Salt River Project Simplifies FERC on SAP ECC and Improves Readiness for SAP S/4HANA

Salt River Project (SRP) is a community-based not-for-profit utility that provides reliable, affordable water and power to more than two million people in central Arizona. SRP has provided these essential resources for more than a century to meet the needs of customers and help the region grow. SRP has been on SAP since 2013, and currently runs SAP ECC 6.0 on Suite on HANA and BW on HANA.

In anticipation of its migration to SAP S/4HANA in 2023, Salt River Project engaged HPC America in to evaluate its current SAP Financials processes and results, and to identify areas for improvement that would not only deliver immediate benefits, but also streamline the utility’s eventual transition to S/4HANA.

After the assessment, SRP engaged HPC to optimize its FERC model with HPC Utility Financials Accelerator (UFA) add-on software. HPC UFA eliminates the FERC module’s limitations, and runs on both SAP ECC and SAP S/4HANA.

Five months later, SRP was ready to go live with its new FERC design. The project achieved all intended objectives and more: SRP’s balances by FERC account now match exactly—to the penny—its reports by order number, WBS element, cost element, and cost center, thereby making functionalized data far more intuitive for users to analyze.

Download the full case study to read all the benefits SRP now enjoys.

SAP Financials Conference recap

After ninety-something demonstrations of the HPC Journal Entry Transfer Solution, casino bells still ringing in our ears, we're back in the office. The 2015 SAP Financials conference was a great opportunity to talk with SAP users in finance and accounting, and those in IT who support them, about their pain points and HPC's 20 years of experience eliminating such discomfort.

We met people from all over the country and across a broad range of industries. Since HPC JETS reduces the time and expense of correcting mischarged cost objects directly in the ERP for any company running SAP Financials, it was relevant to just about everyone we met. Some GRC folks didn't quite get it, and others are part of such large enterprises they're far removed from the problems JETS solves, but after a two-minute demo we saw most heads nod in appreciation.

On the utility front, we also had the pleasure of meeting more finance staff from one prospective customer that we've chatted with over the last two years, and talking extensively with another customer whose SAP FERC optimization project with HPC Utility Financials Accelerator starts next week.

And the biggest draw of the show? Our friendly SAP finance experts.

Rochester Public Utilities optimizes SAP FERC with HPC America

Earlier this year, we wrote about our FERC optimization work at RPU. Our latest customer success story describes how the Minnesota utility company now enjoys streamlined FERC reporting and automated assigned of costs to FERC accounts; a more accurate way to calculate actual labor charges; and a consolidated process for managing Fleet costs and equipment charges. RPU's enhanced regulatory reporting on SAP utilizes HPC Utility Financials Accelerator, which is certified by SAP as powered by the NetWeaver technology platform. Read the complete case study.

SAP FERC project updates from customers

We recently heard from two utility companies that HPC has been advising on SAP regulatory reporting enhancements. One will be making HPC Utility Financials Accelerator a regular part of the monthly closing cycle, utilizing UFA's real-time reporting features with December 2012 results. The utility expects that this improved reporting process will free up extra time that the accounting department can use work on other projects.

Another customer just went live with SAP FERC configuration improvements we've made to their classic FERC module, including the implementation of some UFA functionality. Before, this utility only generated regulatory reports once a year, due to complex, time-consuming processes outside of SAP. Now, they can easily run FERC reports monthly, shortly after each month-end close. Everything stays in SAP, and the finance team can drill-down through many levels of each transaction. As part of this project, the utility modified its business process to require that all charges be applied to internal or PM orders, instead of cost centers. In a future blog post, we'll look into the organizational change management that facilitated this significant transition.

What's noteworthy about both of these customers is their shared commitment to getting the most out of the FERC module and legacy General Ledger. Neither is planning an SAP New GL migration at the moment. While we certainly recognize the New GL's benefits (and recently announced a real-time FERC solution for it), HPC strives to be as solution-agnostic as possible. Classic FERC, no FERC, new or old GL, it's all good in our books.

SAP New GL extensibility and real-time FERC data

Today, we have more news about prototyping the SAP New GL and real-time FERC for a utility company in the midwest. We've been busy testing primary and secondary cost postings to the new functional areas that we'll use for FERC derivation.

Contact us to learn more.

Interested in this type of project for your utility? Check out our New GL prototyping service.

Pepco Holdings Implements HPC Utility Financials Accelerator

Pepco Holdings, Inc. (PHI) is one of the largest energy delivery companies in the Mid-Atlantic region, serving about two million customers in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, and New Jersey. PHI wanted to enhance its processes of categorizing and reporting accounting data, and selected HPC Utility Financials Accelerator to deliver greater automation and less reliance on external Excel files outside of SAP. Just nine months after kickoff, PHI and HPC achieved all of the project's initial objectives. Read the complete case study to learn more about the innovations that HPC brought to PHI.

East Coast Utility Purchases HPC Utility Financials Accelerator

We're very pleased to announce that another utility has purchased HPC America's Utility Financials Accelerator. HPC UFA integrates with SAP® solutions to help utility companies address today's more stringent regulatory reporting standards, and provides management with increased audit transparency and rate case support. In 2010, HPC UFA achieved SAP certification as powered by the SAP NetWeaver® technology platform.

Part of our team will be spending the summer in the Mid Atlantic to implement UFA for our customer. The project's goals include the following:

• Allocate costs charged to FERC accounts to transmission and distribution lines of business and state jurisdictions


• Create a controlled report distribution process with less reliance on Microsoft Excel


• Increase flexibility to use accepted cost allocation models for FERC accounts in SAP


• Provide enhanced regulatory drill-down functionality in native SAP ECC 6.0

HPC UFA is already in production at Trans Bay Cable, Arizona Electric Power Cooperative, Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, and Tacoma Power.

SAP Certifies HPC Utility Financials Accelerator

We're pleased to announce that after several months of rigorous testing, SAP has certified our Utility Financials Accelerator (UFA) enterprise software as powered by the SAP NetWeaver® technology platform. HPC UFA is in operation at Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, Arizona Electric Power Cooperative, Trans Bay Cable, and Tacoma Power, and this latest validation of its effectiveness is gratifying. Read our full announcement about the SAP certification or learn more about UFA.