems, such as SAP S/4HANA, and non-SAP systems and third-party applications like open banking APIs

2. Enable monitoring of key indicators across all sources in real-time

3. Leverage the AI/ML capabilities available at scale in the cloud, and

4. Provide better visualization across these integrated data sets

But better reporting doesn’t matter if the underlying data is inaccurate, so treasury stakeholders also need enhanced controls to ensure data integrity. In today's complex global landscapes of multiple applications, systems, and interconnected businesses, the need for efficient control mechanisms is essential. For example, managing bank data linked to business partners is a complex and time-consuming process that includes activities like identifying outdated bank keys in vendor master data, detecting duplicates, and identifying vendors that are no longer active. These tasks often require extensive manual effort due to the myriad systems and large volumes of data involved.

Last year, when DIFF Consulting started working with Google Cloud Cortex Framework, they very quickly recognized its potential to accelerate business innovation. This is why they decided to build their Treasury Analytics Pre-Built Solution and their Bank Data Validation App on top of Cortex Framework.

These applications are only an example of the possibilities that can be achieved by leveraging the best of Google Cloud and the fast deployment capabilities of Cortex Framework.

Why Google Cloud and Cortex Framework?

Since the very beginning, DIFF Consulting recognized Google Cloud as a disruptor in the hyperscaler market and decided to develop our practice around Google technology and become a Google Cloud Partner. When Cortex Framework was released, DIFF immediately identified the advantages of the technology stack and wanted to leverage them:

• Google Cloud Cortex Framework’s Data Foundation and App Layer are both enablers to quickly develop solutions like DIFF Consulting’s, and

• Cortex Framework leverages Google Cloud’s serverless BigQuery platform to handle large data volumes at scale very efficiently

• Cortex Framework is integration-tool agnostic and aligns with BigQuery’s openness to connect to third-party data visualization tools

• Google Cloud is a mature and stable platform on which to build and integrate solutions with both SAP and non-SAP data sources, such as banking and treasury systems via REST APIs

Combining the technological advantages of Cortex Framework with DIFF Consulting’s strong expertise in SAP Treasury Management has enabled DIFF to quickly launch solutions to help solve some of the challenges Treasurers usually face on a daily basis:

DIFF Treasury Analytics Pre-Built Solution

DIFF Treasury Analytics Pre-Built Solution focuses on solving the lack of proper visibility of treasury key indicators in a single platform, updated in real-time, with centralized information and enhanced visualization.

This pre-built analytics solution was created with treasurers at the management and executive level in mind. The solution collects data from different sources, calculates key treasury indicators and visualizes those in an easy-to-consume way with a variety of dashboards.

Leveraging Cortex Framework and BigQuery enables DIFF to load information from different sources, model it and then visualize it in an intuitive way. The data loaded into BigQuery from a treasury perspective include, but are not limited to:

• Cashflows

• Scheduled Payables and Receivables

• Payment Orders and Sales Orders

• Treasury Contracts

• Business Partners, Bank Accounts, Bank Keys (and other master data) 

• Your company’s bank data via REST APIs

Note: Some of this data is readily available in Google Cloud Cortex Framework Data Foundation, like business partners, sales orders, accounts payable and accounts receivable.

Based on this data, DIFF prepared different types of reports focused on a treasury department’s needs:

• Cash positions

• Forecasts

• Debt and investment positions

• Exposure analysis

• Liquidity and spend analysis

During development of this solution, DIFF experienced several advantages to leveraging BigQuery and Cortex Framework. They were able to:

• Easily integrate information from different systems or different sources: Treasurers always look for centralized visualization and handling of treasury topics, which is especially challenging when multiple SAP and non-SAP systems are involved. 

• Deliver enhanced data visualization options by connecting their customer’s preferred visualization tools, such as Tableau, to BigQuery

• Ensure outstanding performance since BigQuery can process queries at phenomenal speed

• Simplify implementation to lower customer costs and accelerate deployment so companies don’t have to embark on a long project 

One important aspect of technology solutions these days is to be able to move from analysis of information to action. With Google Cloud Cortex Framework, applications can be developed to take advantage of existing data in BigQuery as well as public and third-party data sets accessible to BigQuery, and this is exactly what DIFF Consulting has done. Customers deploying this solution will benefit from shorter implementation times and accelerated access to actionable intelligence. 

DIFF Bank Data Validation App

DIFF Bank Data Validation App focuses on ensuring integrity and quality of bank information in the system by improving the controls on bank keys, on vendor modifications and on obsolete vendors in your SAP S/4HANA Treasury Management master data. The solution leverages Google Cloud Cortex App Layer and SAP Fiori to give life to the DIFF Bank Data Validation App.

The objective of the app is to provide a tool to simplify certain controls on master data and allow users to take action in SAP:

• Validate bank keys; identify duplicates and other inconsistencies

• Monitor usage of obsolete bank keys in Vendor BP and Treasury BP

• Monitor and review changes to vendor accounts

• Identify obsolete vendors with no invoices or payments in the last 24 months 

DIFF Treasury Analytics Pre-Built Solution and DIFF Bank Data Validation App represent what is possible when leveraging the best of each platform enhanced by Google Cloud Cortex Framework.