1C Company has been developing the application solution 1C: ERP Enterprise Management (from now on referred to as ERP RF) for the Russian market since 2013. Localisations are provided for Kazakhstan and Belarus, according to the requirements of these countries' laws. The use of ERP RF in other countries where localization is not available is associated with high project labor costs.

The new universal solution 1C: ERP WE (from now on referred to as ERP WE) is used by companies that are considering the automation of their business in other countries. According to 1C, the use of ERP WE in international projects provides:

●     minimize rework;

●     comply with the specifics of running a business and accounting organization outside the Russian Federation;

●     сreate unified information systems integrated with the national accounting systems of a particular country.

The basis for the ERP WE development was the standard Russian ERP 2.5 solution. A comparison of the size of the ERP 2.5.6 distribution (1.985 GB) and ERP WE 2.5.6 (1.161 GB) already shows that a lot of program code is excluded, mostly outdated functions and subsystems specific to the Russian Federation and not in need outside the Russian Federation.

The paper studies the capabilities of ERP WE in comparison to ERP RF (on version 2.5.6), to gather information in one place to help make the best choice in each specific introduction.

1.    Language capabilities

Let's start by comparing the multilingual capabilities of the two systems: development languages, platform interface languages, configuration interface languages, regional settings, availability of documents and teaching resources.

Development language is a programming language for writing code designs. It is selected at the beginning of development and can be ‘Russian’ or ‘English’. Both compared solutions - ERP RF and ERP WE - are written using Russian language templates.

This also concerns the current ERP WE 2.5.6 Beta solution developed in 1C:EDT Eclipse version 2020.4.0, the new 1C development environment alongside Designer. Fig. 1 shows that the interface language of the 1C:EDT development environment is English, but the programming language constructs and metadata are Russian.

Fig. 1. Development environment 1С:EDT Eclipse: En interface, Ru program code

 

​​1C Company makes steps for internationalization of the 1C:EDT environment: translation of programming into English and development of solutions with interfaces in several languages.

 

Thus the 1C:Language Tool plugin has been released for 1C:EDT, which translates Russian language constructs into ‘English code language and English metadata language’. For ERP WE, the Language Tool plugin is used to prepare a dictionary for translating the solution metadata into English. For example,

ЗаказКлиента -> SalesOrder

РеализацияТоваровИУслуг -> CustomerInvoice

РесурснаяСпецификация -> BillsOfMaterials

ВнеоборотныеАктивы -> FixedAssets

If a metadata dictionary is available, the plugin will perform an automatic translation of the solution model: source code and metadata. A preview version of the translation of the code and solution objects into English is planned in the 2.5.7 version.

 

  Thus, ERP WE developed in the 1C:EDT development environment, when using the 1C:Language Tool plugin will have a significant advantage in international developments in terms of programming in English and involvement of English programmers.

 

Platform interface language is the language of reflecting system menus, system dialogues, system messages, and help topics in the Designer and 1C:Enterprise mode (1C:Enterprise). Here the capabilities of the compared solutions are the same: 22 languages are available, including Arabic, Chinese, and Vietnamese.

 

The platform interface language is set to

 

 

Entire solution	User session	1C: EDT interface
-       when installing the platform distribution package -       editing settings in a file C:\Program Files (x86)\1cv8\conf\conf.cfg, for example, “SystemLanguage=EN”	when launching a client application/session: the key /L is entered in the 1C startup command line, for example, “ /L en”	Add a language setting string, for example, “osgi.nl=en” to the C:\ProgramFiles\1C\1CE\components|1c-edt-2020.4.0+455-x86_64\configuration\config.ini file

 

The solution interface language is the language for reflecting texts, field synonyms, headers, etc. In this part, solutions are different: ERP supports two languages - Russian, and English; in ERP WE users are provided with 4 languages - Russian, English, Polish, and Italian.

Fig.2 shows the ERP WE user mode with the English platform interface and the Italian solution interface.

The solution language interface is specified:

 

Entire solution	User session	1C: EDT interface
-       Selected in the Designer in the menu “ Tools - Options - 1C:Enterprise startup- Additional - Interface language”. -       There is also a switch in the bottom right corner.	In the Language settings of the user card: “ Application interface language”	The interface language switch is available in the menu of the 1C: EDT development environment

Fig. 2. Example of ERP WE user session: En platform interface ,It solution interface.

