Hi Guys,

It has been some time since my first blog ( SAP Simple Finance blog series-1-Parallel Accou... | SCN ) , I take this second blog to talk about how reporting has changed  / enhanced in S4 HANA. We will take COPA / Profitability analysis as our use case for this example.

With S/4 HANA and OLAP and OLTP in single system, SAP has enabled a lot of simplification in reporting. There are many tools and modes of usage available. Fiori app and HANA live are also a great way to analyze data realtime. With all these options, a Finance functional consultant should be aware of these options and know when to use which option to cater to his clients need. We hope to take the first step in this regard.

We will take the case of Account based COPA for this example as that is the recommended approach by SAP for COPA.

COPA reporting previously

COPA reports were mainly driven from KE30 report painter reports or from BW - BO based reports. These reports were mainly fixed in format and would expect user to be using SAP gui in some form or other. The ability to analyze based on multiple dimensions was not available off the shelf for KE30 reports.

There was also a delay in data replication in case the reports are being accessed from BW system. SAP HANA's first use case to have COPA reporting enabled in HANA system and would allow faster and more detailed analysis of the data.

So whats new in S/4 HANA

S/4 HANA combines OLAP and OLTP system and enables a single source of truth. It has an inbuilt BI and BW content which can be used for reporting purpose.

So we will list out the various options that are available to report out of S/4 HANA, Some of these may require additional licenses , which you need to check.

1. SAP Fiori Apps

If you are using S/4 HANA it makes a lot of sense to use various Fiori apps provided by SAP. There are 3 main apps in the area of Profitability reporting:-

• Net Margin Analysis
• Margin Analysis
• Profit Margin

Lets take example of Margin Analysis

When you run this app, you will have option to analyze margin based on customer, segment, product and for various period per Controlling Area

With this you can create analysis path and it is almost like drilldown facility

So with this app an user can view the profit margin based on product, customer and market segment.

This app requires a fixed cost element groups created for Revenue , Direct Cost, Indirect cost as shown in the figure below This

This has an implication and will fix the Cost element group which can be used and hence reduce user's ability to analyze the based on different GL accounts.

There are other apps offered in the GL catalog or as part of Integrated Business Planning ( we will have couple of blog on IBP later  )

Example- P&L plan actual shown below:-

As seen in the left hand side you can choose the various dimensions like Customer Group , Customer, etc to get the P&L and Margin for the required dimension.

Other such apps are- Profit Center Plan actual,Profit Center actual, Trial balance analysis etc.

These are also handy to analyze profit margin but they will not have the COPA dimension and will have standard dimension only ( unless enhanced )

2. Using Analysis for Office tool

AO is a great tool to analyze data and offers a lot of flexibility in report. There are 3 standard query available to analyze COPA data on it as shown below

With these query you can create any layout and analyze the details per all your COPA dimensions

We can select any field in the excel layout and analyze the figures according to it.

This offers a lot of flexibility and should be used by someone who needs to do a lot of slicing and dicing of COPA data.

3. HANA Live content

SAP HANA live can be used to get a browser based access to data and standard query. These query can provide a set of information in standard format

4. And other options

There are other options which can be used like SAP Lumira ( which also has a Fiori app ) or custom report by Design studio.

Adding one of the screenshot from demo content, But I haven't got a chance to use it so far.

To use Lumira you need to setup the Lumira tool and then enable the Fiori app for Lumira.

All these options so far are in addition to our good old KE30 report and reports out of BW-BO.

So what does all these mean

With greater options comes greater responsibility  ( twisted the dialog a bit )  so the SFIN consultant working in space of Finance should work on gathering enough requirement from Client on the type of tool and use case for the tool

Putting a short table with modes of usage and flexibility of reporting as criteria. This is just a personal View

Hope this blog is useful and will help you guys plan the reporting better and with more depth for your client.

Do let me know your feedback, In the next blog we will talk about IBP and its usage.

PS-Simple Finance is changed to S/4 Finance and hence the change in the blog name

Regards

Rishab

Simple Finance was quite a popular topic during the ASUG Annual Conference in Orlando in May. In particular, many conversations sparked around Simple Finance deployed as Central Journal. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to go into the details and I believe one particular scenario was overlooked and deserves a deeper dive: how Simple Finance, deployed as Central Journal, supports companies in their merger and acquisition processes.

I won't go into the details of Simple Finance and Central Journal, which have already been described in previous articles:

• Implementing SAP Simple Finance
• Deployment Scenarios for Simple Finance as Central Journal (it depends!)

Don't hesitate to use the comments section if some details are still missing.

40,000 transactions a year

There is an increasing number of Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) and the average deal size is also on the rise. Just today, "Goldman Sachs just hit $1 trillion mark for advisory work on merger and acquisition deals" [1]. The Institute of Mergers, Acquisitions, and Alliances (IMAA) estimates that more than 40,000 transactions valued over 4,000 billion USD will be completed worldwide in 2015 only [2].

After the business combination transactions, the first close is critical and needs to be completed at the end of the next quarter, 90 days at most. Any time saved in the process is critical [3]. Under these circumstances, what could you do to speed up the integration of systems, while ensuring an accurate and complete consolidation of the financial information from both the acquiring and acquired entities?

Solving Acquisitions

It is fair to assume that in most of the above described 40,000 transactions, the acquired company already has a financial software in place, from very small like Quickbooks to medium-sized like SAP Business One or large to very large like SAP ERP Business Suite, running all modules for Finance, Production, Sales, Procurement, Human Capital Management, etc.

The least disruptive way to integrate these systems into the landscape of the acquiring company is to let them run independently and only interface the financial transactions for regulatory consolidation purposes. The option to merge information systems can come later. We won't be focusing as much here on the pure financial reporting, which can be solved with specialized solutions like BPC, but rather take a closer look at how companies run their daily transactions and operations, as well as their data warehousing and reporting strategies.

