SAP Community - FIN (Finance)

New Training Portfolio for Group Reporting

2024-01-03T01:32:21+01:00

The Group Reporting training portfolio for SAP S/4HANA has been rebuilt and is now natively designed for self-paced learning but also available as classroom training. This is an important step in producing digital content for Finance in line with the latest course design principles, as already outlined in my previous blog ‘New Trainings to Achieve Business Process Skills for SAP S/4HANA’.

All learners from SAP customers and partners and who want to achieve skills on SAP Group Reporting are recommended to use the following learning journeys:

In troducing SAP S/4HANA Cloud for group reporting (foundational level / business user)

Performing Consolidation with SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Group Reporting (intermediate level / business user and consultant)

Implementing SAP S/4HANA Cloud for group reporting (intermediate level / business user and consultant)
Automating Consolidation of Investments in SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Group Reporting (intermediate level / consultant)

A fifth learning journey will focus on Consolidation of Investments in SAP S/4HANA Finance for Group Reporting (activity-based) and is currently in production. The new learning journeys replaced the traditional course portfolio (S4F94, S4F95, S4F96). As a result, the associate certification for SAP Group Reporting has been discontinued.

While foundational learning journeys focus on business process skills and mainly address business users, intermediate level learning journeys also include configuration knowledge and are therefore targeted at both, business users and consultants.

All learning journeys include a summary of all related delivery formats:

A Record of Achievement is available for all foundational and intermediate business user learning journeys and will be issued to a learner once a significant part of all questions included at the end of each chapter are answered correctly.

Some learning journeys offer the opportunity to book a system for Hands-on Practice. Learners are encouraged to use exercises provided, which are considered valuable practice regardless of whether they plan to implement SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Group Reporting or SAP S/4HANA Finance for Group Reporting (the on-premise or private cloud system environment). Access to training systems requires a valid subscription to SAP Learning Hub, professional edition or solution edition for Finance and a booking of the respective Learning System access.

The SAP Learning Class part takes you to related classroom offering and all scheduled classroom events.

The links to all relevant and future learning journeys for SAP Group Reporting are summarized on the following product pages:

Landing page for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Financial Management

Landing Page for SAP S/4HANA, Financial Consolidation

The classic SAP Group Reporting learning journey on help.sap.com and SAP Learning Hub has been adjusted so that the new recommended learning paths are reflected accordingly.

Our next step will be to produce the next and the last Group Reporting learning journey.

Please watch out for further announcements!

Best regards, Doris Lindauer

Analyse GR/IR into Current Asset or Current Liability

2024-01-04T19:44:51+01:00

Introduction

The document has been prepared from the front end perspective of SAP. The purpose of the blog is to solve the confusing situation of the business process where goods are received (MIGO) without the invoice. Also, where invoices are issued in advance (MIRO) before the goods were received. When MIGO occurs, document (WE) is recorded whereas in the case of MIRO, (RE) is recorded.

The accounting treatment of WE is of an asset, whereas for RE is of liability. Both the document types are cleared against each other and when respective WE does not meet with RE or vice versa, liability remains outstanding and asset remains outstated. The balances are then transferred to GR/IR clearing account but over there segregation of WE and RE is not possible. Therefore, in order to categorise it, we need to analyse it.

Step by Step Instructions

The first step is to view the G/L Line Item Display - FBL3N or FAGLL03.

2. Enter the G/L account number in the respective field.

3. I have entered the range of all the GR/IR accounts present in the chart of account to check the open items on the key date.

4. Afterwards, see all the open items along with the balances.

5. These are the items which will be cleared against the issued invoices (RE) via automatic clearing (F.13)

6. Enter the parameters for automatic clearing. Mention the respective G/L to clear it alongwith the GR/IR check.

7. Execute it in the test run to look for any errors. It will show the detailed list of open and cleared items.

8. Then run F.13 without test run and see the same results.

Now, comes the time to Analyze GR/IR Clearing Accounts and Display Acquisition Tax. Execute F.19.

9. Enter the parameters and perform postings.

10. Perform the postings through batch input session.

11. The results will be displayed here. Check and then proceed. Only those GR and IR will be displayed here which do not have corresponding document type posted against each other.

12. Go to SM35 and process the batch input session.

13. After selecting the session, process it.

Any errors will be displayed here if any.

14. After the run, document will be generated by the system which can be viewed in FB03.

15. Check the relevant entries.

The entire balance will be transferred and reversed on the next day. GR/IR not yet invoiced account will be debited and GR/IR adjustment account will be credited.

Conclusion

To practice, knowledge of accounting principles and treatments is essential. The open invoices and the goods received document recorded stand alone will be classified according to its nature of account. The functionality of system will assist the user in the way that it will be matched automatically, the user won't have to find it manually. The tiresome job will be avoided.

Do let me know how useful you have found the blog in the comments below.

Lines with Zero Amount in Bank Statement

2024-01-07T15:36:10+01:00

Dear SAPers!

Here is another post in my series that explains the issue of bank statement lines with zero amount. Normally most banks do not provide bank statements with zero value lines. In fact, I did not even encounter such a case in my first 8 years in practice. I’ll not try to provide an explanation why there are lines of this kind in bank statement. There are many business cases and if you have any specific queries, it would be best to discuss them with your bank representative.

The purpose of this post is to explain how to deal with this case. Here is an example of such a line in bank statement (MT940 format):

When you upload a bank statement with such a line, you’ll encounter an error message F5078 “Posting without line items is not allowed”. The screenshot below shows this error message in the posting log in transaction FF_5.

The BTC code 809 from this line item is not assigned to any posting rule. Therefore, a default posting rule UA-Z for outgoing payments is assigned to it. This posting rule has two posting areas, but no posting will be generated during the upload. Zero value items will status in unprocessed status. If you’re using the transaction code FEB_BSPROC for post-processing, you can select such line and mark it manually as “Completed”:

However, this will mark the item as “Completed” only in the second posting area. The first i.e. bank posting area will stay open:

There is a small workaround to resolve this problem. You must configure message control for error message FV781. You can do that in transaction OBA5 or maintenance view V_T100C. Launch the transaction and provide application area FV:

Provide error message and set the control indicator to “S” or “I”. Save the changes.

Next time you’ll upload bank statement, you’ll not encounter any error messages and line items with zero value will be automatically marked as completed:

If the configuration is not working for you, please consult a KBA-note 2661523 “EBS line items with zero amount”. It contains useful references to other OSS-notes, which might be helpful in your analysis.

Regards,

Bohdan

Seize our special offer until Feb 29: SAP Financials Forum (WENFIT), April 22-24 2024, virtual event

2024-01-09T12:24:51+01:00

Following the great success of the first global SAP Financials Forum (WENFIT) in 2023, we are thrilled to announce its return for another run in 2024! Discover the latest developments in SAP Finance topics over three half days from April 22-24, 2024, choosing the most convenient time slot for your schedule!

Watch this one-minute video showcasing the upcoming highlights:

Take the opportunity to create your individual agenda from the planned content (see preliminary agenda) and benefit from several parallel presentation tracks:  

Expert talks: Our 17+ presentations are designed as dedicated training sessions including theoretical introductions, system demonstrations, and Q&A sessions. Explore a wide range of topic areas including Finance & Management Accounting, Cash & Treasury Management, Generative AI, Sustainability, Reporting, and much more.

Meet the Expert session: Following the lectures, you have the opportunity to discuss and clarify your specific questions with SAP experts.

Customer insights: Through concise presentations, hear about real-life business cases where renowned customers have successfully managed migration projects in SAP S/4HANA Finance.

Basic hands-on session: Get access to a real SAP S/4HANA system! After a theoretical introduction by an SAP expert, you will have the opportunity to perform exercises on selected topics in a live SAP system and discuss any questions you may have afterwards. Secure one of the limited available spots!

Don’t miss our SPECIAL OFFER:

Sign up for the event by February 29, 2024, and you will have the opportunity to participate in a free and exclusive virtual tour of SAP’s Industry 4.0 Pop-Up Factory.

Are you interested in a quick overview of the event?

Watch the recording of our webinar from December 8th, where we present the key points in a compact form: Find the recording here.

Check out this blog post with pictures from the last event in April 2023.

Info at a glance

✏️Virtual, half-day SAP Financials Forum (WENFIT), April 22-24: Registration & Preliminary agenda
✏️Recording of our webinar from Dec 8th: Recording
❓If you have any comments or questions, please reach out to us.

We look forward to welcoming you to the SAP Financials Forum 2024!

Welcome to SAP Financials Forum 2024!

2024-01-09T12:35:38+01:00

This training provides a great opportunity to maintain and increase awareness and general knowledge on many different topics in and around Finance. It helps learners to stay up-to date and to build and maintain their personal network with other learners. The following events are scheduled:

March 18-20 2024
hybrid: on site in Walldorf or virtual, three days, in German, registration here (WDEFIT), see 1-minute-trailer WDEFIT.

April 22-24 2024
virtual, half-day event /different options, accessible worldwide, in English, registration here (WENFIT), see 1-minute trailer WENFIT.

Best regards, Doris Lindauer
Education Portfolio Manager LOB Finance

Live Sessions for Finance

2024-01-11T15:32:08+01:00

The new learning offering for Finance on learning.sap.com is now complemented by regular overview and deep dive live sessions on selected topics. I hope to see you in our sessions!

