The mySAP.com version of R/3 makes a number of Web-based options available to you for buying, capitalizing, depreciating, selling, and retiring your company’s fixed assets. You can access the end-user transactions and reports (Figures 1 and 2, respectively) in the Fixed Asset Accounting module (mySAP Financials) through a Web browser from any computer that has access to the Internet.

Figure 1

An End-User Transaction Using mySAP Fixed Asset Accounting

Figure 2

An End-User Report Using mySAP Fixed Asset Accounting

Giving people access to end-user transactions and reports via the Internet offers certain benefits. For example:

• Users can access data from any computer with an Internet connection.

• You can customize your portal (e.g, the mySAP Enterprise Portal) for each end user, offering point-and-click access not just to R/3 transactions, but also to non-R/3 data such as Business Information Warehouse (BW) reports and third-party Web sites such as Dun & Bradstreet.

• You can more easily manage control over what an end user is offered if user "roles" are linked to the portal.

Web-based asset accounting has potential for many types of applications. I am suggesting three ideas that you might find useful at your site:

• Web-based asset procurement using mySAP Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)

• Employee self-service updates to an asset’s physical location

• Downloading a list of asset numbers to a hand-held bar-coding or scanning device as a way to speed up an inventory count of your fixed assets.

Web-Based Asset Procurement Using mySAP SRM

Many businesses create their own long-term assets, usually through an internally based capital investment project. If you buy some or all of your fixed assets ready-to-use from a vendor, however, you can use a link between web-based Fixed Asset Accounting and mySAP SRM to get a unique division-of-labor approach to this acquisition.

For example, suppose that a department manager wants to buy a laptop computer for the use of one or more of the employees. MySAP SRM enables the procurement of direct and indirect material, commodities, and services through a Web-based interface. The manager first creates a purchase requisition. At this point, the manager can designate that the item should later be assigned to a fixed asset.¹

In most cases, the asset accountant will find everything acceptable due to SAP classification models that help requisitioners identify the required asset type and asset class when they enter their purchase requisition. In either case, the asset accountant can spot and make any needed changes to the master data long before the actual goods receipt (and automatic capitalization to the balance sheet) of the laptop computer occurs.

Employee Self Service for Continuing Data Consistency

It is hard to keep track of all those PCs, fax machines, and photocopiers that employees incessantly move around. Eventually, equipment can become assigned to the wrong person in your official records (i.e., the asset master), or it might have even been disposed of even though a report of current assets still shows it as active and in use.

Using SAP Employee Self-Service (ESS), employees can access those fixed assets for which they are personally responsible. Web-based transactions let employees notify asset accountants about changes to the location of assets or equipment attached, and about asset loss or disposal. Asset accountants no longer have to worry about the simple changes of location or cost center.

Pervasive Computing for Inventory Management

Even if asset information is regularly updated and maintained, a physical inventory will occasionally be needed. In fact, it is sometimes legally mandated to verify your asset records accurately reflect the machines and equipment that your company controls. SAP’s open BAPI technology allows you to interface SAP Fixed Asset Accounting with pervasive devices that offer bar-code scanning or other functions for stock taking. You can download your inventory list from SAP Fixed Asset Accounting to these pervasive devices. Physical inventory can then be carried out on these devices and the results are passed back to your SAP Fixed Asset Accounting application.