VR-Group Plc (hereinafter also "VR" or "contracting entity") is procuring a modern cloud-based financial and management accounting solution (hereinafter “solution”). The procurement also includes implementation and support services for the solution.

VR is looking for a robust, scalable and flexible solution or solutions as well as supplier who will implement the solution and provide solution for continuous support. The scope of the procurement will cover all these aspects.

The new financial and management accounting solution is expected to provide flexibility. The company strategy of growth and efficiency will require changes in the organizational environment including organizational changes as well as mergers and acquisitions. Also, the corporate environment is evolving and requirements for regulatory and compliance reporting are ever changing. VR is ready to review and, for justified reasons, modify its processes and operating models according to the possible standard processes offered by the solution. 

The procured finance solution contains capabilities for at least, but not limited to, following areas:

- general ledger accounting

- accounts payable

- accounts receivable

- service fee/manual invoicing

- fixed asset accounting incl. right-of-use assets

- month/year-end closing

- financial reporting and reporting to authorities

- calculation capabilities for tax reporting covering Finland and Sweden

- cost and profit accounting

- integration capabilities from/to 3rd party systems

- capability to provide data to data platform and/or 3rd party analytics tools

Furthermore, the solution needs to be able to create invoices with or without sales order based on data from external sales systems and send invoicing data forward in electronical format. Finance solution to be procured must be integrated with other finance and business applications as well as supplier invoice management system and to future procurement solution.

We expect the solution to include comprehensive policies and procedures to support operational efficiency and security. It must provide the ability to enforce segregation of duties through standard user access rights, with the flexibility to modify these rights as needed. To further support compliance and control, the solution is expected to maintain strong internal controls by providing the capability to automate key control functions and enable automated restrictions. We also expect the solution to have AI supported functions to support and assist the end user in daily tasks.

Finance and operational planning, consolidation and group reporting is done in separate system. Treasury operations, e.g. hedging, liquidity forecasting and loan management is done in a separate system. Procurement and supplier invoice management is done in a separate system.

The Solution will replace two separate SAP ECC systems currently in use in Finland and Sweden.

The solution needs to cover operations in Finland, Sweden and Latvia, and it must be easily extendable to other countries and potential future business areas, if necessary. In case new VR Group entities would be established, the procured solution must be possible to also take into use in such entities.

VR Group Plc has three main business units, which are Logistics, Long-distance traffic and City traffic. In addition, there is also a unit providing maintenance services (VR FleetCare). VR Group consists of around 15 legal entities in Finland, Sweden and Latvia and has over 9100 employees. This procurement is made for all legal entities under VR Group, i.e. VR-Group Plc and all its group companies. At the commencement of the procurement procedure there are:

• In Finland 12 relevant legal entities. In addition, there is also a maintenance company VR FleetCare Ltd.

• In Sweden VR Sverige AB and VR Snabbtåg Sverige AB, and

• In Latvia VR Services Latvia SIA

The new finance solution is to be implemented simultaneously with the new future procurement solution in a joint implementation project. Both solutions are procured in separate procurement procedures, and they can be of different technologies and provided by different suppliers. Thus, the selected supplier needs to be able to work in a multi-vendor environment. The selected supplier is responsible for the scope of this procurement in the project. The transformation that a new finance solution and procurement solution implementation requires is significant and includes process development, change management and integration of processes and solutions.

The aim is that the procurement process would end in Q1/2026, when the implementation would start. We are planning a phased go live and the goal is to have the first legal entities with fully implemented solution in place in H1/2027 with rollouts following. The new finance solution is to be implemented hand-in-hand with the future procurement solution; with legal entities implementing both solutions simultaneously according to the same schedule. The schedule of the procurement may however change during the procurement procedure. VR is looking for a partner which has capacity to implement the solution in the given target schedule and has expertise in similar implementation programs. The schedule of the procurement may however change during the procurement procedure.

Documentation requirements will be specified during the negotiation phase and the final requirements regarding the whole procurement will be described in the final invitation to tender.

More detailed information regarding the content and schedules of the negotiations will be provided to the selected tenderers. Functional and non-functional requirements as well as system and integration architecture requirements will be provided later during the procurement procedure.