These are the next sessions for Finance for the upcoming weeks (until Q2, 2024):

📆 Mar 13th	Efficiently set up SAP Advanced Financial Closing in a few steps	link to session
📆 Mar 19th	Payables Management	link to session
📆 Mar 21st	Settlement of Controlling Objects	link to session
📆 Mar 21st	Customizing Fiori Applications with In-App Key User Extensibility	link to session
📆 Mar 22nd	Payables Invoice Processing	link to session
📆 Mar 27th	SAP Central Business Configuration in SAP S/4HANA Cloud	link to session
📆 Apr 16th	Posting Control, Allocations, and Settlement in SAP S/4HANA	link to session
📆 May 8th	Administration of Bank Accounts in SAP S/4HANA	link to session
📆 May 20th	Maintaining and Customizing Business Roles, Spaces, & Pages in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition	link to session
📆 May 22nd	Setting Up Integrations in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition	link to session
📆 May 23rd	Migrating Data with the SAP S/4HANA Migration Cockpit in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition	link to session
📆 June 3rd	Customer Payments in Receivables Management	link to session
📆 June 17th	Simple Report Creation in Overhead Cost Accounting in SAP S/4HANA	link to session

Profit Center Valuation with Universal Parallel Accounting in SAP S/4HANA 2023

2024-01-11T16:42:44+01:00

Continuing the blog series on Universal Parallel Accounting, I will now explain what changes for corporate customers with the introduction of Profit Center Valuation alongside Group Valuation. This is of particular interest to large corporations who want to create a management view of their organization alongside the legal reporting view. If you are new to the topic of Universal Parallel Accounting, please refer to Sarah Roessler‘s excellent introduction to the topic: Universal Parallel Accounting in SAP S/4HANA. You may also want to refer to my blog introducing group valuation in the context of inventory accounting: Inventory Accounting with Universal Parallel Accounting in SAP S/4HANA 2022.

What is the difference between legal, group and profit center valuation?

Let’s start by looking at the valuation requirements within a large corporate group. Figure 1 shows the valuation relevant entities within a corporation. The group as a whole is represented by the blue box (the controlling area) and the three grey boxes (Company 1, Company 2 and Company 3) represent company codes within the group. The three affiliated companies can trade with one another at arm’s length (legal valuation) and as part of the group (group valuation) with the same transactions represented from different viewpoints. The legal valuation includes an intercompany markup, whereas the group valuation views the same transaction as if the company barriers did not exist and the transaction can be recorded "at cost". This transparency allows the organization to determine how best to transact for the good of the group as a whole rather than for the good of the individual selling companies.

The profit center valuation provides an additional management view where the profit centers can sit within the company code (so Profit Center 2 and Profit Center 3 represent plants within Company 2), at the same level as the company code (Profit Center 1 and Profit Center 4) or above the company code (typically the larger divisions with a group). Profit center valuation goes beyond Profit Center Accounting (which is simply the assignment of business transactions to profit centers for reporting purposes) to allow the definition of additional prices for the trade between profit centers whether these are intercompany or intracompany goods movements.

Figure 1: Corporate Group with Companies and Profit Centers

How does group and profit center valuation relate to Group Reporting?

As you think about the need for group and/or profit center valuation within your organization, it is important to align these needs with the requirements for Group Reporting. Typically the consolidation process is responsible for eliminating the impact of intercompany trade from the group financial statements and the classic approach takes the financial statements for the affiliated companies (the legal view) as its starting point, but it is also possible to use the group valuation view to provide an alternative view of the organization's business for management purposes. If you use SAP's Group Reporting solution you can define any of the ledgers used to deliver the figures in Figure 1 as Group Reporting Preparation Ledgers so that additional information about the consolidation units, financial statement items, and so on is included in the journal entries for operational accounting, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Group Reporting Preparation Ledger

Ledger Settings for Universal Parallel Accounting

From the point of view of Universal Parallel Accounting, the multiple views illustrated in Figure 1 are represented by single valuation ledgers, each of which can potentially be used as the starting point for Group Reporting. Table 1 shows sample ledgers settings, where 0L and 2L are legal valuations, 4G is for group valuation and PC for profit center valuation.

If you are not yet using Universal Parallel Accounting, the old recommendation to use a multi-valuation ledger for group and profit center valuation continues to apply (for more details refer to this SAP Note Implementing Transfer Prices). With Universal Parallel Accounting the new ledgers for group and profit center valuation use the same accounting principle and fiscal year variant as ledger 0L (previously Asset Accounting did not support the use of the same accounting principle in multiple ledgers).

Ledger	Valuation View	Germany	France	Switzerland	Austria
0L (Headquarters) unconsolidated	Legal Valuation	IFRS – common accounting principle, common calendar
2L (Companies) unconsolidated	Legal Valuation	HGB	PCG	Swiss GAAP	UGB
4G (Headquarters) consolidated	Group Valuation	IFRS – with additional elimination postings
PC (Headquarters) management	Profit Center Valuation	IFRS – with additional elimination postings

Table 1: Sample Ledger Structure

Besides the move to single-valuation ledgers, one of the key changes with Universal Parallel Accounting is that the currency and valuation profile is no longer required. Instead the ledger settings determine which currencies are supported, meaning that you can now capture group values and profit center values in as many currencies as you need to manage your business. Figure 3 shows sample configuration for the profit center valuation ledger (IMG: Financial Accounting > Financial Accounting Global Settings > Ledgers > Ledger > Define Settings for Ledger and Currency Types). The nomenclature for the currency types is carried over from SAP ERP, so currency types beginning with 1 represent local currency and currency types beginning with 3 represent group currency, and the additional 1 represents group valuation and 2 profit center valuation. In this example we’ve extended the ledger settings for the local (1) and group currencies (3) to include a hard currency (4) in profit center valuation (2) and a freely defined currency (ZA).

Figure 3: Currency Settings for Profit Center Valuation Ledger

Elimination Postings for Intercompany Movements in the Profit Center View

While organizations have been using group valuation in its classic form for many years, what changes with Universal Parallel Accounting is the ability to create additional elimination postings to a group valuation clearing account to remove the impact of intercompany goods movements from the group view in the delivering company. Figure 4 shows an intercompany scenario, where the revenues from the intercompany invoice and the cost of goods sold from the intercompany delivery are posted in all ledgers.

In the legal ledgers, the intercompany revenue and cost of goods sold are considered arm’s length trading and recognized in the delivering company.

In the group valuation ledger and in the profit center valuation ledger elimination postings are made that remove the intercompany revenues and cost of goods sold to a valuation clearing account in the delivering company.

A full description of the new options for intercompany sales and stock transfers is beyond the scope of this article. One of the key differences, however, is that EDI is no longer required to transfer the price conditions between the companies, as was previously the case. To find out more about the new approach, please refer to gerhard.welker's blog: Advanced Intercompany Sales and Stock Transfer.

Figure 4: Advanced Intercompany Sales Process, Showing Elimination Postings in Delivering Company

With the intercompany invoice (document A) intercompany revenue is posted in full and then eliminated in the delivering company in the group and profit center valuation ledgers. The elimination postings can be identified by the transaction type TCV (transactional consolidation valuation), as shown in column Trs. in Figure 5. You can define the group valuation clearing account using transaction 8KEN or IMG: Controlling > Manage Multiple Valuation Approaches/Transfer Prices > Level of Detail > Define Valuation Clearing Account.

Figure 5: Elimination Postings for Intercompany Revenue

Management Markups for Intracompany Movements in Profit Center View

From a legal point of view, plant-to-plant stock transfers that take place within the same company code are handled at cost (the standard costs for the material and plant), with no additional markup, but profit center valuation can be used to create a management view of these transactions by posting an internal revenue and internal cost of goods sold as though the two plants belonged to different legal entities. Figure 6 shows a sample posting for an intracompany goods movement with additional lines for the intracompany revenue and cost of goods sold. The accounts to be used for the internal goods movements are defined using transaction 0KEK or IMG: Controlling > Profit center Accounting > Transfer Prices > Settings for Internal Goods Movements > Define Account Determination for Intercompany Goods Movements. These are the accounts beginning with 8* in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Intracompany Markups in Profit Center View

Price Definition for Profit Center Valuation

The pricing procedure for profit center valuation is based on the pricing procedures TP0001 and TP0002 shown in Figure 7. These determine the base price (set in the material master), and the price or percentage markup to be applied when the goods movement results in a change of profit center and triggers the assignment of a profit center transfer price.

Figure 7: Pricing Conditions for Profit Center Valuation

When a goods movement is posted using a sales order or stock transfer order that references the above pricing procedures, price condition TPB1 references the material price in the Accounting 1 View of the Material Master Transaction MM03) in the profit center valuation. By scrolling through the entries in the Currency Type field, you can view all the combinations of currency and valuation views defined in the ledger (Figure 3) until you find those relevant for profit center valuation. Here we are looking at the value in group currency (3) and profit center valuation (2).

Figure 8: Material Prices for Profit Center Valuation

Cost Estimates in Profit Center Valuation

The value to be used for the purposes of profit center valuation is set using a standard cost estimate (transaction CK11N) as shown in Figure 9. SAP delivers costing variants for group and profit center valuation, with a costing type that links to the relevant ledger (PC) and a valuation variant that links to the valuation view for profit center valuation in order to select the relevant prices for the raw materials and activity rates.

Figure 9: Material Cost Estimate for Profit Center Valuation

The results of the material cost estimate are released for use in inventory valuation using transaction CK24 (Mark/Release Standard Prices). Figure 10 shows the two cost estimates for legal valuation in ledgers 0L and 2L, plus additional cost estimates for group valuation in ledger 4G and profit center valuation in ledger PC.

Figure 10: Releasing Cost Estimates for Multiple Ledgers

Implementing Profit Center Valuation

The settings for group and profit center valuation, including the costing variants shown above, are delivered as best practices and both can currently only be implemented in greenfield environments. If you work with best practices, Scope Item 5W2 contains the settings for group valuation and Scope Item 6VQ contains the settings for profit center valuation. You can also make the configuration settings manually using the IMG. Since you cannot currently add a new ledger for group or profit center valuation, there is not yet a migration scenario to add these valuations in a running system.