Let's take an example. In the pharmaceutical and life-science industry, mergers and acquisitions have become a popular corporate strategy in the past decades to attain growth and mitigate the costs and risks of research and development. For instance, within a week of getting approval from the FDA after 2 rejections of its sole drug, known as the "female viagra", Sprout Pharmaceuticals received approval and got acquired by Valeant for $1 billion [4].

In this environment, picture a fictitious company called PharmaCorp Unlimited, acquiring SmartPills Inc after the approval of the first ever anti-hangover pill (unfortunately, this is only a hypothetical scenario.) Like most companies, SmartPills already has an ERP system. Within 90 days, all financial information from SmartPills have to be normalized and integrated into PharmaCorp's consolidation system for reporting.

Traditionally, companies would have 2 choices to run their transactions and reports: absorb the acquired company in the existing landscape or maintain the 2 systems separated and use a data warehouse or consolidation solution to deliver the required reports.

Traditional Merger Architecture #1: merge into the acquiring company's ERP

Traditional Merger Architecture #2: maintain 2 systems and consolidate in data warehouse

The trouble with the solution #1 is mostly related to master data: the financial ledgers, customers master data, and products databases need to be aligned. This is preferred when the acquired company is very small and / or is limited to R&D and therefore doesn't really have any products or customers.

Solution #2 is not perfect either, even though it is more frequently used in cases where the acquired company has a significant operation already or when separated operations is favored because of long-term strategy or simply because the cost of integrating would be too high for a limited return. The data integration is achieved through standard data warehousing tools and existing reports might be leveraged. However, this architecture is limited because the data feeds between the ERPs and the reporting systems are far from real time (usually monthly, nightly at best) and is almost always aggregated, which means that the traceability down to the document or line item is lost in the process, as well as opportunities for insights or corrections of transactions.

The best solution in that case would be to architect ERP systems around a Central Journal, as depicted below:

Preferred architecture using Simple Finance as Central Journal in Merger or Acquisition scenario

In this chart, you can easily identify PharmaCorp's environment. There are usually 2 cases here: either the ERP system is already a Simple Finance or S4/HANA platform or it's not. In the first case, all prerequisites are met. In the second, PharmaCorp will have the choice between upgrading their current landscape or setting up a new instance. This is the so-called Central Journal deployment option. In both cases, SAP Landscape Transformation (SLT) will be connected to SmartPills system to import all financial information, in real time and at the most granular transactional level, either from an ERP or a 3rd party platform.

This architecture can be setup quickly and is very effective for the consolidation of data, thus enabling companies to reach a first close faster.

Solving Dispositions and Spin-Offs

The situation that is more problematic is the case of Dispositions or Spin-Offs. We could easily imagine from the above architecture what it would take to resell SmartPills: simply cut system connections and let the new company sail its own wind.

However, what would happen if the technology or drug had been internally developed? What would you do with all their master and transaction data that reside inside the original environment? Let's say PharmaCorp wants to spin-off an amazing diet pill called SuperThin. How would you go about setting its own ERP system?

Traditional Disposition architecture: copy and filter

Most companies would probably perform a full system copy to a new machine and progressively select and remove or disable the information from the previous company. The consequence here is that the Data Warehouse and Reporting environments would also have to be copied, otherwise the new company would loose its complete reporting and may not be able to support some of its processes.

Preferred architecture using Simple Finance as Central Journal in Disposition scenario

What if there was a better option? What if you could easily create a new instance of an SAP Simple Finance system and leverage SLT to filter and only export what you need? By leveraging standard technology and reports, only a few Fiori Apps or reports would have to be transferred if needed. In addition, thanks to the real-time replication, this could be done at any time during the lengthy selling and due-diligence process, thus enabling less time-constrained setup and testing and providing a smoother transition.

Your turn ...

There are as many situations as organizations. Let's use the comment section below to take a snapshot of your own environment and specificities.

How many ERP systems does your company currently run in production? Which architecture is currently in place for transaction and analytical / reporting data? Does it support real-time reporting and line-item analysis?

How frequently does your company merge with, acquire or retire other companies? How do you currently solve these cases? Which advantages and limitations do you see?

Have you considered a Central Journal deployment? Which advantages and limitations do you foresee?

Sources

[1] Business Insider: Goldman Sachs just hit a mythical number for M&A advice

http://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-sachs-just-hit-a-mythical-number-for-ma-advice-2015-8

[2] IMAA: Statistics of Mergers, Acquisitions, and Alliances

http://www.imaa-institute.org/statistics-mergers-acquisitions.html#TopMergersAcquisitions_Worldwide

[3] Division of Corporation Finance: International Financial Reporting and Disclosure Issues

https://www.sec.gov/divisions/corpfin/internatl/issues0501.htm#P309_28448

[4] How a tiny company brought the first 'female Viagra' to market against all odds

http://www.businessinsider.com/sprout-pharmaceuticals-got-approval-and-acquired-by-valeant-all-in-one-week-2015-8#ixzz3jyuP4Vi4

Hi Guys,

After my blog on the S/4 reporting options,( SAP S/4 Finance blog series-2-Reporting options... | SCN ), i take this opportunity to write about SAP IBPF which is one of the pillar of SAP Simple Finance.

There are some excellent blog on IBP given by Arnaud Sergent which you guys should check

Overview , So what is IBP / IBPF -

IBP is the planning tool offered by SAP in Simple Finance and it replaces all the GL based planning. It is also a tool which enables client to use the same planning setup for both BPC and ECC ( read Analysis for Office) based planning. With Sfin 2.0 / 1503 on premise, there are a good number fiori tools which can be used for reporting the plan vs actual data.

It uses AO for the planning layout:- Shown below is cost center planning

Shown below are the various Fiori apps available for reporting of Plan vs Actual for various dimensions

OKK...So how do I use this

During the initial setup of this, one problem was lack of documents online on how to use this tool. I am talking in term of an regular FICO consultant .Since Integrated Planning was available previously though mainly from BW, there are few consultants with this skills.

