AspectCTRM Metals/Steel Modules

Professional Business Planning and Control Solution for
Base Metals And Steel Businesses

As the world of steel markets change, you can no longer rely on guesswork, intuition, gut-feel or years of past experience to make optimal trading and supply decisions. Long-term fixed price contracts are being replaced with shorter term contracts priced off spot and average prices from a variety of sources.

With upstream costs impacting downstream prices and the emergence of investment companies speculating in the steel markets, steel prices are now more volatile than ever. With shorter contracts and more volatile pricing, integrated marketing and business management tools are necessary to maintain visibility and control of your financial workflows. AspectCTRM gives you the tools to manage your steel trades and global workflow to understand your positions and exposures from trade capture through to settlement.

Trade Management

AspectCTRM’s Trade Capture Module is the world’s leading solution for real-time decision support analytics and reports. This powerful application utilizes On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) technology to enable ‘slice and dice’ reporting for quick data analysis that allows you to see your P&L reports and trade scenarios from just about any view. Manage hundreds of thousands of transactions from deal entry through back-office settlement, and remove duplicate data entry. This module captures physical and paper transactions; integrates and streams pricing and analytical information; generates dynamic real-time position management and profit and loss calculations; creates instant marked-to-market computations for multiple markets, pricing instruments, products, and much more. Additionally, drastically reduce the time it takes to produce intraday and closing reports to seconds rather than hours or days.

Key Processes Supported Include:

• Comprehensive Deal & Price Capture
• Real Time And Historical Profit & Loss Tracking
• Real-Time Market, Credit Exposure
• Options Tracking
• Greeks Calculations
• Broker Statement Reconciliation & Automatic Import
• Inventory Valuation: Marked-To-Market Storage & In-Transit
• Contract & Credit Management
• Secondary Costs Fully Incorporated
• Confirms & Affirms
• Invoices

CashFlow Management

Today credit and cash flow management are more vital than ever. With tightening margins and reduced credit lines it is vital to optimize working capital and manage cash flows. AspectCTRM allows you to see in real time both costs of purchases and processing, along with forecast sales revenue to provide a full financial picture of your business. This includes all secondary costs.

With the uncertainty in supply and demand, the ability to monitor your business clearly and accurately has never been more important. Changes in any element can be modeled and the effects forecast; for example if a supplier cannot deliver, you can consider alternative sources with the associated secondary costs and thus make intelligent decisions to mitigate the potential negative effects on your P&L. AspectCTRM provides a list of standard secondary cost items, which can be expanded, including: agency, bank charges, brokerage, warehousing, commissions, freight, demurrage,inspection, insurance and lightering.

Scenario Modeling

Companies are changing the way they price products and view exposure. Even back to back contracts with Just-In-Time delivery can produce unplanned and unwanted exposures, particularly if any step in the supply chain fails. High price volatility, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, changes in supply and demand can all undermine the best planned trade scenario.

AspectCTRM helps you understand the risks your company is exposed to today and how to control them within the risk profile of your company. Run multiple scenarios easily and quickly which show the effects of changes in prices, secondary costs, failures in supply or drops in demand. The ability to demonstrate clarity and control of business in this way is becoming a standard expectation of finance houses, creditors and counterparties in this uncertain world.

The emergence of a variety of hedging instruments gives you the option of managing your exposure through simple or complex hedging techniques. AspectCTRM addresses a multitude of risks including: price, volume, volatility, quality, delivery counter party, credit and multi-currency, with a full spectrum of physical and financial tools. As data is entered into AspectCTRM management it is able to perform instant analysis and monitor both individual portfolios and exposure across the organization.

Key Processes Supported Include:

• Strategy Management
• Curve Management
• Stress Testing: “What If” Scenario Analysis
• Market Exposure Valuation
• Market Price Capture
• Value at Risk Reporting
• Greeks Reporting
• Hedge Effectiveness Testing

Financial Operations

The Financial Operations Management Module of AspectCTRM allows you to gain insight into movements, payments and costs associated with operating your business and interacting with counterparties. Easily automate the matching of incoming and outgoing invoices against costs; allocate volume reports with required logistics declarations; create instant visual alerts when problems occur, and more. Access all required tax, transportation, storage fees, costs, bank credit lines, letters of credit and indemnity from a centralized database for accurate settlement.

This component Integrates with SAP, JD Edwards, Oracle and QuickBooks or other accounting packages so all your deal data integrates with your accounting systems giving you the option of generating invoices in AspectCTRM or through your existing accounting system with no manual re-entry of data required .

Administrative functions allow effective management in the back-office to maximize cash flow through detailed reporting and improved financial planning. Create and monitor planned and actualized cash flow reports which show deviations to help you improve capital usage. Set workflow parameters and automatic alerts to align with business processes and provide visibility and audit trails for management reporting.

An enterprise information management strategy is critical in the success of leveraging a CTRM system due to the time sensitive nature and accuracy of changing prices being applied to transactions and portfolios. Most AspectCTRM customers also subscribe to our AspectDSC Market Data & Analytics solution. AspectDSC is the decision support center for traders globally who access futures and spot prices – and chart trends for multiple commodities from sources like NYMEX, ICE, Platts, Dow Jones, CBOT, LME and others. This provides a seamless transfer of market prices used to validate trades and update positions. With the push of a button prices are uploaded from AspectDSC throughout the trading day. Many companies are manually updating this information which causes errors. Also many times corrections are missed when prices are re-released to the market as price corrections. AspectCTRM also integrates with external market intelligence providers, but the advantages of linking AspectDSC to trades as the pricing intelligence of record are unparalleled.

Integrated Metals & Steel Market Pricing Data

An enterprise information management strategy is critical in the success of leveraging a CTRM system due to the time sensitive nature and accuracy of changing prices being applied to transactions and portfolios. Most AES AspectCTRM customers also subscribe to our AspectDSC Market Data & Analytics solution. AspectDSC is the decision support center for traders globally who access futures and spot prices – and chart trends for multiple commodities from sources like NYMEX, ICE, Platts, Dow Jones, CBOT, LME & others. This provides a seamless transfer of market prices used to validate trades and update positions. With the push of a button prices are uploaded from AspectDSC throughout the trading day. Many companies are manually updating this information which causes errors. Also many times corrections are missed when prices are re-released to the market as price corrections. AspectCTRM also integrates with external market intelligence providers, but the advantages of linking AspectDSC to trades as the pricing intelligence of record are unparalleled.