Further Resources

Universal Parallel Accounting is activated using a business function. For more details on the business function in general, please refer to the documentation: Business Function: Universal Parallel Accounting

The first migration tools for legal valuations are activated using an additional business function. For more details, please refer to the documentation: Business Function: Universal Parallel Accounting Migration.

Profit Center Accounting in Universal Parallel Accounting is based on the universal journal. For more details about the conversion from EC-PCA, please refer to SAP Note 2425255: Profit Center Accounting in the Universal Journal

For a full list of restrictions, please refer to SAP Note 3191636: Universal Parallel Accounting – Scope Information

For the restrictions with regard to advanced intercompany please refer to SAP Note 3366067: Restrictions for Advanced Intercompany Sales in OP2023.

For the restrictions in SAP S/4HANA 2022, please refer to SAP Note SAP Note 3419623: Restrictions for Profit Center Valuation in Combination with Advanced Intercompany Sales

Hybrides SAP Financials Forum vom 18.-20. März 2024 – Jetzt noch anmelden!

2024-01-15T11:43:07+01:00

In diesem Jahr bieten wir Ihnen mit dem SAP Financials Forum (WDEFIT) wieder die Möglichkeit, sich in kurzer Zeit einen intensiven Überblick über die aktuellen Top-Themen im Bereich SAP Financials zu verschaffen.

Besuchen Sie unser deutschsprachiges, hybrides Event, welches vom 18.-20. März 2024 stattfindet. Sie haben die Wahl: Kommen Sie zu uns nach Walldorf oder nehmen Sie bequem online teil!

In diesem 1-minütigen Trailer sehen Sie die Inhalte im Überblick:

Nutzen Sie die Möglichkeit, sich aus den geplanten Inhalten Ihre individuelle Agenda aus mehreren parallelen Vorträgsblöcken zusammenzustellen:

Profitieren Sie von 18 unterschiedlichen Schulungsvorträgen aus den Bereichen Finance, Controlling, Cash & Treasury Management, Reporting, AI, uvm., die eine theoretische Hinführung, Systemdemos und Q&A-Sessions beinhalten.

Gehen Sie im Anschluss an ausgewählte Vorträge in den direkten Austausch mit unseren SAP-Experten (Meet The Expert) und diskutieren Sie Ihre individuellen Fragen.

Erfahren Sie in kompakten Kundenvorträgen, wie namhafte Kunden Migrationsprojekte im Bereich SAP S/4HANA Finance meistern und gemeistert haben.

Werden Sie selbst aktiv! Nach einer theoretischen Einführung durch einen SAP-Experten haben in einer Basic-Hands-On-Session Sie die Möglichkeit, an einem SAP Live-System Übungen zu ausgewählten Themen durchzuführen und anschließend Ihre Fragen zu diskutieren.

Zum Abschluss des zweiten Konferenztages bieten wir Ihnen ein Abendevent vor Ort und virtuell an, bei dem sie einen Abend in entspannter Atmosphäre genießen und Ihr Netzwerk erweitern können.

Industry 4.0 Pop-Up Factory: Zusätzlich haben Sie die Möglichkeit, an einer kostenlosen, hybriden Führung durch SAPs Industry 4.0 Pop-Up Factory teilzunehmen, in der anschaulich integrierte Produktionsprozesse präsentiert und mit einer Finance-Perspektive verbunden werden.

Erhalten Sie einen kompakten Überblick über das Event:

Schauen Sie sich die Aufzeichnung unseres Webseminar vom 08.12.23. an, bei dem wir die wichtigsten Punkte in kompakter Form präsentieren: Zur Aufzeichnung

Lesen Sie diesen Blogpost mit Bildern vom letzten Event vom März 2023.

Zur Anmeldung
✏️ Hybrides SAP Financials Forum (WDEFIT) vom 18.-20.03.2024: Zur Agenda & Anmeldung
❓Sie haben Fragen zum Event? Senden Sie uns gerne eine E-Mail an: saptraining.events@sap.com

Wir freuen uns auf das Event mit Ihnen!
Cem Uysal und Magnus Metzler
SAP Learning

Watch the Replays of Our Exclusive SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2402 Early Release Series

2024-01-30T17:16:51.015000+01:00

With SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, we offer a fully-fledged cloud ERP that optimizes processes and helps your business to run smoothly. The Cloud ERP PSCC organization strives to enable our valued customers and partners to take full advantage of the benefits our solution brings for the intelligent, sustainable enterprise.

Therefore, we offer a variety of enablement assets to explain the features and functions of each new release and make sure that you get the maximum value out of your investment.

The SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition Early Release Series is a series of compelling live product expert sessions that takes place twice a year and is designed by product experts for product experts to give customers, partners, and colleagues a special insider’s preview into the highlights for selected lines of business and industries, 1-2 weeks before the actual release. In a span of multiple days, we give you the opportunity to see the latest demos, ask your questions, and get answers straight from the product experts before anyone else.

In January 2024, we hosted a series of 19 compelling live sessions to highlight the exciting innovations shipped with the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2402 release. Missed the live sessions? No problem! Take advantage of the entire series or pick and choose the sessions most relevant to you on demand.

Manufacturing	Click here to watch
Artificial Intelligence & Technologies	Click here to watch
Service	Click here to watch
Sales	Click here to watch
Solution Order Management	Click here to watch
Cross Technology Topics	Click here to watch
Extensibility	Click here to watch
Sourcing and Procurement	Click here to watch
SAP User Experience	Click here to watch
Supply Chain Management	Click here to watch
Enterprise Portfolio and Project Management	Click here to watch
Professional Services	Click here to watch
Product Compliance	Click here to watch
Sustainability	Click here to watch
SAP Activate, SAP Cloud ALM, and Test Automation Tool for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition	Click here to watch
Finance	Click here to watch
Environment, Health, and Safety	Click here to watch
Governance, Risk, and Compliance	Click here to watch
Asset Management	Click here to watch

Check out this blog post and this blog post for the recordings of former live sessions.

How to Sign Up for the SAP Enterprise Support Edition as a Customer/Partner

In order to sign up for the online sessions, you will need to have an SAP Learning Hub license. While the series is available across all editions, you can find the steps below how to register for the SAP Enterprise Support edition in case you don’t already have access to any of the editions yet.

Navigate to the sign up page
Click the Sign up button. Authenticate yourself with your s-user ID and password. Upon first access, the system will check your eligibility, create a new SAP Learning Hub user, and populate your learning catalog respectively.
Within two hours, you will then receive a registration confirmation via e-mail.
After you have received the confirmation e-mail, the registration process is complete.

How to Sign Up for the Internal Edition as an SAP Employee

In order to sign up for the online sessions, you will need to have an SAP Learning Hub license. In case you have no edition assigned to your profile, please register here for the Internal Edition which is free of charge.

Make sure you be logged on to SAP Learning Hub before opening the URL. In case the link doesn’t open, please copy and paste it into your browser. If you face any other issues with your login, please contact the help center.

Don’t hesitate to leave a comment and check out our new community page to ask your questions and engage with the experts. Follow the PSCC_Enablement tag to stay up to date with our latest blog posts.

📽️ Watch Our Live Sessions

In January 2024, we hosted a series of 19 compelling live sessions to highlight the exciting innovations shipped with the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2402 release. Missed the live sessions? No problem! Take advantage of the entire series or pick and choose the sessions most relevant to you on demand.

🎙️ Inside SAP S/4HANA Cloud

There is no customer success without project success and product success! Leverage the unique knowledge and expertise of SAP S/4HANA Cloud experts, partners, and customers, sharing their SAP S/4HANA Cloud implementation project best practices and lessons learned – anywhere, anytime. In this podcast, we give you all ingredients to get to the next level and make your SAP S/4HANA Cloud project a success. Subscribe now and benefit from the shared knowledge!

💻 openSAP Microlearnings for SAP S/4HANA Cloud

Our openSAP microlearnings for SAP S/4HANA Cloud offer an exciting new learning opportunity. What began with a small batch of 20 videos, has now become a channel with more than 50 microlearnings that have generated over 20,000 views. Today, we cover multiple lines of business such as finance, manufacturing, and supply chain management, and key technology topics like Master Data Management, extensibility, SAP User Experience, and upgrade management. We are continuously adding new microlearnings to our channel, so make sure you check them out.

🗣️ Your Voice Matters

You want to learn more and actively engage with SAP subject matter experts on SAP S/4HANA Cloud topics? We have just the right place for you! Join our interactive community where we bring together customers, partners, and SAP experts with a clear mission: To engage with one another about best practices and product solutions. We invite you to explore the ‘one-stop shop’ as the central place for all resources, tools, content questions, answers and to connect with experts who will guide you through your journey to the intelligent, sustainable enterprise.