However fret not , I will try to outline most of the steps and details to set IBP

1) Setup BW client

In the sfin system you need to create a BW client to which the IBP would work. You can use this function module and set the client

2) Once this is done, you need to define the logical system and activation of the BI content. The BI content delivered by SAP provides a great deal of standard content for planning and it is almost enough to meet about 80 % of your planning requirement of client.

Follow the 4 nodes shown below

Shown below is the activation of the BI content. Before you perform this please read the help provided on the node to set the parameters correctly

4) Once this is done, all the excel layout for planning are available, but they need to be activated for use.

To do this, use transaction RSA1 and activate the excel layout. This will enable the AO layout to be available for planning

5) Once the above step is done, we still need to change the query for the planning. This is a minor change and will enable the data comes out correctly

Open the planning query in the "Query Designer" tool and change the default parameters to get data from Master data instead of the posted data.

All the planning query are set with the default parameter as "posted data", which will not allow the initial launch of the planning views

View all the list of query available for planning:-

Change the parameters for the default values, as shown in diagram for the GL Account for the Cost Center planning on period

This should enable IBP for your usage now

Other good resource

There is a central note-0002081400 provided by SAP which has all the information on setup of IBP.

Other excellent document for the IBP and how to change the default content are:-

https://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-59001  Enhancing an Input-Ready Query with a Comments Column https://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-59000  Provisional Master Data

https://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-63225  Process Orchestration with BPF 

https://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-65723   Plan Data Retraction from Standalone BPC to IBPF https://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-54501  Embedded BW

I hope this helps and you guys will be able to explore this good solution of SAP.

Regards

Rishab

With all the buzz around SAP Simple Finance , I decided to enroll for a course with SAP . I thought this blog would give some insights into what I feel about the product today.

My first thought was around the name - Why "Simple" Finance ?

SAP coined the word "Simple" due to the following reasons :

1. As businesses try to map complex scenario's in SAP utilizing the legacy architecture principles ,managing silo's of data spread across the landscape and solution's implemented by companies have also become complicated.

2. Sequentially scheduling lots of Batch Processing jobs tend to delay achieving the end objective.

Hence SAP decided to build their next generation ERP system that could provide "Instant Insight -to-action based on real-time information" which will become the need for a connected enterprise.

How is SAP re-imagining "Simple" architecture ?

SAP is leveraging on 3 things:

1. HANA architecture as the underlying platform by merging OLAP &OLTP

2. Simplification of Application and Underlying DATA Model. Hence no aggregate tables & no indices . Higher Throughput and reduced data footprint.

3. User Experience is a key focus which means similar experience across the paradigm.

What is Value generated on Investment ?

Investment in Simple Finance should be visualized as an opportunity to upgrade technically rather than functionally. It allows you to do so with least disruption to existing processes, and allow building future investment in SAP on the newer platform. (e.g. In generic terms , it is like upgrading from an Audi to  a Ferrari and in either case both get the job done. But to compete you would recommend a Ferrari)

Is the solution ready and stable ?

I would say that the idea is ready and Transformative . As of now there are constraints. We will discuss this in detail in my future blogs.

With all the hype around Simple Finance , many companies are curious about what this product has to offer . They would like to evaluate the pros and cons of moving to Simple Finance and more so from a timing perspective. Is it worth a wait to watch and see until SAP comes up with other products in this suite like Simple Logistics , Simple Front office etc. How to justify the return on investment , what would be the additional challenges , are there any product constraints that will be resolved as part of future builds , so on and so forth.

In a rapidly changing world that is embracing newer Technologies, staying relevant both in terms of System Hardware and System Software has been recognized as the best strategy to approach this problem. Assuming on similar lines that adopting Simple Finance today as the recommended approach, we should consider the following points like - where is my company in the SAP product adoption cycle and how soon do they want to move to Simple Finance ?

The approach differs if the company is on classic G/L and utilizing R/3 capabilities or if the company has made significant investment in migrating to New G/L and more so have adopted HANA. Which Enhancement Pack does the client run their SAP on today ? Such questions must be answered before strategizing the roadmap to Simple Finance.

Everyone agrees to the idea that a Greenfield implementation of Simple Finance is the easiest strategy as we do not carry any historical baggage but to the contrary SAP has done a good job of providing migration tools to minimize efforts and complete the job in a short duration.

Some of the pre-requisites to move to Simple Finance is that SAP system should be upgraded to ECC 6.0 EHP7 . Simple Finance is very similar to New G/L in SAP ERP and leverages on its existing data structures. But it is optimized for SAP HANA i.e. no totals tables, convergence with CO and better reporting . If you are someone moving from classic GL to Simple Finance , following scenario's would not be supported as of today:

1.Implementation of Document Splitting

2. Migration from SPL to New G/L

3. Generate Balance Sheets at Profit Center level

4. New Implementation of Parallel  Accounting & Segment Reporting

5. Implementation of ledger approach for Parallel Accounting

6.Change in Chart of Accounts and conversion of chart of Accounts

7.Inclusion of customer fields

8. Transfer Quantities to New G/L Accounting

As most of the functions listed above were not part of classic G/L , if company wants to implement these they should go through a steady effort of migrating to New G/L and then upgrading to Simple Finance. SAP recommends this approach and also provides tools like the migration cockpit etc. to assist with the conversion.

Some of the main functions that would be impacted by the migration to Simple Finance from Classic G/L are :

1. Foreign Currency Revaluation -

2.Reconciliation between CO and FI is no longer needed

3.No longer a separate COS ledger

4.No consolidation staging ledger would be needed as part of preparations.

