We are a high-tech electronics manufacturer head quartered in New york and having sales subsidiaries in Europe ( UK, Germany,France, Italy, Switzerland,Sweden). We are currently on Baan ERP 5.0 c in a single logistic single finance setup. We are planning to implement a multi-logistics multi finance setup in Europe. We want to talk to companies in Europe who have been through this exercise to understand what the pit falls are, particularly issues like localization etc. Would any one of you there be willing to talk to us about your experiences.
Thanks in anticipation of your help

Regards
Radhakrishna

Radhakrishna,

I've never been involved in this with Baan V, but I have with Baan IVc. I'm not a regular visit to this forum due to time constraints, but I'll give you a few key points. You may be aware of these issues already.

- Italy and Portugal have finance legislation that is sufficiently different from the rest of Europe to make standard Baan unacceptable as a solution. These countries will have to use a localised version in their own Baan instances (so a single finance group company for the whole of europe isn't going to work). In particular for Italy we had problems, the Baan localisations weren't that good and some additional customisations were done by a third party, as a result standard patches were unavailable for the localised version for a long time after their original release.
- You don't say if the logistical companies are going to be set up by country. If not, expect problems with getting correct Intrastat reports off the system.
- the financial companies should be set up by country, accounting rules and vat rules and rates are very different between countries.
- be aware that not all European countries use the single euro currency yet, and that some may convert to euro in the future. Currency conversion of an existing Baan company is not to be taken lightly.
- looking at the list of countries you mentioned in your post: note that the UK doesn't use the Euro, Switzerland isn't in the EU (impact on import/export/intrastat regulations), Italy will require localisations, localisations for Germany exist but may not be required.

hi Radhakrishna,

I am in switzerland and working on Baan 5.0 c for one of our client and he has single-logistic, multi-finance structure. My client is also willing to move for multi-logistic, multi-finance structure. I think it will not be much problem because he already has experience with multi-finanace structure.

I agreed with AWondergem that switzerland is still not in EURO and use the currancy CH. For transaction it require conversions in EURO and USD and it works well. Localization is available for switzerland. I dont have much experience in operation but have contacts with users in logistics and finance, and I never get any big issue for different currancy handling, VAT and localization.

Regards
most

Hi WonderGem,

Thanks a lot for your inputs. Based on the currency issues etc. it seems that Multi-logistics multi-finance is the best fit, but in reality we have very small offices in Europe ( 5 - 6 man offices except the European HQ which is in Geneva) and we do not want to over complicate admin and maintenance - with different VRC's. We were told that other out - of the box solutions may be a possibility. I have heard of 2 situations, where they have used third party reporting software to churn out reports for local governments. Do you think this is a viable path to explore ?

Thanks
Radha

Hi,

We are infact looking for some one who can help us with the implementation in Europe. Is there a way you can help ? or if cannot for whatever reason, suggest a few consultants / implementation partners who could help ?

PLease contact me on rr_krishna@hotmail.com with the Baan ERP in the Subject Matter.

Thanks
Radha