The shutdown of the national payment procedures to the date of 1 February 2014 and that the final transition to the SEPA schemes inexorably closer. SEPA is relevant for all: any company, any authority, any club has to adapt. The changes affect not only the change of account number and bank code IBAN and BIC, but require a high conversion effort in many organizations. The experts of the eBusiness pilot Bavaria have now published a checklist for the introduction of SEPA provides support during the transition. The checklist explains the basics of SEPA first and pointing out the requirements of the organizations of the SEPA changeover project as well as the systems. In most organizations, a variety of systems that must deal with the new data formats is affected.

With a relatively simple collection of IBAN, it is by no means done. In the current specification, the SEPA payments are based on a standardised font without umlauts or special characters. In the intended purpose to the Standing places available are significantly reduced and there are new text key (purpose code), to automatically classify payment operations. In short, the SEPA data format is built completely differently than the previous DTA format. In all divisions, not just accounting, and accounting are affected.

In detail, the checklist setting out the stricter requirements for direct debits. It shows whether and how existing direct debits in SEPA mandates can be reinterpreted and demonstrated the need for a correct management of the mandate. The obligation to announce a direct debit in time advance is new to SEPA. The checklist explains the necessary deadlines and provides also text examples of individual notice. Also change the deadlines for banks. A German direct debit was due, i.e. credited almost immediately after submitting the payment recipient so far run much longer lead times must be observed when the SEPA direct debit partially over a week previously. This whole business models could be affected. For many organizations, much remains to be done. A recent study by the European Central Bank according to Germany lagging in the SEPA implementation is far behind schedule. The consequences of a sleepy or ill-begotten implementation for companies can be fatal: If sales suddenly no longer can be indented, because the Bank must reject direct debits of the company, cash breaks away. Insolvency and thus the insolvency threatening at worst. There are only about 150 working days deadline 1st February 2014. High time to adapt. There is no plan B! The checklist shows in more compact and clearly arranged form, what remains to be done is for companies. SEPA will come? And if the transition period is over, all of the advantages will benefit: A single European payment area with a single regulatory framework, with the same deadlines, maturities and data formats, and above all with the same cost domestic and cross-border payments in euro. While the checklist for the successful transition to contribute. The SEPA checklist can be downloaded for free under sepa-checkliste.pdf. See supplementary documentation, tips, and information on events on the subject of SEPA on more information around the subject areas, E-Commerce and E-finance is available at available.