One needs to understand that in the evolution of SAP Product life cycle there are differences between classic G/L and New G/L . So do we have differences between New G/L and Simple Finance. There by Simple Finance product adoption strategy should include enough time for testing processes, ensure user authorizations are thoroughly considered. Also the volume of data , Quality of data , implementation team experience and exposure to navigate through the issues should be considered before formulating a detailed timeline. A good way to understand issues that can be encountered would be to do a Proof of Concept. This allows you to get a first hand detailed issue log that is relevant to your data.

SAP Simple Finance is an add-on to ERP powered by SAP HANA and is known as S/4 HANA.S/4HANA is adding HANA capabilities to ECC or R/3 ERP functionality. Hence this allows ERP optimized to run on HANA which is In-memory column based database. SAP provides options for both On-premise installation and cloud based. User Experience can be enhanced using SAP Fiori which is a Graphical user interface.

ABAP is still the language for developers but would need some minor changes in order to write column based optimized code. Custom ABAP code plays often an important role for these main business processes. All details how to implement and benefit from the ABAP SQL Monitor can be found in the attached ABAP SQL Monitor guide. sFin is another name for Simple Finance which includes SAP Cash Management and SAP Integrated Business Planning (IP and BPC and embedded BW) for Finance. Since this is an evolving product not all solutions are yet integrated with Sfin2.0 so evaluate carefully before recommending the move to simple finance.

1. SAP enhancement package 7 for SAP ERP 6.0 is a pre-requisite.
2. Totals tables and application index tables have been removed and replaced with CDS views with the same technical names. Assess impact on your RICEF objects, authorization profiles, and HANA database
3. Migration to New Asset Accounting module is must
4. SAP cash Management and Integrated Planning would require SAP Fiori
5. Account based COPA is activated by default and no impact to Costing based COPA
6. The user experience is likely to change with Universal Journal
7. Secondary cost elements have to be created as GL accounts
8. Important SAP Notes no’s 1925902, 1968568
9. Introduction of Central Finance (CFS)
10. No solution available yet for Data Archived
11. HANA tools do not support hierarchies

Below is the list of table names replaced by their CDS views:

• The line item, totals tables and application index tables of General Ledger Accounting (GLT0, BSIS, BSAS and FAGLFLEXA, FAGLFLEXT, FAGLBSIS, FAGLBSAS)
• The totals tables and application index tables of Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable (KNC1, KNC3, LFC1, LFC3, BSID, BSIK, BSAD, BSAK)
• The line item and totals tables of Controlling (COEP for certain value types, COSP and COSS)
• The material ledger tables for parallel valuations (MLIT, MLPP, MLPPF, MLCR, MLCD, CKMI1, BSIM)
• The Asset Accounting tables (ANEK, ANEP, ANEA, ANLP, ANLC)

SAP does not anticipate any impact to your existing infrastructure when you move to sFin as long as you are performing the Read function. If you are performing a write function into the existing tables they would be impacted.

Do you need to post incoming payments manually? Do you want to post and clear payments in one step? With the Fiori app "Post Incoming Payments" these tasks have become easier than ever.

Normally incoming payments are processed automatically. But situations might arise where it's necessary for you to post an incoming payment manually, for example, when the system doesn't find any matching invoices.

Watch the video:

Posting Incoming Payments Using SAP Fiori - YouTube

Speed your time to close, improve financial and accounting processes, and provide clear visibility into your business

By attending, you’ll learn techniques to:

• Take a more agile, real-time approach to financial management and planning
• Get instant, personalized insight for optimal collaboration with customers, suppliers, banks, and government authorities
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In this Blog let us try to answer the crucial question: Is there a Single Source of Truth with Universal Journal?

I have tested this concept in SAP S/4HANA Finance, On-Premise edition 1.0 on SAP system which will be released to market in Nov 2015.

Interestingly, SAP has changed the name of Simple Finance (again). The name 'SAP S/4HANA Finance' has been introduced in September 2015 and replaces the former name 'SAP Simple Finance'. So you start seeing this new terminology  in my blogs.

SAP Single Source of Truth with Universal Journal

Before we answer this question, let us get a small introduction. The Universal journal entry eliminates the need for the separation made previously between Financial Accounting (FI) and Controlling (CO) (single source of truth). There is a combined FI and CO document linked with a logical document. All the information is recorded in 1 line item table (ACDOCA).

Since financial accounting and managerial accounting are reconciled constantly, there is no longer any need for reconciliation between FI and CO or between FI-GL and FI-AA. Nor is there any need for the real-time integration of these components. The reports in all components use data from the same journal and thus known as Universal journal.

For this functionality to work there is a change in master data, architecture of the tables and also in configuration. Let us see the major changes in these areas. All cost elements (primary and secondary) need to be portrayed as G/L accounts. Consequently, we no longer need to enter the master data for cost elements separately; instead, we only need to create G/L accounts from now on. You will not find any transactions related Cost elements. Below screen-prints between ECC EHP7 for SAP ERP 6.0 and S4HANA ON PREMISE 1.0

Now, let us see what does the one source truth means in SAP system.

I posted a FI document which triggered entries in BSEG, FAGLFLEXA, FAGLFLEXT, COBK, COEJ and COEP tables (and some more BSIS, etc) in ECC. Compare it with a posting in S4HANA ON PREMISE 1.0, all the information is recorded in BKPF (header) and ACDOCA (line items). Thus reducing the foot print drastically.

What will happen to old tables? Updates are no longer made to these old tables. Nevertheless, you can continue to use reports that use data from these old tables. This is because compatibility views for a data request from one of these tables read the data from ACDOCA.

Let us compare the views in these ECC tables with ACDOCA.

FI tables

CO Tables

ACDOCA (Universal Journal)

Now, let us review with one use case by posting FI document to a P&L acct with cost object as profitability analysis. Note this S4HANA ON PREMISE 1.0 system had Account Based COPA active.

There is no separate COPA document visible in the accounting document workflow (refer the screen print), a controlling document is a logical document. Real-time integration is no longer applied. Instead, CO transactions are posted directly as an universal journal entry (ACDOCA). As secondary cost elements are also contained in the chart of accounts, account assignment to a different account is no longer necessary.

