SAP Solution Brief
SAP BusinessObjects Business
Revenue Recognition Analytics
Improve Your Bottom Line and
Increase Business Performance
At a time of economic uncertainty and
historically low levels of liquidity, high-
tech companies everywhere face intense
pressure to optimize cash flow by
recog­­nizing revenue wherever feasible.
In a market like the one we’re facing
today, the last thing you want to do is
leave revenue on the table when it could
directly help your balance sheet.
But as you know, recognizing revenue
in the high-tech industry is seldom as
simple as adding up your cash receipts
at the close of business. A long list of
regulations and accounting practices –
many subject to interpretation and
change – govern how revenue can be
recognized across a diverse array of
scenarios. Particularly complicated are
multielement arrangements that include
software, hardware, implementation,
and software as a service (SaaS). For
such deals, companies must comply with
a wide range of arcane statement of
position rules, determine vendor-specific
objective evidence, and accurately
estimate residual values. While GAAP
offers some guidance, a multitude of
applicable standards make compliance
particularly challenging.
Of course, this situation is not limited
to the high-tech sector. Contract manu­
fac­tur­ing in the aerospace and defense
industry, ongoing projects for profes­
sional services firms, and collaborative
research agreements between biotech
and pharmaceutical companies –
the list goes on across a wide range
of industries.
Intelligence Solutions
For high-tech companies
engaged in complex sales
and service deals, accurate
revenue recognition has
never been more important.
SAP® BusinessObjects™
busi­ness intelligence solu­
tions can help you gain
To deal with these challenges, many
organizations have established auto­
insight into revenue data so
mated revenue-recognition processes that you can capitalize on
such as those supported by SAP®
software. After all, a failure to recognize
available revenue and im­
revenue accurately can lead to catas­ prove business performance.
trophic restatements that often trigger
dramatic shifts in stock value.
From a business perspective, however,
such processes and applications are
only part of the solution. In addition,
you need insight and actionable informa­
tion based on the revenue data you’ve
collected. The problem is that relevant
data is often scattered across various
silos throughout the organization –
making it difficult for managers and front­­
line workers to make quick, informed,
data-driven decisions that improve busi­
ness performance. This is where reve­
nue recognition analytics supported by
SAP BusinessObjects™ business intelli­
gence (BI) solutions can help.
Real-Time Revenue Data
at Your Fingertips
Can you accurately forecast future
revenues based on deals in process?
Do you understand time-dependent
revenue potential per customer or
region? Can you access this information
in a timely manner to support critical
business decisions? Now you can –
with SAP BusinessObjects BI solutions,
which provide up-to-the-minute visibility
into revenue-related key performance
indicators (KPIs). By combining data
from the SAP ERP application or

Timely Answers to Your
Revenue-Related Questions
Revenue questions come up
constantly during the course of any
business day:
• How does the revenue look against
the budget?
• What regions are generating the
most and least revenue?
• How does the revenue forecast
look in the near future?
• Do we have any revenue that can
be recognized today?
• Which customers have the most
unrecognized revenue?
non-SAP sources and delivering it
where and when it is needed, you can
opti­mize business performance across
key areas of the enterprise. This helps
you close the gap between defined
busi­n­ess strategy and day-to-day exe­
cution activities carried out by your
workers on the front lines. And because
you can depend on the accuracy of the
infor­­mation provided, it also helps mini­
mize your business risk by supporting
deci­sions based on validated revenue-
recognition data.
Dashboard Simplicity
With point-and-click data visualization
supported by SAP BusinessObjects
Xcelsius® Enterprise software, business
users can quickly access revenue data
and KPIs through role-specific dash­
boards (see figure). These dashboards
can be embedded in SAP ERP and a
wide range of other environments to
improve worker productivity.
Revenue data can be drawn through
a secure, live connection via SAP
BusinessObjects Enterprise software
and delivered in a customizable format
that users define. You can also extend
the offering to meet specific needs.
For example, you can connect to a wide
range of SAP or non-SAP data sources
to gain the insight you desire or drill down
into SAP ERP and other reporting envi­
ronments for more detailed information.

With SAP® Business Objects™

business intelligence solutions, you
can use reve­nue recognition analytics
to ask these questions with full
confidence that you’ll get accurate,
timely answers. From executives to
line-of-business man­agers to frontline
workers, your people will be able to
make informed decisions that can
help your company thrive.