Regional settings define the date format, time, numbers, logical constants, and affect the row sorting. The settings are the same in both solutions and can be set:

●     for the entire solution – меню "Administration → Regional Infobase settings".

●     for each session: in the 1C startup command line specify the key ‘/VL en’, or another language ru, pl, it, etc.

 

Availability of documentation. Translating and customizing documentation is a very extensive task. For Russian developers and users from the former USSR and Eastern bloc countries, it is suggested to use Russian ITS documentation on ERP RF, omitting Russian descriptions.

The creation of English documentation for ERP WE has been started. The preview contents of the documentation are shown in the table below.

In addition, 1C partners are preparing English training courses (including videos) on ERP WE.

 

Extensive comparison of ERP 2.5 and ERP WE

Let us consider a closer look at the functions excluded from the standard Russian ERP 2.5 solution. It is important to note that some of the functions have been delocalized for ERP WE considering the features of running a business and organization of accounting outside the Russian Federation.

 

The functions missing in ERP WE are organized in the following table (1C company information) - you will not see these sections, references and settings in the interface:

 

What's missing	Purpose	Substitute
Regulated accounting subsystem	Accounting and reporting by Russian Accounting Standards, tax accounting and reporting according to the Russian law	IFA subsystem. It is possible to use a localized 1C solution or national accounting systems.
Payroll and HR subsystem	Payroll and HR accounting according to the Russian law	Using localized 1C solutions or national accounting systems.
Other modules and information required only in Russia	1.    Government monitoring systems and relevant classifications: ●     EGAIS alcoholic beverages ●     GISM fur products ●     IS MP -shoes, clothes, tobacco ●     VetIS - veterinary products 2.    Internet support and services: ●     1C: ITS portal monitor ●     1C SPARK - reliability of contractors ●     classifier update services, ticket booking, etc 3.    Electronic document sharing services: ●     electronic digital signature and encryption ●     1С: DirectBank ●     exchange with contractors by using EDMS ●     1C: Business network ●     1C: EDI orders 4.    1С:Nomenclature 5.    Sharing with web-site using 1C-UMI service	It is possible to use integration with similar local systems by web-services tools and the other program tools supporting by 1C platform
Deprecated functionality	Batch accounting 2.1 Production 2.1 FA and intangible assets accounting 2.2 Offline settlements with partners	-
State defense order functions	Separate accounting of state defense order within the rules of federal law 275	-
Personal data functionality	Accounting under federal law 152. In particular, it is not possible to prepare “Data processing agreement” documents from an individual's card	-
Unified forms required only in Russia	Torg-12, invoices, FA-6, TTN, etc.	Commercial Invoice and other English forms
Integration with 1C:Document Management	Seamless integration with the 1C:Document Management	Possibly excluded temporarily. There are plans to integrate with 1C:Document Management - analogue of 1C Document Management CORP with bilingual interface: russian and english
Send for processing	Send to processors including the way of providing the requirements “Production by the processor”(Unit production)	Excluded until clarification of requirements (1С)
Acceptance customer-furnished raw materials for processing	Acceptance customer-furnished raw materials and production for supplier (Unit sales)	Excluded until clarification of requirements (1С)
Transfer of inventories into operation	Categories of use, operations “Сommissioning” and “Decommissioning” are deleted	Excluded until clarification of requirements (1С)

 

 

Only the last three strings of this list may be critical when introduced in complex production structures. But they will also be returned in the next versions of ERP WE.

2. ERP WE improvement directions

Let's give some more known information about the realization of the ERP WE project. First of all, according to the 1C company, the functions have been delocalized:

 

●     Enterprise data: accounting policies and accounting settings, organizations, contractors, individuals, nomenclature, contracts, cash desks, banks, etc.

●     VAT: setting VAT rates; rates selection; calculation of amounts in documents; recording of input VAT on purchases.

 

Works in the direction of development internationalization are in progress - this is a translation of code and solution objects into English (said earlier). At the same time, the publication of ERP WE solutions with Russian code will continue.

 

There will be no gaps in functionality between the solution with Russian code and English code in the main functionality. The SSL as part of ERP WE is already translated. There will be differences in service functions.