🔎 Find All of Our Assets

SAP S/4HANA Cloud is the foundation of the intelligent, sustainable enterprise and is an innovative, robust, and scalable ERP. We at Cloud ERP Product Success and Cloud Co-Innovation offer a service as versatile as our product itself. Check out the numerous offerings our team has created for you below:

🎯 Where to Find More Information:

Read up on the highlights of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2402 release here: https://community.sap.com/t5/enterprise-resource-planning-blogs-by-sap/highlights-of-the-sap-s-4hana-cloud-public-edition-2402-release/ba-p/13587480
Explore the ready-to-run cloud ERP here: https://www.sap.com/products/erp/s4hana.html
Watch our SAP S/4HANA Cloud product update videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWV533hWWvDnnyN2j-CcUheNN-GaNCb3H
Check out our digital enablement wheel here: https://chart-bdmaicr0au.dispatcher.eu2.hana.ondemand.com/index.html?hc_reset
Find out how to switch from groups to spaces and pages here: https://blogs.sap.com/2023/11/06/deactivation-of-groups-in-the-sap-fiori-launchpad-in-sap-s-4hana-cloud-public-edition-2402-switching-to-spaces-and-pages-mandatory/
Become an early adopter for Joule in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition here: https://influence.sap.com/sap/ino/#campaign/3612
Check out the SAP Activate Roadmap for early adopters here: https://go.support.sap.com/roadmapviewer/#/group/658F507A-D6F5-4B78-9EE1-0300C5F1E40F/roadmapOverviewPage/0894b61141a74a65b8da92db32685da5
Review the PPL content here: https://go.support.sap.com/roadmapviewer/#/group/658F507A-D6F5-4B78-9EE1-0300C5F1E40F/roadmapContentPage/0894b61141a74a65b8da92db32685da5:t8
Listen to our podcast here: https://podcast.opensap.info/inside-sap/
Watch our openSAP microlearnings to learn about SAP S/4HANA Cloud topics at your own pace here: https://microlearning.opensap.com/
Find best practices on SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition here: https://me.sap.com/processnavigator/SolS/EARL_SolS-013/latest?region=DE
Check out what’s new here: https://help.sap.com/doc/ce01d82756b947a1a043a5d5a3204226
Find help here: https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_S4HANA_CLOUD
Read the feature scope description here: https://help.sap.com/doc/7c9e0bbbd1664c2581b2038a1c7ae4b3

“Record to report” explained for beginners

2024-02-05T12:18:58.234000+01:00

Today we're taking a closer look at the 'Record to Report' or R2R process. If you are familiar with the need to account for money being raised for a specific goal, you are already on the right track.

So, what's Record to Report (R2R) all about?

R2R is like your university transcript. Every class you've taken, every grade you've earned is meticulously recorded to provide a comprehensive picture of your academic journey. In the business world, R2R encompasses the recording and reporting of financial transactions, from sales to expenses, and everything in between. AKA: Accounting.

Financial Accounting is analogous to the university's rules and regulations, ensuring that every financial transaction adheres to the appropriate guidelines and can be audited as required.

Management Accounting, on the other hand, serves as an adviser, offering actionable insights for the management. It evaluates costs, revenues, inventories, and helps streamline operations.

What's the big deal about it?

Your transcript helps you analyze your overall performance, determine your GPA, plan your courses for the next term, may affect your eligibility for scholarships, and so on. Likewise, R2R is essential for business leaders to evaluate performance, make informed decisions and adhere to regulatory compliance.

Read below for some more detail:

Here are some key concepts: Chart of Accounts, General Ledger, Company Code, and Controlling Area. Think of these as the basic building blocks of a firm's financial data structure.

The Chart of Accounts is like an index in your textbook—it lists all the account titles and their assigned numbers. The General Ledger is similar to your course syllabus; it outlines the main actions to be tracked.

The Company Code and Controlling Area can be compared to your course convenor and the faculty respectively. The Company Code organizes the legal and financial framework within which business transactions occur, while the Controlling Area manages the company's cost and profit control functions.

Understanding the settings of a General Ledger Account is as fundamental as knowing appropriate word counts for your essays. It's about getting the granularity right and ensuring that each financial transaction is neatly coded, tracked, and reported. This allows items to be quickly retrieved, just like using a keyword in your lecture slides to find a specific concept.

Next, let's delve into the basic concepts of financial postings and documents. Much like how you submit your assignments online and expect a digital timestamp and receipt, in SAP S/4HANA, every financial transaction is recorded and stamped. This leads to the production of documents that certify the nature, time, and value of the transaction.

The Key Elements Required for Posting General Ledger Documents is akin to your professor's instructions on the core requirements for your assignments. Document types, document numbering, and posting keys play an integral role in organizing and classifying financial transactions. It's like your referencing style (APA, MLA, Harvard); it ensures that everyone understands and presents their data in a standard format.

Much like you would need to edit, update, or even, at times, retract your assignment submissions, at times it's necessary to change or reverse the financial transactions recorded.

Lastly, we come to reporting. Just as your final grades give you an overview of your academic performance, financial statements offer a comprehensive view of the company's financial health based on the data recorded.

If you want to learn more about this process specific to SAP, write the term “Record to Report” into the search bar here.

Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2402

2024-02-05T14:32:19.582000+01:00

Hello and welcome to the release highlights for Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2402. This blog contains selected highlights from SAP Risk and Assurance Management (formerly known as SAP Financial Compliance Management), SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, and SAP Cloud Identity Access Governance along with their business benefits and deep-dive system demos.

To get a quick overview of our SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2402 highlights for Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC), watch this 4-minute video:

Topics of Covered in this Blog

Expert Talk: Empower the Intelligent, Sustainable Enterprise with SAP Finance & Risk – 2023 Update
SAP Risk and Assurance Management (formerly known as SAP Financial Compliance Management)
- Integrated Risk Management
- Additional Assurance Activity Type in Control Management
- Automated and Manual Grouping and Ungrouping of Issues
- Preconfigured internal control framework for medium-sized companies

SAP Cloud Identity Access Governance
- Support for Multiple Rulesets in Access Analysis
SAP Document and Reporting Compliance
- Streamlined Communication with Authorities with SAP Document and Reporting Compliance
- Simplified Review and Clearing of Withholding Tax Items for Reporting
- Early Adopter: Enablement of Sales and Use Tax Reporting for the United States through SAP Document and Reporting Compliance
SAP S/4HANA for International Trade
- Ability to Suppress Output from a Sales Order in Case of Trade Compliance Blocks in SAP Global Trade Services
- Produce and Sell Standard Products - Inventory Management

If you are interested in innovations for Finance, please refer to the blog 'Finance in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2402' from UIrich Hauke.

Expert Talk: Empower the Intelligent, Sustainable Enterprise with SAP Finance & Risk – 2023 Update

If you are interested in SAP's strategy on how to empower the intelligent, sustainable enterprise with SAP Finance & Risk in a 2023 update, check out this expert talk video with Yannick Peterschmitt, Ulrich Hauke, Christoph Ernst and myself:

Video 1: Expert talk video on how to empower the intelligent, sustainable enterprise with SAP Finance & Risk - 2023 update

SAP Risk and Assurance Management (formerly known as SAP Financial Compliance Management)

SAP Risk and Assurance Management is integrated with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition and provides you with the tools to become compliant with internal controls, laws, and regulations that apply to your organization. The solution enables you to document your internal controls framework and manage potential risks to your organization, as well as develop and monitor checks put in place to ensure compliance.

Integrated Risk Management

We enhance the core compliance functionalities with a comprehensive risk management framework to outline purpose and benefit of each control, and to provide transparency to the overall process health and compliance.

Value Proposition

Enable customers to set up and maintain risk information in financial compliance
Empower customers to continuously update risk information and quickly identify risk areas
Provide the overview of the risk and control matrix to customers

Capabilities

Leverage existing controls in your risk-mitigation response
Add existing risks to controls and, thereby, leverage control for risk mitigation
When risk attributes, such as risk level, validity, and status, are updated, display the corresponding changes in controls

If you are interested in a system demo of the new risk management functionality, check out this video:

Video 2: Integrated Risk Management with SAP Risk and Assurance Management

For more information, see: GRC Risk Service in SAP FCM

Additional Assurance Activity Type in Control Management

With the concept of assurance activity types, the solution allows customers to establish a 3 lines of defence concept (perform, test and assess control).

Value Proposition

Complete holistic approach for compliance by adding control assessments to control-related compliance activities
Enable compliance officers to collect information to assess completeness and maturity of the implemented control framework
Assist management and compliance teams for monitoring or identifying control unidentified weaknesses and risks

Capabilities

Support control assessments as new assurance activity type for controls
Support survey-based assessment on controls and provide rating of control assessment
Generate issue in case control assessment rating is deficient or significantly deficient

If you are interested in a system demo of the control assessment functionality, check out this video:

Video 3: Three lines of defense concept thanks to introduction of third assurance activity type 'Control Assessment' in SAP Financial Compliance Management

For more information, see: Assurance Activity

Automated Grouping and Ungrouping of Issues

Issue grouping complements the capabilities to manage issues and run remediation activities in more more advanced.

Value Proposition

Automatic grouping of issues based on configurable grouping rules
Manual group and ungroup of issues based on business decision
Group issues cross data sources

Capabilities

Streamline issue processing by addressing similar findings with less issues enabled through automatic issue grouping
Optimize issue processing by manual grouping and ungrouping of issues to
Bundle issues according to business needs
Split issue items in case they need separate processing
Address same defect at multiple business documents with one issue
Address multiple defects at the same business document with one issue

Fig. 1: You can automatically and manually group and ungroup issues in SAP Financial Compliance Management

For more information, see:

Preconfigured Internal Control Framework for Medium-Sized Companies

The solution comes with a predefined internal control framework which has been extended with additional focus areas such as Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and Human Rights Due Diligence for Suppliers in Risky Countries. In addition, a new control around Supplier Duplicate Invoices with additional flexible logic was provided.

Value Proposition

Empower the CFO and the head of finance with ready-to-run internal controls
Minimize the effort of building your financial compliance management framework

Capabilities

Use out-of-the-box business content, such as predefined controls
Addition of internal controls for new focus areas such as ESG and Human Rights Due Diligence

Fig. 4: Additional preconfigured controls in new focus areas such as ESG and Human Rights Due Diligence

For more information, see: Business Content for SAP Financial Compliance Management

SAP Cloud Identity Access Governance

Support for Multiple Rulesets in Access Analysis

SAP Cloud Identity Access Governance now has the capability to assist in meeting external audit standards through the support of multiple rulesets. These rulesets can be employed to simplify the external auditor's independent assessment, such as evaluating location-specific Segregation of Duties (SoD) rulesets for employees assigned to specific locations. Additionally, users have the option to define multiple customized rulesets for conducting further analyses.

