S4 hana Advantages

http://searchsap.techtarget.com/answer/What-business-benefits-does-SAP-S-4HANA-Finance-offer-
CFOs

HANA database platform, is intended to help in this complex work.

Formerly called Simple Finance, it combines two individual components of SAP ERP Central
Component (ECC), namely, Financial Accounting and Managerial Accounting, that simplify
database tables containing important information. The result is a faster financial close, as well as
available analytics and dashboards that stream real-time information for faster decision making.
Indeed, SAP S/4HANA Finance offers the following features that may be of particular interest to
CFOs:

Universal journal. The universal journal entry enables faster period-end reconciliation and period-
end closing. It is able to do so by combining the features and data available in the Financial
Accounting and Managerial Accounting components of SAP ECC in a one-line item and with real-
time data.

Efficient reporting. A simplified database table holds all required financial information and uses the
data processing power of SAP HANA to help ensure real-time and accurate reporting. This feature
also eliminates the need for batch jobs and data replication in other systems, such as business
intelligence.

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SAP S/4HANA ERP platform options expand but raise deployment questions

 E-Handbook

Critical essentials of a SAP HANA big data strategy

Accelerated financial close. With SAP S/4HANA Finance, CFOs and their teams needn't worry
about spending nights and weekends to ensure the timely closing of monthly, quarterly, half-yearly
or annual financial closes. The financial closing process is significantly improved, and the instant
visibility of P&L (profit and loss) ensures business decisions can be made quickly, based on
emerging sales and financial trends.

Integrated business planning. A Microsoft Excel-based interface significantly reduces the entire
financial planning process by transferring financial data such as cost center, profit center, internal
order and P&L planning from Excel into ECC for real-time reporting and to make informed business
decisions.

New asset accounting. The new asset accounting component of SAP S/4HANA Finance makes it
possible to manage parallel valuation of assets using the ledger and accounts approaches. It is no
longer necessary to record depreciation areas. All systems' postings are also now real-time across all
valuations.

Cash management. Replacing the cash and liquidity management component, the cash management
feature manages bank account management, short-term cash position and liquidity forecast reports,
and real-time liquidity planning, thereby allowing for tighter cash management for an optimized
working capital.

Financials reporting. This feature replaces many of SAP's traditional drill-down reports that are not
only notoriously slow, but that also do not dive deep enough to provide in-depth analytics on
important financial key performance indicators.


Jawad Akhtar asks:

What S/4HANA Finance benefits would be most helpful to

your company?
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This was last published in July 2016

That is SAP HANA: what has that got to do with your ERP suite?

Everything. It is well-documented that SAP are betting the house on their new business suite, S/4HANA,
which is designed for the digital economy.

Haroon Arshad, a SAP Solution Lead Finance on an S/4HANA Finance implementation said “With the ability
to retrieve information and data quicker, now it was time to utilise it. This meant the application layer would
also need to change so the full benefits of speed could be harnessed. EHP 7 was the first push from SAP. Code
optimisation, shifting processing logic to the database meant that time was saved as calculations were
performed at the database level. This improved especially large calculations such as month end settlements,
variance calculations and interest calculations.”

Then Came Simple Finance

The first module released was S/4HANA Finance (previously known as Simple Finance/ sFIN). SAP
redesigned data structures and the application layer. New concepts have been introduced, including:

 Universal journal
 Central Finance
 New Asset Accounting
 Cash Management
 COPA
 IBP (Integrated Business Planning)

As a result, all financial information can be sourced from one table, known as ‘ACDOCA.’ According to
Prashant Pimpalekar, SAP S/4HANA Finance, “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.”

This has a direct impact on presentation of data as you have the ability to utilise BI, Fiori and SAP HANA
Live content far greater in S/4HANA Finance than in the previous ECC version.

What Isn’t SAP HANA?

Haroon said “there are myths about SAP HANA which are wrong. Two of them are:

1. It’s just a database/ SAP appliance. It is an entire ecosystem.

2. It’s very expensive. It is true if you look at the upfront costs but it if take into consideration the long term

3. Preparation for implementation: what you need to know

4. It is not going to be a conventional finance implementation. The business and implementers have to
really understand the technical architecture. It’s not just one big table carrying everything, you have to
evaluate every bit of data going into the system for the best presentation.
5. You might be used to building processes and then doing the reporting around that. In S/4 HANA, you
need to evaluate the information needs and then align the processes. The business users will learn that
some things they are used to will go away. Change management is essential as there will be significant
adaptations for business users. Haroon said, “SAP recommends an account-based COPA which is always
reconciled. It has more detailed information in terms of accounts and value fields and there are no
summarizations required. People who have previously worked with costing COPA will find this change
is a little painful but they will gain benefits such as no reconciliation requirements and the ability to
report quickly.”
6. SAP has provided new ways to bring information to account-based COPA, which highlight new concepts
to evaluate what information is required and build processes and reports. “Previously we used to bring
information from COPA. Now we have too much information available” which is good but can be
confusing for the users and business.
Different approaches for different implementations:

1. If you are doing a Greenfield implementation or an upgrade without migration, the challenges exist
mainly in process definition. Haroon added “We had challenges in process definitions as information
processing is challenging. Partly it’s because if a client is using SAP BW or embedded BW, the sourcing
of information as well as data footprint impacts have to be considered.” A clear strategy will be required
on what reports will be used, which reporting platform will be used.
2. The next biggest challenge will be around data migration. If you are coming from a classic General
Ledger (GL), serious thinking is required on New GL and document splitting. If you are coming from a
New GL environment data migration will be a more straight forward process.
3. If you are doing a migration project then a full migration approach needs to be considered. A similar
scenario example would be New GL migration projects when ECC was introduced.