 

The main direction of improvement is a systematic adaptation to the specifics of running a business and organization of accounting outside the Russian Federation, the possibilities of multi-country accounting: improvement of multi-currency, international financial accounting, and IFRS, taking into consideration the specifics of accounting in Western countries, preparation of English-language documentation and media resources, etc.

 

3. Multicurrency improvement

The multi-currency function in previous ERP RF versions provided the ability to activate the ‘Multiple Currencies’ option. In documents, it became possible to use a currency different from the document currency for mutual settlements and further create a report in the mutual settlements currency.

 

 

ERP WE's multi-currency functionality has a lot to offer in terms of multi-country accounting. It is planned to be included in standard ERPs WE from version 2.5.8-2.5.9 (by the end of 2021).

 

The innovations in multi-currency are shown in the table:

 

 

New functions	Descriptions
Selection of the required currencies by the user when initializing a new base ERP WE.	In addition to the “Management Accounting Currency”, the “Default Base Currency” is selected. It is used to recalculate currency rates independently of the organization's currencies.
Different base currencies of national accounting in the financial circuit for each company registered in various countries. This currency is assigned in the “Organisations” catalog.	It becomes possible to maintain multi-country accounting in one infobase. For example, Russia RUB, Spain EUR, Turkey TRY. ●     Realization of VAT rates by country is planned. Intercompany between organizations with different base national currencies are still restricted.
Maintenance of currency rates regarding several base currencies of different organizations. Foreign currency recalculation method recognised: CBR rates are loaded into the numerator field of the rate; ECB rate is loaded into the denominator of the currency rate.	In Russia, the amount of foreign currency is multiplied by the RUB currency rate. In the EU, the amount of foreign currency is divided by the EUR currency rate.
Downloading currency rates from the ECB website.	Also added the ability to load rates from a tabular document by the clipboard
Other blocks have been changed due to the addition of the base currency and the base currencies of the national accounting of the organizations.	1.    In budgeting scenarios, projected rates are stored in the base currency. 2.    The functional currency of postings in the IFA organizations will correspond to the base currency of each organization's national accounting currency.

 

 

4. IFA improvement

A new posting translation tool has been developed, including:

●     creation of international accounting postings based on the data of primary financial registers of operative accounting; support for the previous tool of translation by turnover registers may be limited in the future;

●     support for several charts of accounts.

The new posting tool provides two settings options:

●     setting by accounting objects and their correspondences (added in 2.5.7);

●     setting by business operations (available in 2.5.6).

A mandatory condition for the new posting tool is that there are no double-entry violations in the identifiers of financial entries in the operational loop. In this regard:

1)    A new stage “Correction of financial register correspondence errors” has been added to “Month Closing” to check and prepare flows to create entries

2)    ​​In the “Reflection of documents in international accounting” handling, the documents for which it was not possible to create entries due to a violation of correspondence in the registers are reflected. A special reflection status “Double entry in financial registers violated” has been introduced.

 

5. Other accounting features

 

Let us consider some accounting features common in EU countries considered for inclusion in ERP WE, namely:

 

1.    Self-billing invoicing, namely dividing the sale into two events and, accordingly, into two documents: ●     shipment of goods, reflecting the disposal of goods; ●     realization - invoice, which forms an indebtedness of the buyer.

2.    Auto-invoicing (or self invoices), for example, in purchases, the supplier himself chooses to return the goods and makes his own invoice with a minus, and pays money to the client accordingly (in the Russian Federation, the return is made by the buyer).

3.    In purchases and sales, goods may be shipped without creating Invoice - uninvoiced purchases, uninvoiced sales. Also - the objective of using negative amounts in invoices.

 

 

6. User comparison of ERP 2.5 and ERP WE

 

Information about the delocalization of the ERP WE Beta version can be found on the official 1C website. Let us consider the differences between ERP RF and ERP WE at the level of accounting sections from the user's point of view. The amount of delocalization is large. Let's point out some of the differences.

 

Master data and settings

 

Deleted all settings related to the excluded functionality listed earlier: HR, Payroll, Regulated Accounting, Data Transfer from BP, Contact Technical Support, Integration with 1C:Document Management, Exchange of Electronic Documents, 1C:Business Network, 1C:Nomenclature, Internet support and services, Integrations with GISM, VetIS, EGAIS, IS MP, Monitoring 1C:SPARK.