Value Proposition

Make comprehensive and thorough assessments of various types of risks and scenarios
Have flexibility and adaptability to apply different rules within specific contexts
Allow external auditors to maintain independent evaluations by enabling them to use their own rules

Capabilities

Evaluate and manage risks in different contexts by leveraging multiple rule sets to define and apply various sets of rules, criteria, or frameworks
Address specific needs through customization using the rule sets; for example, meet the unique risk considerations of different departments or units within an organization

If you are interested in a system demo of the multiple ruleset functionality, check out this video:

Video 4: Support for Multiple Rulesets in Access Analysis in SAP Cloud Identity Access Governance

For more information, see: Rulesets

SAP Document and Reporting Compliance

Streamlined Communication with Authorities with SAP Document and Reporting Compliance

Increasing complexity driven by regulations requiring integration with local authorities for electronic documents, statutory reports, validation of VAT registrations and more. SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition provides a single channel for all submissions across countries and processes, that can be easily activated and managed leveraging the new scope item 78L.

Value Proposition

Easy to use and simple to configure
Faster implementation of legal changes / new reporting requirements
Simplify IT landscape and reduce total cost of ownership
Manage your integrations to tax authorities within your global SAP BTP account

Capabilities

Electronic exchange of invoices for Israel and more planned in the roadmap.
Electronic submission of statutory reports
One API-based integration between SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition and SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, cloud edition scalable across countries and scenarios
Seamless activation per country

Fig. 2: Streamlined communication with authorities with SAP Document and Reporting Compliance

For more information, see: Integrating the Cloud Edition with SAP S/4HANA Cloud

Simplified Review and Clearing of Withholding Tax Items for Reporting

As part of withholding tax reporting, withholding tax items need to be reviewed and cleared to create a payable document to the authorities
Review of withholding tax items to be settled to the authorities
- User-friendly preview of documents to be settled
- Confirmation of items to be settled to authorities
Automated clearing of withholding tax items confirmed and creation of payable documents to authorities
Creation of withholding legal reports based on cleared items

If you are interested in a system demo of the functionality for withholding tax items, check out this video:

Video 5: Simplified Review and Clearing of Withholding Tax Items for Reporting with SAP Document and Reporting Compliance

Early Adopter: Enablement of Sales and Use Tax Reporting for the United States through SAP Document and Reporting Compliance

Please note the following functionality is currently only available for early adopter customers:

Functionality:

Integration with partner solutions to enable sales and use tax reporting for United States through SAP Document and Reporting Compliance and standardize tax reporting worldwide
- Definition and mapping of entities from partner solution
- Seamless replication of transactional data
Generation and review of legal file using ‘Run Statutory Reports’ application in SAP S/4HANA Cloud
Output files retrieved from partner solution and managed centrally (same solution of all other countries)
- User-friendly preview of tax data
- Download of ready-to-upload-file
Central monitoring of all deadlines for statutory reporting

If you are interested in a system demo of the functionality for the enablement of sales and use tax reporting for the U.S. through SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, check out this video:

Video 6: For early adopters: Sales and Use Tax Reporting for the U.S. with SAP Document and Reporting Compliance

SAP S/4HANA for International Trade

Ability to Suppress Output from a Sales Order in Case of Trade Compliance Blocks in SAP Global Trade Services

Value Proposition

Help ensure that follow-on functions can be suppressed to stay legally compliant

Capabilities

Provide the ability to suppress output as a follow up action in sales orders when the document is blocked by trade compliance functionality in SAP Global Trade Services (GTS)

Produce and Sell Standard Products - Inventory Management

We have added the possibility to include legal control checks for compliance with the international trade regulations during the sales order creation process. In a follow-up step you can analyze and resolve the blocked documents. After the completion of the sales cycle, we have added the option to trigger an Intrastat declaration for the EU-wide business.

Meanwhile, don’t hesitate to leave a comment and check out our new community page to ask your questions and engage with the experts. Follow the PSCC_Enablement tag to stay up to date with our latest blog posts.

️Watch Our Live Sessions

This month, we hosted a series of 19 compelling live sessions to highlight the exciting innovations shipped with the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2402 release. Missed the live sessions? No problem! Take advantage of the entire series or pick and choose the sessions most relevant to you on demand.

️ Inside SAP S/4HANA Cloud

openSAP Microlearnings for SAP S/4HANA Cloud

️ Your Voice Matters

Find All of Our Assets

Where to Find More Information:

Link Collection - Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) with SAP S/4HANA and SAP S/4HANA Cloud
SAP Community for Finance
Watch the replays of our exclusive SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2402 Early Release Series here: https://community.sap.com/t5/enterprise-resource-planning-blogs-by-sap/watch-the-replays-of-our-excl...
Explore the ready-to-run cloud ERP here: https://www.sap.com/products/erp/s4hana.html
Watch our SAP S/4HANA Cloud product update videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWV533hWWvDnnyN2j-CcUheNN-GaNCb3H
Check out our digital enablement wheel here: https://chart-bdmaicr0au.dispatcher.eu2.hana.ondemand.com/index.html?hc_reset
Find out how to switch from groups to spaces and pages here: https://blogs.sap.com/2023/11/06/deactivation-of-groups-in-the-sap-fiori-launchpad-in-sap-s-4hana-cl...
Become an early adopter for Joule in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition here: https://influence.sap.com/sap/ino/#campaign/3612
Check out the SAP Activate Roadmap for early adopters here: https://go.support.sap.com/roadmapviewer/#/group/658F507A-D6F5-4B78-9EE1-0300C5F1E40F/roadmapOvervie...
Review the PPL content here: https://go.support.sap.com/roadmapviewer/#/group/658F507A-D6F5-4B78-9EE1-0300C5F1E40F/roadmapContent...
Listen to our podcast here: https://podcast.opensap.info/inside-sap/
Watch our openSAP microlearnings to learn about SAP S/4HANA Cloud topics at your own pace here: https://microlearning.opensap.com/
Find best practices on SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition here: https://me.sap.com/processnavigator/SolS/EARL_SolS-013/latest?region=DE
Check out what’s new here: https://help.sap.com/doc/ce01d82756b947a1a043a5d5a3204226
Find help here: https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_S4HANA_CLOUD
Read the feature scope description here: https://help.sap.com/doc/7c9e0bbbd1664c2581b2038a1c7ae4b3

Don´t miss: SAP Financials Forum | April 22-24, 2024

2024-02-12T14:53:23.549000+01:00

Discover the latest developments in SAP Finance topics over three half days from April 22-24, 2024, choosing the most convenient time slot for your schedule.

Watch this one-minute video showcasing the upcoming highlights:
SAP Financials Forum - Video

Take the opportunity to create your individual agenda from the planned content (see preliminary agenda), and benefit from several parallel lecture blocks:

Expert talks: Our 17 expert talks are designed as dedicated training sessions including theoretical introductions, system demonstrations, and Q&A sessions. Get ready to explore a wide range of topic areas including Finance & Management Accounting, Cash & Treasury Management, Generative AI, Sustainability, Reporting, and much more.
Meet the Expert session: Following the lectures, you have the opportunity to discuss and clarify your specific questions with selected SAP experts.
Customer insights: Through concise presentations, hear about real-life business cases where two renowned SAP customers – Mercedes-Benz AG and Deutsche Börse AG – have successfully managed migration projects in SAP S/4HANA Finance.

You're wondering what a virtual SAP Financials Forum looks like?

Check out this blog post with pictures from the last event in April 2023.
Watch our webinar recording from Dec 8th, where we presented the key points of the 2024 event in a compact form.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. We look forward to welcoming you to the SAP Financials Forum 2024.

SAP Advanced Financial Closing: New Reporting Capabilities

2024-02-14T16:39:05.984000+01:00

Dear finance experts,

With the latest incremental release of SAP Advanced Financial Closing in February 2024, the reporting abilities of the solution were massively enhanced for newly generated task lists. For comparison reasons and to enable you to keep track of existing task lists, the previous reporting capabilities and apps will still be around but will not be enhanced further.

Background of this Feature

In the context of financial closing, the requirements regarding reporting the current status are very diverse, and they vary depending on the organizational and process setup of each customer. The enhanced reporting abilities provide a flexible basis for monitoring by providing two additional sets of apps that can be combined into roles as required. In this blog post, I will introduce you to the new reporting features of SAP Advanced Financial Closing and give you tips about what to watch out for. Allow me to use this opportunity to direct you to our excellent documentation on the topic, both at help.sap.com and as in-app help, featuring videos and guided tours to give you and your users a head start.

Getting Started with the New Reporting

Four new apps to enable flexible reporting and one additional configuration app

There are in total 5 new apps:

Financial Close Overview – Organizational Unit View
Closing Task Completion – Organizational Unit View
Financial Close Overview – Task View
Closing Task Competition – Task View
Manage Company Code Groups

At first glance, they look pretty much like what you know from the previous reporting apps Financial Close Overview and Closing Task Completion. Plus a new kid on the block, which is actually a configuration app. So let’s take a closer look. The overview page and the analytic list page still come in matching pairs. The two sets differ in how they weigh a task status, especially one that has multiple organization units (such as company codes) attached to it.

Take the example of a task list containing exactly one task. This task has three different company codes attached to it. For two of the company codes, the task has a positive result, and, for the third one, the result was not okay.