Analysis on ACDOCA:

This universal journal can easily be extended with the coding block and adding CO-PA characteristics (refer the below screen print). Also, actual data posted will be stored in ACDOCA with all the Characteristics defined in the operating concern. These standard coding block extensibility and customer fields are added automatically to the universal journal.

Adding to the advantage, reporting based on the ACDOCA data is fast and flexible. Business Intelligence (BI) frontend tools can be used for operational reporting, thus the benefits of BI tools are inherited by the transactional system. Also, each journal entry contains the ledgers to which the business transactions are posted.

The profitability segment are stored in CE4XXXX tables as before.

The below table will give an snap shot of what has changed in COPA area.

Since SAP has redesigned their architecture on account based costing, the tables impacting are also on account based.

Architectural Analysis:

• COEP table will still exist and be written with entries except for Value type 04 and 11. ACDOCA will get updated with 04 and 11 value type.

• Compatibility views for tables are available on all traditional tables. E.g.: V_COEP. This is very helpful; since customers who have build programs with these traditional tables can still use them. Via this view the select is redirected to the new table ACDOCA.

• Access to old table data is still possible with V_tablename_ORI e.g. : V_COEP_ORI, V_FAGLFLEXA_ORI, etc.

• COBK still will be written as before.

• COSP and COSS will all be written directly to ACDOCA.

• New tables COPS_BAK: Primary cost: Planned cost and commitments and COSS_BAK : Secondary cost : Planned cost and commitments, will be updated with entries other than value types 04 and 11.

Conclusion:

Is there a Single Source of Truth with Universal Journal? Friends, if you have reached till here in this blog, then you would be able to answer this question easily. Yes, SAP has delivered what they promised in this area. Further to my explanation above, the universal journal entry has its own currency fields. This brings the currency concepts used in FI and CO closer together. Also, to substantiate this answer, a big advantage of this universal journal is that reconciliation efforts are enforced by design.

There are few things to improve in future from my view. As explained above, the Universal Journals can be extended with customer COPA characteristics this means if a customer has multiple operating concerns then all the characteristics will be included in the journal. This might cause an issue and will increase the fields unnecessarily. Also, the idea of keeping CE4XXXX table is unclear now since there is only one table to navigate and all the characteristics are filled directly in Universal Journal. There is no use of this table anymore. Having said this, still this concept has enormous advantage for customer.

Overall, after a long wait, SAP has successfully completed the task of brining different sources into one. Thus, with S/4HANA Finance/Simple Finance has a Single Source of Truth with Universal Journal.

Since SAP came out with Simple Finance last year, SCN has already seen several good blogs cover the basics of the solution.  Two that have caught my attention talk about the ACDOCA table that is unifying all of the detail line item based tables in standard FICO.

They are:

Is there a Single Source of “Truth” with Universal Journal? by ASHA BASAVANTHAPPA

SAP Simple Finance blog series-1-Parallel Accounting with multiple Ledger & Appendix Ledger Usage  by Rishab Bucha

Asha finishes off his blog with the following statement

Thus, with S/4HANA Finance/Simple Finance has a Single Source of Truth with Universal Journal.

I have two quick comments on this. 

First, this is only true for those modules currently in scope.  For example, parts of the Material Ledger are not yet incorporated into the ACDOCA architecture. 

Secondly...  and more importantly than the earlier nit-pic... ACDOCA does not contain all of the data related to an accounting document.  BKPF is still part of the table architecture.  It is still valid because sFIN still follows SAP's long standing Document Principle of a header and line item table.  BKPF still contains the basics such as the document type, document date, posting date, etc.  However, these fields are also found on ACDOCA as well so it isn't necessary (or, as necessary) to combine the two for total FI reporting.  ACDOCA will suffice on it's own.

We all know how hard it can be to follow news online for a special subject matter like Finance (or any other topic) these days. The problem is not that you wouldn't find the news you are looking for. It's information overload.

The following may not solve all information challenges at once, but I still have some hope and good news for you today for all SAP Finance friends:

My SAP colleagues and I have worked hard over this year to bring new life to some of our key SAP Finance social media channels. Follow these channels online and you will get some of the latest and greatest content and news around Finance, which will support you and your business on your finance transformation journey.

Join the SAP Finance conversation online

	SAP Finance on Twitter
	SAP Finance on Facebook
	SAP Finance on LinkedIn (an extension of SAP’ company page)
	SAP Finance playlist on YouTube (part of the SAP YouTube channel)
	SAP Finance blogs on SAP Business Trends, Digitalist Magazine, SAP Analytics

Not a one-way street

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SAP’s Financial & Controlling module (one of the core modules from SAP, since its R/2 days) is a pretty mature offering with awesome breadth and depth. But over the years, the world has changed a lot.  New financial regulations across the globe are necessitating change. There is also a need for lightning fast financials reporting.  The world of data is changing swiftly and financial operations must deal with enormous amounts of data processed at higher speeds and make sense of it.

Considering this and to leverage its high-performance HANA platform, SAP has taken its Financial & Controlling module to the next level by launching “Simple Finance” (short form- SFIN) with SAP Business suite 4 HANA (i.e. S/4 HANA) ). And while doing it, SAP not only overcame some of the short-comings (of traditional FICO module) but also packed it with some powerful new features.

The single source of truth–

In Simple Finance, SAP has introduced a new table named ‘ACDOCA’ for the Universal Journal. It allows bringing data from General Ledger, Asset Accounting, Material Ledger, Controlling (Including coding block & CO-PA) into one journal. By this one master stroke, SAP has overcome the need of reconciliation (FI & CO), has overcome the need of settlement(All cost elements, including secondary cost elements are G/L accounts) & has done away with index tables /aggregate tables. 