The ‘Separate divisions on a separate balance’ setting has been removed in the Enterprise settings. Accordingly:   ●     No accounting for operations of divisions on a separate balance (branch offices); ●     There is no “Separate enterprise” option when creating an organization.

The “Organisations” card does not contain information on tax, funds, accounting policy settings, HR management and salary calculation settings.

The pre-defined “Management organization” used to reflect operations only in management accounting has been deleted. And, accordingly, the “Purchasing under reg. accounting” and “Sales (only reg. accounting)” business operations have been deleted.

In the “VAT Accounting, Import Export” settings, a part of import operations has been deleted and export settings have been deleted:   ●     Business transaction “Import from EAEU”, , document “Statement of import of goods from EAEU”. ●     Functionality of confirmation of the 0% VAT rate for export of non-resource goods. Settings for control of Customs Cargo Declaration numbers in documents.   VAT accounting and reporting:   ●     No purchase book and sales book, invoice numbering features (there are none). ●     But there is a possibility of direct editing of VAT rates.

The ”Nomenclature” settings have been deleted:   Options for working with “Reusable containers”. This functionality is disabled temporarily. However, the ”Return and redemption of containers” workspace has been retained. Precious metals and stones. The “Nomenclature Classifiers” option, which provides maintenance of the Russian classifiers OKVED2, OKDP2, OKOF. ENAOF, EGAIS, etc.

 

 

 

Budgeting and planning

 

Functions are fully preserved.

 

CRM and marketing

 

Functions are fully transferred.

The CRM settings now include a map of the World, not the Russian Federation. It is used in reports to allocate sales to business regions.

 

Sales

 

Wholesale and retail sales functionality has been fully transferred, except for:

●     The ‘Invoice issued’ document and references to it in forms and reports.

●     Russian unified forms Torg-12, ТТН, UPD. Unified forms Sales invoices, and Commercial invoices are available.

Production from customer-furnished raw materials: no documents “Order from supplier”, “Purchase of customer-furnished raw materials from supplier”, “Transfer to supplier”, “Supplier report” and so on. This important section is excluded temporarily - until clarification of requirements.

 

Purchases

 

Purchases functions are fully transferred, except for:

 

●     State defense order contracts are performed according to federal law № 275. State defense order references are deleted from the directions of activity, bank accounts, etc.

●     Operation “Import from the EAEU” in procurement documents, “Statement on import of goods from the EAEU”.

●     “Invoice received” document and references to it in forms and reports.

●     Commercial offers of suppliers in electronic form.

 

Warehouse and delivery

 

Warehouse and delivery functions are fully transferred, except for:

●     Document “Marking of goods”;

●     Inventory in use.

Operations “Сommissioning” and “Decommissioning” are deleted from the “Goods consumption” document and “Other goods posting”.This important section is excluded temporarily - until clarification of requirements.

 

Planning and procurement strategies/ways to meet needs functions are fully transferred.

 

Production

Functions are fully transferred, except for :

●     Outsourced processing: no “Order to processor” documents, “Transfer of raw materials to a processor”, “Incoming from the processor”, “Processor's report”, including the way to meet the needs of “Production to processors”. This important section is excluded temporarily - until clarification of requirements.

 

Treasury

Treasury functions are fully transferred, except for:

●     Payments in currency and currency control by 1C DirectBank service

●     Support state defense order participants' payments by federal law № 275

●     Printing of a single advance report in form AO-1 with inclusion of purchase documents

●     Integration with SmartWay business trip booking service.

●     Cash books record the accounting of cash flow in the cash register.

●     “Deposited payroll” document to record underpayments of payroll amounts received by employees.

●     Cash documents are stored in the cash desk (tickets, vouchers, fuel vouchers, etc.).

 

Financial results and controlling

 

Financial results and controlling transferred with the following exceptions:

●     The VAT section has been reduced: no purchase and sales books, no invoice registers, no VAT registration assistant, etc.

●     The “Management balance” report has been removed from the settings and interface, although it is available in the system. At the same time, the plan of types of features “Assets and liabilities items” is available, as well as the document “Flows of other assets and liabilities”, used to reflect in the management balance other assets and liabilities, the accounting of which is not automated in the system. The selection of a management balance item is available everywhere: both in documents and for creating actual information on budget indicators in budgeting.

●     There is no ability to do financial rectification.