The “Task View” apps will always aggregate the status on task level with the least favorable status. Consequently, in the “Task View” apps, the task in this example will appear with a completion rate of “0%” and the status “not okay”.

In the “Organizational View” apps, however, the same task will count as three different tasks, one for each of the attached company codes. The completion rate here is then 2 x 100% for the two successful company codes and 1 x 0% for the one that failed. In this case, the overall completion rate is therefore 66% when you look at the task list level.

Depending on your needs, you may prefer one way or the other of looking at it. The static roles available allow the flexible assignment of either set. You can also combine them if you wish.

Let’s have a closer look at the “Financial Close Overview – Organizational View” app.

The new Financial Close Overview app with completely refurbished cards

Can you spot the differences to the “old” overview page?

Look at the filter bar:

Organizational units like Controlling Area and Plants are now available.
Custom Fields are now included.
Most of the filters you’re familiar with and that you found useful in the previous app are still there.
And now there’s something called “Company Code Group (Characteristic 1…4)”, which I will explain in a bit. You’ll love it, and it will make you forget that we discarded the “Country/Region Group” concept, which never really worked out in the past.
Make sure you click on “Adapt Filters” to see the full list.

Look at the completely refurbished cards:

No more lengthy lists of single tasks that you were never able to scroll through in the past.
Each card has a clear KPI at the top that reflects the deployed set.
All cards come with meaningful aggregation and clustering.
All but the donut chart in the top right corner offer a toggle mechanism to switch between the views and sorting – try it out!
Dedicated cards for Company Codes, Custom Fields, and Company Code Grouping Characteristic 1 (more to come over time).
Make sure you use the “Manage Cards” option in the top right corner to see the full set of cards offered.

Note that the “Task View” overview page offers less cards and filtering options: Anything related to organizational units is not available there on purpose. Reporting in this view is strictly limited to the individual tasks defined in the task list, each task being equally important, no matter how many company codes are assigned to it.

Now, grab a coffee or tea in the morning, sit back, relax, and enjoy the new overview of your closing status. If everything looks fine, have a glimpse at the card that will show you the workload that is due during your business day. If you’re having your coffee after lunch or a cup of tea in the afternoon, change the view to see the remaining workload for the rest of day.

If you detect issues, you can follow them up on the cards of the overview page, simply by clicking on either the KPI at the top of the card or a dedicated line or section of a donut within a card to navigate to the corresponding Closing Task Completion app.

The new Closing Task Completion app with pre-delivered variants for both chart section and table section

You will find pre-delivered dedicated variants for both the chart section and the table section in both Closing Task Completion apps. Along with the variants, the filter bar is also filled in accordance with where you navigate to, enabling you to pinpoint the issues easily. Use the chart section and additional filter criteria to efficiently narrow down the selection further if needed.

Please note that we have also included additional columns in the Closing Task Completion apps, such as “Hours Overdue/Early on Completion” or “Hours Overdue/Due in Hours (Open Tasks)”. Make sure you check out the settings for the table to see the full list of columns.

Manage Company Code Groups

I promised to explain the concept of the company code group characteristics in more detail. You’ve already spotted them as filters and cards in the “Organization View” apps.

Company Code Group Characteristics are four distinct characteristics that you as a customer can freely define. They could be something like “Business Size”, “Business Type”, or “Region”, or anything else that characterizes your company codes and places them into different groups that you want to monitor or report on during the close. The characteristics are mutually independent.

Within each of the four characteristics, you can define as many groups as you want and then assign company codes to these groups. Be aware, though, that within a given characteristic, a company code can belong to one group only. If, for example, one of your characteristics were “Business Size”, a given company code could not be in the group for “Small” and in the group for “Large” at the same time.

Here's a short glimpse of the new app. You can see the four different tabs that represent the four independent grouping characteristics. On each of these tabs, you can define groups and assign company codes as needed. The last tab that is depicted in detail provides a clear overview of all characteristic assignments for all company codes, where you can neatly slice and dice. Once your groups are defined as an outer shell on the previous tabs, you can use the overview very efficiently to rearrange assignments and enable them en masse if needed.

Change company code assignments dialog with the option to keep or replace existing values in the new Manage Company Code Groups configuration app

If you have so far used Custom Fields to tag your tasks for certain company codes and depending on your use case, you definitely might want to consider switching to the company code groups concept.

Summary and Call to Action

The February release of SAP Advanced Financial Closing supports your closing activities with enhanced and more flexible reporting capabilities for newly generated task lists. With the new concept of company code groups along four mutually independent characteristics, additional filter criteria including Custom Fields, completely reworked cards on the overview pages, and matching pre-delivered variants in the Closing Task Completion apps, you are now equipped with a reporting tool that is more powerful than ever.

I gladly invite you to actively give feedback about the new capabilities by commenting below this post. Use this opportunity to influence and tweak the default layout of the new reporting apps as a community in the next couple of weeks. I am looking forward to your lively conversations on the topic!

Thank you very much for reading this blog and stay tuned for further updates by following the tag #AdvancedFinancialClosing in the SAP Community.

For more information on SAP Advanced Financial Closing, check out the following links:

SAP Community Page

SAP Help Portal

SAP Roadmap Explorer

SAP.com Page

Follow us via #AdvancedFinancialClosing, or myself via @BrigitteReinelt.

Disclaimer

Please note that SAP Advanced Financial Closing gets frequent updates and enhancements. Therefore, the current features and functions may not be exactly as described here. For the latest information, you can refer to the product documentation on the SAP Help Portal.

Please note that the information given here or any related document and SAP’s strategy and possible future developments, products and or platforms directions and functionality are all subject to change and may be changed by SAP at any time for any reason without notice. The information in this document is not a commitment, promise, or legal obligation to deliver the functionality described here or any related material or code. Instead, the information is for informational purposes only. It may not be incorporated into a contract. SAP assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions in this document, except if such damages were caused by SAP’s intentional or gross negligence.

Tax law changes you need to know for 2024 from Avalara

2024-02-17T01:01:56.007000+01:00

Whether you’re a small brick-and-mortar retailer, a midsize manufacturer, or a global enterprise company, you’ll probably be affected by a tax law change in 2024 because tax changes happen to everyone, everywhere (if not all at once).

The Avalara Tax Changes 2024 report doesn’t list every upcoming tax law change for all jurisdictions. No one guide could. But it’s chock-full of industry and tax trends, with a multitude of specific tax law changes thrown in for good measure.

So.

What are the main sales tax trends for 2024?

States continue to refine economic nexus and marketplace facilitator laws

With five years of South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. under their belts, states are continuing to refine the economic nexus laws that enable them to tax remote sales. There is mounting pressure for states to drop their transaction thresholds if they haven’t already, and several states will likely do so in 2024.

Many states are also refining the marketplace facilitator laws that require online marketplaces to collect and remit sales tax on behalf of their third-party sellers. Most of the first marketplace laws focused on online retailers and sales tax, and states now need to determine whether their marketplace laws apply to other industries and taxes.

There’s growing interest in retail delivery and bag fees

Two states have enacted retail delivery fees
More than 100 states and localities have enacted bag fees

Colorado and Minnesota are the only two states that have enacted retail delivery fees to date — but other states are interested in them because fuel tax revenues are declining as more drivers switch to electric and hybrid vehicles, online sales (and therefore deliveries) of tangible taxable goods are growing, and the high number of deliveries are increasing emissions and eroding roads.

A growing number of jurisdictions are also implementing local bag fees, and at least two states, Colorado and Washington, are pursuing statewide bag fees.

Such fees may not be all that noticeable on customer invoices, but they can create a surprising amount of compliance complexity for the retailers required to collect and report them.

Sales tax holidays are out of control

There were 122,974 sales tax holiday rule updates in 2022
There were at least 45 sales tax holidays across 24 states in 2023

If a little bit of a good thing is good, a lot of a good thing must be better, right? Well, when it comes to sales tax holidays, maybe not.

Sales tax holidays make consumers happy because no one wants to pay sales tax and everyone likes a bargain. Whether sales tax holidays actually are a bargain for consumers is an open question — some retailers may jack up prices during sales tax holidays — but tell that to someone gone glassy-eyed over saving 6% sales tax.

For retailers, especially retailers that are registered to collect and remit sales tax in multiple states, sales tax holidays can be a real burden. Nonetheless, several states are trending toward longer, broader sales tax holidays. So there’s that.

Taxes go on, taxes come off

Numerous states are providing new sales tax exemptions for essentials, such as diapers, groceries, and tampons, as well as for a variety of other goods or services. On the flip side, some states are broadening sales tax to products or services that were previously exempt. While the specific products, services, states, and rates differ from state to state, new exemptions and new sales taxes are something we see every year — and indeed several times a year.

A few anomalies have been proposed. Maine briefly considered a seasonal sales tax that would impose a higher rate of sales tax on goods or services favored by visitors. New York has introduced a bill that would lower the sales tax rate for small, in-state businesses.

And of course, there are always sales tax rate changes to report.

Home-rule sales tax continues to be a pain point for businesses

There are five home-rule states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, and Louisiana
There are more than 70 home-rule jurisdictions in Colorado
There are approximately 449 self-administered localities in Alabama

In a handful of states, local governments can administer and levy local sales taxes themselves. These home-rule sales taxes tend to eat up a lot of time for businesses, as they may require registering with and remitting to local tax authorities in addition to state departments of revenue.

All home-rule states are working to simplify sales tax compliance for in-state and out-of-state businesses, but the road to simplification is long and has a lot of speed bumps. We examine some of the most pressing issues of the day in the Avalara Tax Changes 2024 guide.

