We are all aware of the Order Management capabilities offered by SAP CRM and it is my intent to introduce a few more updates that we have in the new package. With the launch of Enhancement pack 1, you would now experience some new features in areas of Quote & Offer Management, Order Capture & processing, Price & Tax management, Billing & payment, Order Analytics.
Most of you would be aware that even ERP orders can be taken in the CRM webUI, and there are some very useful upgrades in that area. For those who were not aware of this functionality, I would recommend SAP CRM 7.0 creating an ERP quote and sales order with CRM Web UI.
Another key feature that will be available, is Price & Margin management enabled by integration to Vendavo. Again for those who are haven’t been following this development, here is a Integration of Vendavo in the Lead to Cash Cycle
To put these in perspective with previous release lets take a look at the overview of some of these new features:
Usability -
A brief list of improvements in User experience and usage:
* There have been significant improvements in the area of CRM Order Performance. Changes can be seen in order and pricing calculations. The new version allows pricing to be triggered only when required. Also Pricing that goes across items can be delayed temporarily to allow multiple changes faster. Information shared with pricing is also buffered. Overall all these changes lead to an improvement of 10 to 90% in order and pricing performance , although it mary vary from customer to customer , country to country.
* Increased efficiency in order entry in CRM.
- While adding Items in Quotes/Order, multiple products (rather than a single product) can be added into a transaction from the search results list. This feature is enabled due to a generic enhancement allowing copy and paste into tables.
- Quick navigation through item list with cursor keys enables a sales rep to add multiple item quantities with ease and pace
* More teeth have been added to the Enterprise search in Order Capture. The Enterprise search capability is a generic feature that is available across the SAP Suite. Enterprise search allows to search across CRM, ERP, and EWM. In the new version ERP order items can also be searched .
* Usability is improved for CRM Billing as well as for CRM Rebates:
- Introduction of hierarchy in CRM Billing Due List: CRM Billing now offers a hierarchy view on the billing due list consisting of a billing header and the subordinate billing items
- Enabling enterprise Search for CRM Billing and Rebates
Functionality -
* There are several functional improvements/additions in the new version, most notably in the area ERP Orders in Web Client UI
- Pop-ups enabled in ERP orders whenever multiple partners exist or to select quote / contract when creating an order
- ERP quotes, orders and contracts now are also listed on the account overview page
- ERP quotes, orders and contracts can now be printed from the Web browser
* Improvement to the CRM Quote Evaluation and Price Approval process via integration to Vendavo. With this capability Sales Rep can add discount and submits price approval request to SAP Price and Margin Management. The Quote evaluation is then done by retrieving the profitability & approval information from SAP PMM. The final approval by the Pricing Manages then reflects back to the CRM system (for the Sales Rep).
Check out the demo which showcases this capability
* New data columns have been introduced in pricing result data in business transactions: (Price Element) Status, Manually Changed, and Statistical, as enhancements to Pricing Management in CRM. 
* Globalization Support for CRM Transaction Processing has been added following countries: France, Italy, India, and Ireland. These features are relevant for companies that leverage the Transaction Tax Engine (TTE) and Billing in CRM. Countries such as France and Italy will grant certain companies exemptions from having to pay Value Added Tax (VAT). Such exemptions can now be better tracked and managed within CRM. Updated compliance to current India tax requirements such as standard invoice splits and document numbering for VAT, Bill of Sale, and Service. Also updates for VAT, CST, Service tax calculation.
Legal requirements for invoice correction in the countries of Poland and Hungary are now supported in standard. These countries require invoice corrections for VAT relevant transactions rather than separate credit and debit memos.
* CRM Interactive Reporting is a useful adhoc report generation tool. With the new release reporting capabilities for quotes, contracts and orders are also included. This will help realize faster and more accurate decision making with a real-time view on sales transaction data in SAP CRM. It is achieved by a simple wizard driven approach to creating and deploying reports to business roles.