• Index tables removed – BSIS, BSAS, BSID, BSAD, BSIK, BSAK, BSIM, FAGLBSIS, FAGLBSAS
• Aggregate tables removed – GLT0, GLT3, FAGLFEXT, KNC1, LFC1,KNC3, KFC3, COSS, COSIP
• Tables removed  – FAGLFLEXA, COEP, ANEP, ANEA, ANLC, ANLP, MLIT
• Material Ledger - Contents of tables MLIT, MLPP, MLPPF, MLCR, MLCRF, MLCD, CKMI1, BSIM are now stored in ACDOCA. MLHD data is stored in BKPF
• Focus will be on Account-based CO-PA

• The Journal Entry consists of a header (stored in table BKPF) & items (stored in table ACDOCA).  (Table BSEG continues for items. But it stores items coming from classical FI postings like FB01, FB50, FB60, FB70 etc.)

• ACDOCA provides 6 digit field for document line item numbering & 23 characters for currency field. It provides multi-GAAP capability through “RLDNR” dimension (Ledger in GL accounting)

• Profit Center Accounting (PCA), Sp. Purpose Ledger (FI-SL), & Consolidation (EC-CS) remain untouched & work as before. Components built with FI-SL technology like Joint Venture accounting & Public sector are untouched & work as before. Cost-based CO-PA works as before.

The ACDOCA design provides the highest level of granularity to users. It enables trial balance with many drill-downs & also provides multi-dimensional income statement.

Line item based analytics –

SFIN allows Processing and analysis of data based on line items rather than pre-configured totals, so that you can achieve the highest level of granularity available. Moreover, you do not have to set up aggregates before evaluating the data, which limits the type of analysis you can do and the speed of the analysis. With SAP HANA, you can perform your analysis quickly. This covers all the dimensions that you have in your line items.

Covering each and every topic of Simple Finance is not feasible, but in nutshell, it consists of following sub-modules:

• General Ledger
• Account Receivable
• Accounts Payable
• New Asset Accounting
• Management accounting (including Material Ledger & Profitability Analysis)
• Cash Management
• Integrated Business Planning for Finance (IBPF)

User Experience - 

Fiori is SAP’s user experience paradigm. It allows role-based queries (with drill-down & slice-and-dice capabilities with graphical representation) on all devices (work-station, tab, mobile phones). Launch pad designer allows user personalization. SFIN comes with some ready-to-use queries which work without any configuration. One can add more (customized) queries/tiles with minimal efforts.

Reporting capabilities -

Customers can use new dashboards based on Fiori layout options, SAP Smart Business Apps, SAP Analysis for Office and SAP HANA Live and new sFIN HANA Live content.

Depending on the requirements, reports can be built in HANA Studio, or also via the embedded BW. It depends on customer requirements for how much standard content should be (re-)used versus custom built.

Simple Finance users will experience much greater execution speeds, in some cases even as high as 1000x. It removes bottlenecks from closing process, eliminates time and efforts needed for reconciliation. The new architecture also eliminates data redundancy & thereby reducing the data foot-print drastically. The new user interface tools such as Fiori, Office Analysis Excel will revolutionize the user experience.  Instant improvement were observed in operational performances as well as closing processes which were seen to be 5X faster than before.

Simple Finance allows SAP customers to run trial Balance sheets, P&L's and Cash flow analysis any time of the day and any day of the quarter. The granular design enables trial balance with many drill-downs & also provides multi-dimensional income statement.

Migration–

Organizations on SAP (with traditional SAP FICO module) can migrate to Simple Finance (SFIN 2.0) in following way –

Those who are on New GL can directly migrate to SFIN.

Those who are on classical GL, need to first migrate to New GL (bare-minimum functionality, no need to have document splitting or parallel ledger) & then move to SFIN.

This migration happens purely through SPRO & doesn’t need any technical (i.e. ABAP/4) help.

This migration is not to be confused with the one using “Central Finance component” (which helps in moving data from distributed ERP landscape and even from non-SAP ERP, using SLT – SAP Landscape Transformation)

Deployment options -

Currently, SFIN is available as SFIN 2.0 On-premise edition (1503) only. But as SAP is chalking out its Cloud strategy aggressively, it is only a matter of time before its availability in Cloud edition.

Important SAP Notes you may want to refer for more details -

• SAP Note 2119188 Release scope including industry solution status
• SAP Note 2103558   Availability/Compatibility of SAP add-ons
• SAP Note 1946054 - SAP Simple Finance, on premise edition: Transaction codes and programs - Comparison to EHP7 for SAP ERP 6.0
• SAP Note 2131643 - Replacement of SAP Simple Finance add-on 1.0 reporting content with SAP Simple Finance, on premise edition 1503

Conclusion –

SFIN offers absolutely great value, for those customers who are going directly for it as part of their SAP implementation (i.e. case of green-field implementation), as well as for those who already are running on SAP & move to SFIN.

My colleague, Judy Cubiss, published a blog post which recaps the SAP Financical Excellence Forum, held recently with over 160 SAP customers, partners and SAP employees in Newtown Square, PA.

I recommend reading about how customers like Floridy Crystals or New York Life are adopting SAP Simple Finance (SAP S/4HANA Finance).

What a shame I missed that wine tasting from Rioja ...

Read the full recap:

Highlights of the SAP Finance Excellence Forum - October 13/14th

     It is true that experience matters but it is also true a simple page with your name on it will always take you and set you apart from the rest. They say knowledge is Power and I can't agree more but with that if you also have a source to prove your abilities and potential that sets you apart as well. I have been always busy with my day to day work activities and with the experience I have gained so far really didn't think of getting Certified. One day out of the blue I was like it is about time to get my Certification. So I did. It was not really a 1 to 3 steps to get register for certification had to do some research and phone calls to make sure I was moving towards the right direction. There it was and the time came to set up the appointment and make the big $500 payment directly through SAP to get the voucher id number. Once you get the voucher id number then you can only register with Pearson Vue to set a date and time. By the way I had no clue on this process until I registered so readers hopefully this info helps  you when you are ready to take that next step of your career. I would definitely say it will boosts your confidence level and it is pretty attractive on your resume and sets you apart from the rest. Also your hiring manager or client will have more confidence and trust in you to get there project executed. Now don't wait any longer to get Certified if you have the time and experience go ahead and get certified.