States are still catching sales tax laws up to technology

We’ve been reading ebooks for close to 20 years and streaming music and videos for even longer, but some states still haven’t updated their sales tax laws to account for digital goods and services. As technology and commerce continue to charge into new frontiers, such as digital ad taxes, the metaverse, and NFTs, tax laws are falling further behind the times.

Tax authorities may be hesitant to establish new tax laws for new tech because it can be hard to change a tax policy once it’s set, and new taxes often lead to legal challenges. There are also a number of knots to unravel, such as sourcing challenges. But as more money changes real (or virtual) hands, new tax policies are bound to follow.

What’s happening with the new 1099-K reporting requirements?

Online marketplaces and third-party settlement organizations (TPSOs) should have spent 2023 gearing up for a dramatic decline in the 1099-K reporting threshold, which was set to apply to tax year 2023. Yet on November 21, 2023, the IRS pushed back the effective date for the lower threshold.

It now looks like the reporting threshold for the 1099-K will drop from the current $20,000 in aggregate income and more than 200 transactions to $5,000 (and no transaction threshold) for tax year 2024. The effective date for the $600 threshold previously set for tax year 2023 has yet to be announced.

What’s new with e-invoicing?

In the U.S., businesses are leading the e-invoicing charge because these machine readable digital files can be automatically exchanged and processed by accounting and ERP systems, streamlining tax reporting and improving accuracy.

Elsewhere in the world, e-invoicing and live reporting mandates are proliferating because they can help increase tax collections, reduce tax gaps, and streamline tax reporting overall. More than 60 countries require (or soon will) electronic invoices for certain types of businesses or transactions.

“Taking advantage of technology can help tax agencies rethink their digital workflows and data management,” says Liz Armbruester, EVP of Customer and Compliance Operations at Avalara, “while also ensuring a better taxpayer experience.”

What’s on the global tax front for 2024?

The European Commission is working to bring value-added tax (VAT) into the digital age. ViDA, as the plan is called, is designed to level the tax playing field for all businesses operating within the European Union. A number of changes set to take effect in 2024 and 2025 will impact ecommerce sellers, e-invoicing, and marketplace platforms.

Starting January 1, 2025, ViDA will also make the EU’s Import One-Stop Shop (IOSS) scheme mandatory for marketplaces facilitating low-value imports into the EU. Marketplaces and ecommerce platforms will face additional requirements starting in 2028, when they’ll be the “deemed importers” responsible for collecting VAT and customs duties from customers at the point of sale.

These are just some of the global tax changes addressed in our 2024 guide.

What other industry trends may impact tax laws in 2024?

Electric and hybrid vehicle mandates are reshaping fuel taxes. Internet of Things (IoT) devices are complicating communications tax compliance. Consumer preference for low-alcohol, no-alcohol, and ready-to-drink beverages are causing states to rethink their beverage alcohol taxes. Short-term rental restrictions are shaking up the lodging industry and impacting occupancy tax collections. Manufacturers are getting on the anything as a service (XaaS) bandwagon with servitization.

Finally, businesses across all industries — and governments too — are discovering how automation, artificial intelligence, and other technologies can improve efficiencies and streamline tax compliance.

No parallel universe will save you from the tax law changes that impact your business. You have to confront them head-on, and to do that, you have to know what’s coming down the pike.

Get an insider’s view of 2024 tax changes at the Avalara Tax Changes 2024 webinar. Save your seat here.

Read Avalara Tax Changes 2024.

Start your SAP Finance Learning Journey today!

2024-03-12T21:02:32.854000+01:00

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The one-stop shop for enablement on SAP Finance! Go to this article:

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GR /IR Clearing Issue

2024-03-21T14:55:15.246000+01:00

Issue in Detail:

When the user tries to clear the GR/IR balances for some selected Purchase Orders (PO’s) automatically by using F.13 (Automatic Clearing) t-code, the user was still unable to clear the balances for some selective PO’s. This is because the GR and IR values does not match in the respective PO’s.

The clearing which is done automatically in F.13 is based on the Assignment number of the line items in the PO’s goods receipt and the invoice receipt. This clearing parameter can be basically configured at OB74 t-code (Additional rules for automatic Clearing). In this case clearing is done on the assignment field basis, i.e., line items with similar assignment field will get knocked off while clearing.

But here the GR/IR balances are not matching for all the POs, so there are many documents that cannot be cleared using F.13 due to this GR/IR balance mismatch. Later when this is analysed further, it came to know that the user has done the goods issue (GR) and invoice (IR) for same material in two different POs.

Now, the user wants to clear the documents of those POs where the GR and IR balances are matching and equals zero. But the user cannot be able to clear those documents in F.13 because the clearing criteria is based on the assignment field which is the Po number followed by its line item (430000149300010) where, 4300001493 is the PO number and 00010 is the respective line item of the PO.

Since, the user has done the GR and IR for a same material in two different POs, the assignment fields differ. Now, the user wants to clear the PO’s for which the GR and IR balances are getting matched but user cannot clear all the documents manually because there are more than 4000 documents for the POs for which he have to clear. It must be done via F.13 only.

The POs with same GR/IR balance is shown below:

4300002721

200226

Local Limestone Backfill Mat 0:75MMTreat

44.82

GR = 49,957.860-

IR = 49.962.840

DIFF = 44.82

4300003135

200226

Local Limestone Backfill Mat 0:75MMTreat

-44.82

GR = 247.68-

IR = 202.86

DIFF = -44.82

The above images clearly shows that the GR and IR has been done for the same material in different POs, which has an equal GR and IR balance combining.

The user wants to clear this balance in the two POs which couldn’t be done using the Automatic Clearing because of the assignment field mismatch.

Issue while Clearing in F.13:

Goto F.13 and enter the company code, GR/IR account, and input the assignment numbers of the two POs which has to be cleared.

Tick the required fields as per the above image shown and then click execute.

Therefore, the test run shows the documents belonging to the two POs that are to be cleared.
But the system doesn’t clear it because of the different assignment field, although the debit and credit values of the documents are matching.
This problem occurs only if the GR/IR for a material is done in two different POs.
Once the assignment matches for all the documents the items will be in green coloured while executing on test run which represents that the documents are ready to clear.

Solution for clearing:

One of the proposed solutions for this issue is to find the similar or matching fields in the two PO line-item documents.
If there are any fields that is matching with the other, then the corresponding field can be assigned in OB74 (Additional rules for automatic clearing).

The above image shows that for GL Accounts (S) for all accounts, the clearing criteria is ZUONR (Assignment).
Unfortunately, there are no other similar fields that are identical in the PO line items.
The other method for clearing is to manually change any one of the PO’s assignment value of all its documents in FBL3N t-code.
Goto FBL3N, display open balances for the GR/IR account. Filter by any one of those assignment fields.

In this case, I have chosen the 4300003135 PO’s line items. Select all the documents and click the mass change icon as shown in the image above and change its assignment field to 430000272100010, which is assignment of the alternate PO.

Now, again go to F.13 and execute it (as test run) by entering the PO’s assignment number (newly changed assignment number in FBL3N) and the respective GL account and its fiscal year.

By doing this, the previously assigned assignment value is overwritten, now the system matches the assignment fields of both the PO’s which has equal credit and debit values.
Thus, the above image displays the documents that can be cleared now (test run).

Therefore, while executing without test run, a clearing document has been generated for all the documents as shown in the image above.
Thus, the GR/IR balances in the POs was cleared.

Your feedback is highly valued as it contributes to refining the document. Your insights will be immensely appreciated in aiding further enhancements.

LSP Scenario in Transportation: Freight Settlement / Forwarding Settlement Document Posting errors

2024-04-03T10:47:20.608000+02:00

Some of the errors found during the setup & respective solutions:

1. Cannot apply distribution level; cannot distribute costs

Forwarding order is completely independent and does not refer to an order-based transportation requirement (OTR) or delivery-based transportation requirement (DTR). hen you calculate charges, the system cannot distribute costs because there are no order or delivery items in the freight order.

Uncheck the “enable cost determination” in the FSD type(see image below).

Change the “distribution level” setting to “Forwarding Order” in the SPRO>Define Cost Distribution profiles

2. Agreement not found for organizational unit TM_SORG1 and party 17186002

Make sure Soldto/Shipto Party is extended to the TM SalesArea in the BP transaction.

3. Accruals posting failed as posting period is closed

Check & close posting periods using MMPV & MMRV

4. Unable to determine tax country for the billing document in SAP TM

Maintain the country in the shipto/soldto address.

5. Sales area is not defined error

Maintain the default distribution channel & division in the SPRO> “Define General Settings for TM “

6. ‘Billing document creation failed’ during FWSD posting.

Under VOFM, use the appropriate copy routines in the copying requirements.

Finally, posted both the FSD & FWSD to the S4 core system.

I hope this is helpful to the TM consultants & I would like to receive any feedback or comment from you.

Thanks for reading.

_Amar_

SD (Sales and Distribution) MM (Materials Management) SAP S/4HANA Finance FIN Controlling

SAP Transportation Management SAP S/4HANA SAP Supply Chain Management SD Billing SAP Invoice and Goods Receipt Reconciliation MM Invoice Verification MM Purchasing LE (Logistics Execution)

Event report | Global SAP Financials Forum 2024, April 22-24 (WENFIT)

2024-04-24T17:28:27.938000+02:00

After a successful German event in March 2024 the SAP Financials Forum reopened its doors again from April 22-24 running for the 2nd time in a virtual and half-day format broadcasting live from Walldorf, Germany. More than 100 participants from 18 countries around the globe dialed in to learn more about the latest innovations in SAP Financials.
The program featured three half days offered in two alternative time slots providing more than 18 different expert talks, two customer presentations, a hands-on session and opportunities to network with participants and SAP experts. Read more in this report.

