Asset Retirement Obligations (ARO)

SAP Asset Retirement Obligation Management

Are you managing your AROs offline in Excel? Struggling with the accretion calculation and load process? Are you aware of SAP’s Asset Retirement Obligation solution?

Nearly every company manages their asset retirement obligations offline. They’re often scattered amongst various accountants in different departments and potentially in different locations. All unsecured. Each spreadsheet has it’s own slight differences yet have to track important liability and asset values. The month end posting for accretion has to first be validated, consolidated, and then loaded into SAP. Sound familiar?

With SAP’s Asset Retirement Obligation Management (AROM) solution, you can finally free yourself from Excel. Easily setup new AROs, terminate old ones, process interest and inflation rate adjustments, calculate accretion and automatically post it to the GL at month end. Full integration with the GL and asset accounting is delivered out-of-the-box with several enhancement options for more robust integration requirements.

 

Solution Description

SAP Asset Retirement Obligations Management (AROM) is a cross industry application targeted to companies in asset intensive industries like Oil & Gas, Utilities, Telecommunication, Mining, and Retail. This solution provides functions and process to support the financial accounting associated with the retirement of long-lived assets according to the accounting principles as defined by US-GAAP, IFRS and/or German HGB. The solution is natively integrated into SAP ERP Financials and is able to automate the necessary posting to the general ledger and asset accounting.

 

Business Needs

  • How do I perform financial accounting and reporting of asset retirement obligations in a timely, compliant, and auditable manner according to relevant accounting principles?
  • How do I handle adjustments during the lifetime of an asset retirement obligation, such as changes in timing, cost estimations, interest, and inflation rates?
  • How do I perform the necessary calculations and automate Financial postings?
  • How do I reduce data errors associated with the use of spreadsheets?
  • How do I support the required reporting and auditing of asset retirement obligation provisions?

 

Business Value

  • Process Automation:  Spend less time and fewer resources on inputting data
  • Lower Operating Costs: Decommission point solutions, and decrease reliance on office tools
  • Maximize your SAP Investment:  Leverage your SAP investment to cover the full financial lifecycle of asset retirements
  • Regulatory Compliance:  Comply with US-GAAP, IFRS and/or German HGB accounting principles
  • Transparency and Business Insight:  Share data and analysis across business units and with accounting auditors
ARO value

Key Product Details

  • Automated valuation, accounting and reporting: The solution is able to support accounting principles such as US-GAAP (FASB/FAS143), IFRS (IASB/IAS37), and even German Accounting Principle HGB for all asset retirement obligations.
  • End-to-End Process Support:  Terms, cost estimates, interest and inflation rates can be flexibly entered and adjusted over the life-cycle of the ARO and any adjustments will trigger the necessary postings in accounting.
  • Integration with ERP Accounting:  The solution is seamlessly integrated between the accounting components of standard SAP Financial and Management Accounting.  Few changes are required to the core FICO area when implementing ARO.
  • Compliance:  The solution supports the compliance of tracking change history and providing improved reporting.
Architectural overview with some information

What You’ll Need

To implement SAP’s ARO solution you’ll need SAP resources that possess the following skills:

  • Strong functional knowledge of AROs including the proper calculation of ARO values across all of their lifecycle transactions (i.e., creation, adjustment, termination, subsequent valuation, etc.)
  • Expert knowledge of the SAP Fixed Asset, ARO, and General Ledger areas
  • Strong technical skills.  There are multiple enhancement options in ARO and LAE to facilitate even greater integration and reporting compliance.
  • 5 ARO Go-Lives
  • SAP AG Development Partner
  • Experienced with both SAP ECC and S/4HANA Versions for SAP AROM

Feel free to contact us anytime to discuss what it takes to get more out of your SAP investment!