Best Regards,
Syrus Hossain

Everybody knows the products of Coca-Cola, but few know that SAP Finance Solutions play a key role in their global services operations:

Coca-Cola Hellenic serves 589 million people in 28 countries. They are one of the largest bottlers and vendors of The Coca-Cola Company’s products in the world, and the largest based in Europe.

We had the opportunity to talk with Nikos Vlassakidis about their shared service organization and their approach of implementing global business services.

One of the most important criteria to select the right solution was to provide a technology to the multi-functional Business Service Organization to effectively and efficiently manage the existing Finance and HR processes in scope. The utilized technology should be able to complement and connect to the existing infrastructure.

The main scope was on managing different methods of interactions (calls, email, self-service requests) with their Business Service Organization customers (eg. Employees, vendors or internal business partners). Managing the service execution and service delivery with monitoring and measuring the performance of BSO as well on country level to match them against their KPI’s and Service Partnership agreements to increase the quality of service was important to them.

But now, after implementation and successfully running the BSO processes, let’s get the information first hand from Nikos Vlassakidis:

[In case the embedded video will not work, please click here]

Every summer the community of Shared Service leaders gathers in one of the European capitals to discuss Shared Services.

Shared Service proponents and leading analysts discuss and shape trends in Shared Service Delivery.

Besides talking with our great customers, we had the opportunity to talk as well with some thought leaders in the Shared Services space and hear from them the newest trends.

See here our report with the most important facts about Shared Service Trends:

[In case the embedded video will not work, please click here]

To learn even more about finance solutions, visit

  www.sap.com/finance

Every journey has a purpose. And even a Journey of a thousand miles - as Chinese philosopher Laozi stated more than 2000 years ago –, starts with a single step. Some journeys are long with many winding turns, some are even dangerous. Others are fairly easy and require almost no time at all. Some journeys are a path to freedom, to health, to wisdom or to prosperity, others just to the store around the corner. Sometimes a journey ends in a big revelation, sometimes what is found differs greatly from what was set out to find.

In the classic children’s novel “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum, four travelers start a journey for their most precious desires – the tin woodman (who is looking for a heart), the cowardly lion (who desires courage), the scarecrow (in need for a brain) and the protagonist Dorothy – who just wants to find her way back home.

After an eventful trip down the yellow brick road they get to Oz, where they hope to get everything they want – but it turns out that they didn’t need it, they’ve had all of that the entire time without even realizing it. The lion never had been cowardly but the most courageous of his kind. The Scarecrow was among the smartest travelers and the tin woodman had had a big heart the entire way. And because they possessed those qualities all along they succeeded in the way they did. Probably they even needed all of those qualities – the courage, the heart, intelligence and the will to get somewhere - just to initially decide to start their journey.

For a lot of our finance customers, the initial problem is quite similar. Even though they know that the journey is worth taking and that there are huge benefits waiting for them at the finish line, the journey itself remains scary. Many customers at this point are beginning to understand the impact and the benefits of real-time information. They appreciate the ability to slice and dice information as they want, the possibility to make changes and instantly seeing those being reflected in the end result. Orchestrating an analysis with intuitive drag and drop techniques, with instant results allowing them too see things from a new perspective. And all of that without bothering IT and letting them put everything together in a report. Some customers are literally amazed by the improvements we have made, but they’re still held back by the journey itself. They ask themselves questions like: How am I even going to get there? How long is it going to take? How much is it going to cost?

So even though they are aware of how they could leverage real-time information and how this is game changing for their daily business, there is a huge gap between them and S/4HANA. To some customers, the road seems endless, one yellow brick after another. And the cold hard truth is –  of course it is long and not always easy, no question about that.

Until that moment in a customer meeting, it’s mostly about business benefits, Real-Time reports, user interfaces etc. But once the conversation goes beyond the wow factor and things get a little more real – there is a risk of losing the customer in fear of a huge project that will possibly diminish their productivity for months and months to come. And if that happens, there is nothing more to be gained from that customer meeting.

But there is a way out. Because there is a way of giving the customer S/4HANA Finance beneftis from day one.With "central finance" the customer can be accompanied on his journey by the heart, brain and bravery of HANA his entire way. While data of legacy systems is replicated in a central S/4HANA Instance, people can still work in their legacy systems on a transactional level - while from above, others can already benefit from real-time information in driving reports or simulations. While this is not a long-term solution and in the end all processes will be migrated, the customer has the benefits instantly.

A presales colleague from Australia recently shared with me that – if and when the conversation with his customers gets to that point, to these somewhat frightening questions like “how long is this going to take” – he does not leave the table without telling them about "central finance" and it gets them pretty excited. Recently, in a proof of concept they did for an Australian bank, they showed that this scenario was possible even for the live replication of three legacy systems. So not only is the journey for S/4HANA Finance worth taking, customers can get the benefits of HANA to guide them on their way. Maybe this changes the journey itself for some customers, maybe this is what guarantees success for others. For some of them it could even be the heart, brains and bravery they need to decide to start their journey to S/4HANA in the first place.

But what about those of us who don’t want all of that? Some people neither want a new heart or a brain, nor bravery. Some just want to find their way back home.

Well, that’s okay as well. Real-time information might just be what they need to head home early.

Central SCN landing page for Central Finance topic (content built-out forthcoming)

Send questions / topic suggestions to  carsten.hilker@sap.com  (Solution owner)

Topics covered

• What is Central Finance ?

• How does it work ?

• Why would you do it ?

• What does it do (functions & features)

• What do you get out of it (business value, value proposition) ?