●     In the ‘’ Directions of activity,‘’ there is no selection of the type of activity of the State Defence Order and state contract

 

Fixed assets

Fixed assets functions are fully transferred, except for:

●     Reports “Statement-calculation of the amortization premium”, “Statement-calculation Recognition of R&D expenditure in NI”, and “Statement-calculation Recognition of expenses on rented FA”.

●     Amortization schedules, OKOF and UNAOF classifiers, and transport tax rates.

 

Financial Accounting

IFA functions are fully transferred, except:

●     There are no postings for regulated accounting information, as well as regulatory documents of international accounting (calculation of currency rate differences in the presentation currency, closing of income and cost accounts)

●     An option has been added to the “Reflection of documents in international accounting” handling to get documents not reflected as a result of errors (see the “ IFA improvement” unit above).

 

 

7. Deployment and maintenance

 

When choosing a system for an international project and shaping the architecture of the target system, the following factors are always considered in addition to the main functionality requirements:

●     use of national accounting and tax accounting systems (in the case of no localized 1C systems of regulated accounting);

●     The possibility of bringing national accounting with ERP WE IFA accounting;

●     Integration with national systems, including treasury, payroll, and HR systems;

●     Issues of replication in other countries: information in another country will be different ( contractors, employees, currency rates, etc.), integrations will be different, language adaptation, including unified forms, etc.

●     Other facts lead to a large amount of work for analysts and programmers.

Without delving into the facts listed above, let us consider the possibilities of deploying ERP RF and ERP WE.

Firstly, all production systems on the 1C: Enterprise platform (1C: Enterprise) provide remote access of end-users to the Infobase with the help of (Fig. 3):

●     Thin client. Thin client is run on the client system. The data is processed on the server side. The thin client provides reflection and data input. Requires setup on the user's computer.

●     Web-client. The user works in a browser environment (Windows Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, or Safari) - it is enough to enter the address of the web server where the infobase is posted. No need to set up 1C on the client system.

●     Mobile client. It is a thin client but for mobile devices. The mobile app requires setup. On the application side, adaptations of the source code for mobile devices are required.

 

 

When the deployment of ERP WE in one country:

1.    Remote access to the unified database is provided at the platform level using 1C thin client, web client, using RDP.

2.    At the same time, adaptation and integration with national accounting systems will be required.

3.    Users from different countries can access a single database.

 

 

 

When deploying ERP WE in several countries:

1.    In ERP RF / ERP WE the creation of distributed information bases (DIB) for identical solutions is supported at the platform and exchange plan level.

2.    The simplest DIB scheme includes a central node/base and several peripheral bases. Peripheral country bases will contain a lot of localized information.

3.    Peripheral country bases will contain a lot of localized data. The DIB provides an adequate data consolidation scheme: dividing the data into data specific to each peripheral database and common data, which should be in all databases, in the central database.

Fig. 3. Standard scheme of 1C client-server architecture with 1C user clients

Thus the solution 1C:ERP WE:

●        contains modern tools for development and deployment in different countries;

●     involve English-speaking programmers;

●     fulfills the needs of international companies in the countries of introduction;

●     adapted for running business and organization of accounting outside the Russian Federation, multi-country accounting;

●     provides for reduced customization and integration with the national accounting systems of a particular country compared to the ERP of the Russian Federation.

 

The choice of the system between ERP RF and ERP WE is defined by the country(ies) of introduction:

●     If the system is deployed in one country of the Russian Federation, it is certainly the ERP RF;

●     If the system is deployed in another country for which there is localization (Kazakhstan, Belarus), the choice is localized ERP RF;

●     If the system is deployed in another country for which there is no localization, it is ERP WE;

●     If the system is deployed and replicated in several countries for which there is no localization, it is ERP WE;

●     If the system is deployed in the Russian Federation (ERP RF) and replication in other countries is planned, the choice is not obvious. If a DIB option is required, the choice falls on the ERP RF. In all cases, the choice of option requires the involvement of specialists.

 

The RF ERP standard system is constantly being improved by 1C company. At the same time, the standard ERP WE is being developed as a separate project: new functionality appears with minimal delays.

 

At the moment the software product 1C:ERP WE is offered in Beta 2.5.6 version, therefore it is sold and introduced only through partners with the status of “1C:ERP Centre” or “Candidate to 1C:ERP Centre”.

 

Koderline specialist