A warm welcome from the SAP Headquarters
The event was kicked off by the organizers Cem Uysal and Magnus Metzler broadcasting from SAPs headquarters in Walldorf, Germany. After a quick overview of the program, all participants jumped over to the first expert talks.

A colourful bouquet of more than 18 expert talks
The core of the forum consists of several parallel lecture blocks, allowing participants to build their own agenda. SAP experts presented various hot topics from the SAP Financials area in 90-minute expert talks that combined theoretical overviews, system demos, and Q&A sessions. As the following overview shows, the event offered a particularly colorful mix of topics on the program.

Customers' view on SAP S/4HANA migration projects
What do customers experience when migrating to SAP S/4HANA in Finance? What challenges do they have to overcome and what tips can they give other customers? SAP customers from Mercedes Benz Group and Deutsche Börse provided insights into SAP S/4HANA migration projects and answered numerous questions that came from the audience. Two very exciting insights from a customer’s perspective, which supplemented the presentations from SAP colleagues with an internal perspective.

“Meet the Expert” session
Particular attention was paid again to allowing enough room for open exchange and networking between participants and SAP experts by offering “Meet the Expert” Sessions on Tuesday. Participants could join 3 different breakout sessions to discuss open questions regarding Finance and Management Accounting as well as Cash Management topics in more detail with the experts. A great opportunity for all participants and speakers to exchange!

Overall, we look back on three informative days full of exciting learning opportunities and we’re already excited to welcoming interested learners again to the next SAP Financials Forum. More information will follow in our SAP Training and Adoption Webshop as of autumn 2024

Would you like to stay up-to date about new events and topics?
Join our WorkZone community, where we regularly share information about SAP Financials topics, such as blog posts, free webinar offerings and much more. To join this group just send us an e-mail.

Author | Images | Contact person
Magnus Metzler (SAP), magnus.metzler@sap.com

Preparing for Universal Parallel Accounting

2024-04-29T09:43:09.083000+02:00

1. Introduction

This blog post continues a series of Controlling related topics, which circle around showcasing new functionalities in S/4HANA Cloud, comparing functionalities between SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition (and SAP S/4HANA) (at the time of writing the latest SAP S/4HANA release is 2023). I cover also general topics that should be considered from Management reporting/Controlling point of view when implementing S/4HANA.

Focus of today, is how to prepare for UPA. In SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition UPA is always activated, however, in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, it needs to be separately activated. As of, 2023 version it is also possible to migrate from non-UPA to UPA. The migration is only possible in the first scenarios with legal valuation (not a subsequent added ledger). This blog focuses on a few points that are good to consider, to make the transition to UPA easier. Please note that this is a topic that is being constantly developed, so this is blog is intended to be a guideline, not a definite source of truth.

2. Universal Parallel Accounting (UPA) Introduction

UPA is the new foundation of finance in S/4HANA and provides better support for currencies, accounting principles and parallel valuation, as well as multiple new innovations. It enables multiple event-based solutions to provide real-time input into financial and managerial accounting. Note 3419623 - Restriction for Profit Center Valuation … provides restrictions around profit center valuation in version 2022. For more details on UPA, please see below links. Figure 1 below describes also some of the benefits gained with UPA.

Project Profitability for Engineering Products and... - SAP Community – by Janet Salmon
Profit Center Valuation with Universal Parallel Ac... - SAP Community – by Janet Salmon
Inventory Accounting with Universal Parallel Accou... - SAP Community – by Janet Salmon
Overhead Accounting with Universal Parallel Accoun... - SAP Community – by Janet Salmon

Figure 1: Overview of Universal Parallel Accounting

3. SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition & UPA

In SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Private cloud edition there are restrictions for UPA, that you need to analyze before you can take it into use. They are e.g. related to country scope and functional restrictions. For details, please see following links:

Due to these restrictions, you cannot always activate UPA in a 2023 version, but you can still plan to take it into use later, once there are less restrictions that apply to your system and processes.

If you aim to create a design that is more “UPA prepared”, then please consider following areas in your design.

3.1 Before UPA: Multi-valuation ledger

In case you need to activate (Group valuation (currency types 31/11) and/or Profit center valuation (currency type 32,12)), then you should create a multi-valuation ledger (see figure 2 below). This is currently the planned ledger approach to be able to migrate to UPA. For further details see note: 3443265 - Ledger Settings for Group/Profit Center Valuation and/or Parallel Cost of Goods Manufactured without Universal Parallel Accounting.

UPA is by definition a parallel single-valuation ledger setup – but before UPA, recommendation is to have a multi-valuation ledger. See also following blog e.g.:
- Fundamentals, Basic Functionalities and Considerations to enable Management Reporting in S/4HANA by Dick Westman

Figure 2: Before UPA, Multi-valuation ledger is recommended, in case you need multiple valuations.

Note also that UPA with group valuation requires that you use the, otherwise the posting logic will be based on the “old/previous” group valuation logic, not the transactional consolidation, this is depicted in Figure 3. For more information about movement types in the valuated stock in transit process see following link: Movement Types for Valuated Stock in Transit | SAP Help Portal. For SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, please see following note for restrictions 3093830 - SAP S/4HANA Cloud: Release Restriction Note for Group Valuation - SAP for Me. There are currently also restrictions regarding the advanced Intercompany sales process for MTO and ETO, which might prevent you from using these processes in version 2023. For more details, see following notes: 3366067 - SAP S/4HANA 2023: Restrictions and General Information for Advanced Intercompany Sales and 3298560 - FAQ new Advanced Intercompany Processes (IC-Sales and IC-Stock Transfer).

Figure 3: Overview of Intercompany processes, Group valuation and UPA for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition .

3.2 Before UPA: Keep FI-AA-ML aligned if possible

In case possible, activate same currencies in FI (financial Accounting, AA (Asset accounting) and ML (Material ledger). This will enable to have your data more harmonized and consistent for the migration to UPA. Figure 4, below shows a simple example with legal valuation, but two currencies (company code (10) and group (30)). The same currencies are aligned in all three places.

Figure 4: Example of currency setup with same currencies in FI (FINSC_LEDGER), AA (OABT) and ML(OMX2).

3.3. Before UPA: Country specific local accounting principles

UPA requires, by design, to have country specific local accounting principles, but before UPA you could have had a setup with a common “LGAAP” accounting principle for all local accounting principles. In case you are configuring a new system, consider creating already now, country specific local accounting principles, to be more aligned with UPA (see e.g. Figure 5 below). Adding more local accounting principles will also impact your design within foreign currency valuation, Asset Accounting, RE-FX (leases) and down payments (Down payment… see this blog by Stefan Walz and Gabi Hoffmann for more details), so remember to consider them also. In case you create a separate tax ledger, then you should have same approach (separate country specific tax accounting principles).

Figure 5: Example with country specific local accounting principles.

In case you have already live system with “LGAAP” accounting principle and you would like to activate UPA, then you can see this note for an alternative approach 3334519 - Migration to Universal Parallel Accounting in SAP S/4HANA: Replacing the Generic Local Accounting Principle by Country-Specific Accounting Principles).

3.4. Before UPA: Results Analysis vs. Event-based revenue recognition if possible

Results Analysis (RA) is not available in UPA, it is replaced with Event-Based Revenue Recognition (EBRR). can be used without UPA also. Analyze in case you can replace RA with EBRR, either before or at the time when activating UPA. SAP help site ( SAP Help) includes comprehensive details on current EBRR scope. Consider also that with RA, it is possible to utilize user exits (custom code), but not in EBRR, so you might need to review your process against a standard solution.

Note, that in case you use EBRR before UPA, you cannot use it with a multivaluation ledger (e.g. group valuation activated) (as this not supported and EBRR is designed base on UPA), for more details see: 3357625 - Event-Based Revenue Recognition with SAP S/4HANA 2023: Release Information Note - SAP for Me.

One option is, on a high level, that you can consider if you are able to utilize only legal valuation and EBRR, and then later in UPA add a parallel ledger. As , in the current SAP Roadmap Explorer, there is an item to “Add an additional ledger for parallel valuation” in UPA (Transition to universal parallel accounting for complex scenarios). The upside is that you do not need to consider later on migrating from RA to EBRR, but the downside is that you might need to wait for some time for UPA and parallel valuations.

A second option is, on a high level, that you decide before UPA to have multiple valuations UPA, and perhaps have more complex requirements for the Revenue and cost recognition, so you decide for Results Analysis. The upside is that you get parallel valuation (although not with the UPA logic). Downsides are e.g. that you are not among the first scenarios to move to UPA (as those are only for the legal valuations), you also need to consider how to “move” RA to EBRR at some later point, as this will also require effort. Currently there are no automatic migration tools planned to support the move from RA to EBRR. Moving from RA to EBRR will be more challenging for industries where there are projects/services that are of long-running nature (as a “clean” way to do it, will require revaluing all items from the beginning).

3.5. Before UPA: Use the standard planning categories

Before UPA you will have certain SAP Standard planning categories used in ACDOCP (like Material standard costs (PLANORD02), Sales order costing (PLANORD03) in ACDOCP… ). When activating UPA they will also be used by the Even-Based Production accounting, see e.g.: 3315659 - SAP S/4HANA 2023: Universal Parallel Accounting with Event-Based Production Accounting - SAP for Me. As such, this doesn’t require any specific actions for you, but just something to be aware of.

4. Conclusion

This blog post was highlighting some design topics that are good to keep in mind when planning to move to UPA, whether you implement them already before UPA or at later stage. I hope this shed some light on what to consider and making it easier to move to Universal Parallel Accounting in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition.

What are your experiences on this area? Please share your thoughts!

Revaluation Areas not shown in transaction AS01

2024-05-09T16:59:50.776000+02:00