PART I – Integrating Corporate Financial Systems

Integration on a small scale has been easy to master but rolling that out on an enterprise level has proven to be more challenging. Global corporations are using multiple systems for accounting, AP/AR, and treasury. This creates discrepancies in information between the departments responsible for working with and managing those systems. Discrepancies also exist with incoming and outgoing data from the corporation and an external party. Problems like this can snowball out of control quickly. How does one combat this? The simple answer is integration, but not just any integration engine can be used, it has to be secure, scalable and have the bandwidth to handle multiple business purposes. (Integrating financial systems also includes assisting banks to corporates which will be saved for part two of this series.) There are many uses for integration but for the purposes of this article, we will explore three use-cases that we have implemented for our clients.

PIPE SEPARATED VALUES (PSV) OR COMMA SEPARATED VALUES (CSV) TO SWIFT MT

These two file formats are simple text files with different delineators making them easy to work with. Integration with these files can come from a variety of different sources such as an ERP or accounting system and can be translated into the appropriate SWIFT MT formatted message.

BAI2 TO SWIFT MT

Cash management reporting is a vital function and needs to format agnostic. BAI2 is a legacy standardized format for US-based banks. While dealing internationally, these files need to be translated which allows for easy translation into a SWIFT MT formatted message.

PROPRIETARY XML TO SWIFT ISO20022

Proprietary XML file formats from home-brewed or legacy systems can be tricky to integrate with standardized or modern systems. An integration engine must be able to read whatever format that is thrown at it and map it to a SWIFT formatted message.

The benefits of integrating all your financial systems are endless. Making good decisions is hard to accomplish without having the proper information at your fingertips. Achieving straight-through processing (STP) will open your organization up to real-time reporting providing the proper information quickly and efficiently. A second benefit to the STP is the removal of human error from the format translation operations. By adopting an integration engine, you are removing restrictions from the input and output formats that your organization can accept. These benefits lead to a decreased cost of finance operations for your entire organization.