• Who is it for ?
  
  
• How is it used (use cases) ?

• Who is using it (typical customer profile) ?

• How to I deploy (pilots, roll-outs) ?
  
  
• How long does it take to implement ?

Key questions

• Can I replicate from non-SAP ERP systems as well ? ... YES - you can replicate from SAP and non-SAP systems
  
  
• Do I have to harmonize data before the roll-out ? ... NO -  you can start as-is, and introduce changes over time
  
  
• Could I use a financial data warehouse approach instead ? ... NO - would require custom-built from scratch (why would you ...)

• Can I move existing systems (sunset, consolidate) onto the Central Finance instance ? ... YES - we call it "lift and shift"

.

Hi Guys,

It has been some time since I wrote blogs, and today I want to talk about the SAP S/4 1511 release. This is one of the biggest release this year of SAP and brings in a lot of features and functionality. It has S/4 Logistics solution and lots of simplifications in area of Material management.  It is also a next release of S/4 Finance too (more about that later in blog)

Changes/ Simplifications in 1511

There have been a few blogs written on features and solution of 1511 release.

A Good place to look at all the simplification would be:-

https://uacp.hana.ondemand.com/http.svc/rc/PRODUCTION/pdfa4322f56824ae221e10000000a4450e5/1511%20000/en-US/SIMPL_OP1511.…

https://uacp.hana.ondemand.com/http.svc/rc/PRODUCTION/pdfaabf2756696fc44ee10000000a44147b/1511%20000/en-US/START_OP1511.…

Is 1511 a version of Sfin?

As shown above the first path is the sequence of SAP Simple Finance / S/4 Finance 1503 releases and the second box shows the S/4 Logistics solution which is part of the whole 1511 release.

In the current release of S/4 Finance 1511, there are a lot of product features being made available. This has simplification in area of MM , PS , MRP, Production planning , basically S/4 Logistics solution.

However this is also a release of SAP Simple Finance.

This release is SAP S/4 Finance 1503 SP03 . This release is combined with AP_APPL 617 for Logistics and Netweaver stack for SAP_BASIS  740.

On the path to take for migration, please visit this excellent blog:-

The road to SAP S/4HANA: the different transiti... | SCN

SAP say's you can still upgrade just the Finance stack to 1511 and still use old Logistics / no S/4 Logistics solution.

So depending on your client scenario you can go on one of the route suggested in the above blog.

However let me focus mainly on Finance area and the changes in it.

Change in Finance area in 1511 wrt 1503 Sp01

Following were key changes in the Finance area:-

• A lot of simplification is done in Asset accounting area and the data footprint reduced. Most of the Asset data is posted to ACDOCA table now
• Material Ledger activation is mandatory now. This is due to change in the data design for inventory valuation. ML activation is mandatory but actual costing is not.
• SD-Revenue recognition solution is not supported and all customer have to move to SAP Revenue Accounting & Reporting solution which is in S/4 HANA. This will involve some migration effort and a good analysis is to be done on open orders present.
• Changes in Fiori Apps:-
  • Some apps like Margin analysis is removed and is no longer available with 1511
  • Some new apps and factsheets added e.g. Fixed Asset Factsheet, Analytical apps on Functional area , P&L , Projects ( related to IBP)

Hope this helps,

Regards

Rishab

Hi Guys,

It is the holiday season and want to sign off with one last blog

In my last attempt to outline the changes of 1511 in blog:-S/4 Finance- Blog series-5- 1511 and its details

I was more focused on overall changes in S/4 HANA and some bit on Financial related changes. In this blog, I will try to delve more into the changes and features of 1511 version or SP03 of 1503 S/4 HANA Finance.

Migration & getting on 1511

With 1511, there are some significant changes like ML becomes mandatory & Credit management ( AR) is removed and FSCM is the way to go.

These are also reflected migration steps and flow

So your steps and prep steps in 1503 would look like:-

and the next version (1511) will be:-

Note the highlighted steps which has come as part of 1511. This means that migration to 1511 will have these additional steps to be performed.

I will cover migration separately as that is a vast topic.

Implication- ML & Credit management changes will mean that any client migration to 1511 should review and have a Credit management & Inventory valuation design in place. This is especially for client going by upgrade route from 6.0X to 1511

Other changes & features

Changes in IBP & Planning solution

In the 1511 release, SAP has brought about a new feature of simulation for IBP. This is a wonderful addition and make the IBP solution more robust.

So with this you can perform simulation and create various planning scenarios.

New Fiori apps to make life easier

SAP has come out with a few more very interesting Fiori apps inn 1511 release.

Asset master list

This will get you the report on various type of asset and their current status. You can drill down and evaluate more details

Check Management

This is a very nice area where SAP focused on providing Fiori apps. This should help to better manage checks and flow of money

Here you have an apps which simulate your checkbook and provide you usage details

This is a Fiori apps for our check register and will provide details on status of the checks

Other apps

-Carry forward ( to analyze the balance carry forward & execute the process)

-Post Currency adjustments manually

-Post taxes manually

-Audit Journal-for Audit related reporting

Changes in Credit Management

FSCM-Credit management is the way to go with 1511, with AR-Credit not being supported. Hence you need to perform a initial migration.

There are also changes in technical architecture & solution offering.

Changes in Inventory valuation

SAP will be using new table structure for inventory valuation and this mandates usage of Material Ledger ( though not actual costing).

Availability & Localisation

Below given chart shows the availability of 1511 solution & current set of localisation that are available

With this I come to an end to this blog,

Hope you guys found it useful, do provide your feedback in comments & messages,

Once again have a good break and wish you a wonderful new year.

Regards

Rishab

Hi All,

Happy New Year 2016 to All.

Can any one please explain Pre-requisites and Step-by-Step Migration process to SAP S/4 HANA (Simple Finance)?

Presently we are using ECC 6.0 EHP 5 Version.

Sattaiah Gundu