Stadtwerke Düsseldorf unifies cash application, payments & treasury
Connecting and automating finance and treasury landscape with Serrala’s SAP Embedded Solutions.
- Industry: Municipal utilities
- Revenue: €3bn+
- Employees: 3,000+
Business need
Business need
As one of Germany’s leading municipal utilities providers, supplying electricity, gas, heating, drinking water, and waste incineration services, Stadtwerke Düsseldorf has experienced significant changes in finance and treasury operations over the past 20 years, particularly in payment processing.
Finance teams managed a wide range of complex processes, including payment matching, bank statement processing, and liquidity management. Many of these activities required extensive manual effort, such as maintaining customer information in Excel alongside SAP. Disconnected finance and information systems increased workloads and affected the accuracy of customer payment data.
The objectives for the optimization initiative were clear:
- Enhance process efficiency and automation across financial processes
- Reduce manual activities, data entry errors, and operational workload
- Increase payment allocation and matching rates
- Improve information quality and short-term liquidity planning
Having partnered with Serrala on previous projects, the company set out to build on existing automation successes and close remaining process gaps.
Solution implemented
Solution implemented
The collaboration between Stadtwerke Düsseldorf and Serrala has developed over many years. What started with Cash Application SAP Embedded gradually expanded into a broader automation initiative across payment and treasury processes.
The initial implementation focused on developing a customized posting and reconciliation logic as well as improving the incoming payment matching rate. Over time, the company identified additional opportunities to improve efficiency by closing the gaps between previously disconnected systems.
Our customer ultimately connected its payment processes directly with SAP and integrated three Serrala solutions into a unified automation environment:
- Cash Application SAP Embedded for automated bank statement processing and payment matching. Rather than relying solely on customer numbers, the process uses additional information to validate allocations and help prevent incorrect postings.
- Payments SAP Embedded for reliable payment processing and accurate information extraction directly within SAP.
- Treasury and Liquidity Management SAP Embedded to support liquidity management and improve financial visibility.
The connected modules share information across processes, reducing manual data entry, minimizing errors, and improving process consistency.
Results achieved
Results achieved
Through the implementation and ongoing optimization of Serrala solutions, Stadtwerke Düsseldorf achieved significant improvements across its unified process landscape for cash application, payments, and treasury.
Key results include:
- Incoming payment matching rate exceeding 90%
- Fewer data entry errors and reduced manual effort through direct SAP integration
- Improved efficiency in payment processing, scheduling, and verification
- Increased automation rates, processing speed, and transparency across financial operations
- More precise short-term liquidity planning
The automation rates achieved with the new integrated solution landscape enabled our customer to reduce operational workloads and free up employees for higher-value activities.
A key lesson from the project is that automation is an ongoing journey rather than a one-time initiative. Today, the company uses Serrala solutions to further optimize and automate its financial processes.
Client testimonials
“Serrala is a reliable partner – one that has been dependable for many years – with whom we can continue to develop our financial operations.”