Example of How to Drill Down for More Detailed Information

To facilitate collaboration and the shar­ing
of information, dashboard visualiza­tions
are fully portable. Business users can
capture them as documents (Microsoft
Office, Adobe PDF); share them over
the Web; incorporate them into Crystal
Reports® software; and view them
via a portal. The objective is to make
up-to-date revenue information avail­
able to the people in your organization
wherever and whenever they need it.
A Comprehensive Picture of Revenue
With at-a-glance visibility, revenue
recog­nition analytics give you a com­
plete understanding of your revenue
situation from multiple perspectives.
You can compare forecasts to actuals
and view key revenue-related metrics
such as days sales outstanding, profit
margin, and year-to-date budget. You can
also view important revenue-recognition
metrics such as deferred revenue,
revenue backlog, and more. Information
is displayed according to region, line of
business, or time period. Drill-down
functionality, meanwhile, allows you to
delve into revenue infor­mation for
specific customers and analyze details
at the order line, con­tract, or material
level. In the end, this integrates risk and
strategy manage­ment into your day-to-
day business activities, helping you
make decisions that capitalize on
available revenues in a compliant
manner and improve your overall
business performance.
Recognizing Revenue, Realizing
Business Benefits
With revenue recognition analytics, your
organization can quickly access reve­
nue metrics and manage informa­tion
transparently to comply with regulations.
You can:
• Improve your bottom line in a tough
economic environment by accurately
predicting deferred revenue streams
and capitalizing on opportunities to
recognize revenue as early as possible
• Minimize the risk of noncompliance
by making decisions based on vali­
dated revenue data
• Gain unique perspectives on the
market by combining risk and strate­gy
management
• Reduce costs and increase produc­
tivity by eliminating manual pro­cesses
and speeding the amount of time
required to access revenue numbers
• Enhance the decision-making
process with KPIs and analytics drawn
from multiple sources to overcome the
obstacles posed by information silos
• Gain a holistic view of revenue
positions by combining data from
multiple sources
• Maximize the value of existing
invest­ments by leveraging data you
already have
Find Out More
To learn more about how SAP
BusinessObjects BI solutions can help
your organization improve revenue
recognition processes, capture more
revenue, and improve compliance,
please contact your SAP representa­
tive or visit us online at
www.sap.com/sapbusinessobjects/bi.
Revenue Recognition Defined
Revenue recognition represents
the inflow of assets that result from
earning activities, such as selling
a product or service. Recognition
occurs when the revenue is formally
recorded in a com­pany’s accounts or
financial state­ments. The concept of
revenue recog­nition, then, determines
how much and when revenue is
recorded in financial statements.
SAP® BusinessObjects™ business
intelli­gence solutions offer revenue
recognition analytics that enable
people in your organization to make
sound business decisions – based on
accurate data – that comply with
prevailing rules and regulations. This
helps you minimize risk while improv­
ing your ability to maxi­mize revenue
wherever possible. In addition, the
offering can be combined with other
SAP BusinessObjects solu­tions to
give you an integrated view of risk
and strategy management.
Quick facts www.sap.com /contactsap

Summary
High-tech companies often conduct business according to long-term, multifaceted sales and
service contracts that pose a wide range of revenue recognition challenges. With revenue
recognition analytics supported by SAP® BusinessObjects™ solutions, you can make daily
business decisions based on accurate revenue data and capitalize on available revenues to
improve business performance.

Business Challenges
• Shifting rules and regulations governing revenue recognition
• High risk of noncompliance
• Pressure to recognize as much revenue as possible as soon as possible

Key Features
• Revenue data analysis – View key revenue metrics sliced by region, line of business, and
time period
• Decision support – View revenue details at the order line, contract, and material level to
make informed business decisions
• Accounting compliance – Take action in accordance with rules that govern revenue
recognition practices

Business Benefits
• Improve your bottom line in a tough economic environment by accurately predicting
deferred revenue streams and capitalizing on opportunities to recognize revenue as early
as possible
• Minimize the risk of noncompliance by making decisions based on validated revenue
data
• Gain unique perspectives on the market by combining risk and strategy management
• Reduce costs and increase productivity by eliminating manual processes and speeding
the amount of time required to access revenue numbers
• Enhance the decision-making process with key performance indicators and analytics
drawn from multiple sources to overcome the obstacles posed by information silos
• Gain a holistic view of revenue positions by combining data from multiple sources
• Maximize the value of existing investments by leveraging data you already have 50 093 996 (09/03)
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