Migration will be carried out in 3 steps :

 Prepare the system

 Execution of migration
 Post migration activities

As a result configuration, transactional data and balances and migration of code and customer enhancements is
carried out.

An additional option, where a client may require running legacy SAP system in parallel to a new release from
SAP, Central Finance is available now to bring legacy data into the new SAP environment. Central Finance
can be used on top of a legacy environment for reporting purposes and can source data from multiple systems
whether they are SAP or non-SAP.

Cash Management is also revamped in S/4HANA Finance and provides new look liquidity forecasting, cash
position, bank management and treasury processes. Additional process design efforts would be required in this
space. “Data input, process transaction remain the same. What changes is the system architecture under the
hood. Ultimately reporting is the improved by miles.”

“From an implementation point of view it would be unwise to implement ECC now. If you upgrading or doing
a new implementation the future is SAP HANA.”

User experience must be considered when migrating. SAP have a number of tools to help give the user a better
experience. The frontend tools that are recommended with S/4HANA Finance are SAP NWBC (NetWeaver
Business Client), Fiori, Lumira and SAP Screen Personas. “I expect classic GUI to be phased out”. NWBC is
used to run standard transactions, Fiori to put that information onto tablets and phones, Lumira helps make
even the ugliest of data sources more pleasing to the eye and easy to understand. Similarly when the business
want to customise to their personal requirements they can use SAP Screen Personas and it can be faster and
easier than developing custom applications.

Conclusion

Haroon said, “From my project experience this exercise would take a lot of effort and thinking. In a nutshell
when handed over to the business they will require additional training on user interface, navigation and
education would be required to understand the new architecture”

To make S/4HANA Finance simple, org structures must be simplified. For example chart of accounts, profit
centres and cost centres need to be redefined. Reporting is now more powerful and we don’t need complex
over engineered organisational structure designs.

From a future perspective once S/4HANA Logistics and S/4HANA HR will be introduced into the full
S/4HANA suite, integration of S/4HANA Finance with other modules will be improved.

Pre Checks

 Go through the release notes

 Understand what is and what is not available (SAP products and solutions)
 Industry solutions, which are restricted
 Country specific solutions, which are restricted
 The future roadmap of SAP

 Cloud or On Premise
 Companies have the options of running Cloud, On Premise, or a mixture of both. Depending on your
organisation, industry or country, your options may be restricted. If you have the choice, Cloud is often
cheaper with fewer maintenance costs. With the growing awareness and appetite for Cloud the space is
getting bigger as companies like Amazon (AWS), Microsoft (Azure) are building regional Clouds
offering more options to the market.
 The why?
 If you are a CIO and have KPIs you want to monitor, you can have a Fiori dashboard based on SAP
HANA Live. This will give you real-time, not close to real-time but “really real-time” data!” SAP
HANA has smashed the difference between OLAP and OLTP. Everything is now on one database.
 “S/4HANA Finance is becoming something very beautiful. It is a lot easier to provide the information to
the business”. ECC was a very mature product and S/4HANA Finance has added on top of a robust
presentation.”
 SAP already have a number of customers up and running with S/4HANA. For example “UNIORG has
better alignment between finance and controlling, faster and easier reporting, and a continuous closing
process.”
 Per SAP Insider, “Convergent is using SAP S/4HANA and SAP S/4HANA Finance to manage rapid,
200% growth. The company went live in just 3 months – and has already reduced days sales outstanding
(DSO) and set up real-time invoicing”.
 Asian Paints — the largest paint company in India, “look forward to delivering new capabilities of real-
time transactions with analytics to the entire organization and reworking the way that we look at our
product line profitability, our geographic profitability, and most importantly, the global consolidation of
accounts on this reimagined platform.”

 The Users

 I have spoken to numerous specialists about S/4HANA Finance. While there are many benefits. One
problem that you will have is not everyone likes change. From the information I have gathered on the
new implementations, one thing stands out: do not forget about the users.

 The future

 To borrow a phrase, “Tomorrow will be nothing like today.” Real-time data means more informed
decisions can be made. The business landscape is changing and this presents opportunities. How will
they be taken?

 Acknowledgement:

 I would like to thank Haroon Arshad, currently the SAP Solution Lead Finance on an S/4HANA
Finance implementation for his contribution.

 https://scn.sap.com/community/simple-finance/blog/2015/10/19/sap-s4-hana-simple-finance-
simplified
  <a href="http://sapinsider cialis without a doctor
prescription.wispubs.com/Assets/Articles/2015/July/IP-digital-transformations-with-SAP-
S4HANA”>http://sapinsider.wispubs.com/Assets/Articles/2015/July/IP-digital-transformations-with-
SAP-S4HANA

 To find out more about Ricki. Why not visit his bio page to learn more. There you will find his up to
date jobs list and social media streams.

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

o 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.