Innovations and advantages with S/4 Hana Finance

Finance and accounting, or FI/CO for short, needs tailor-made solutions in order to implement increasing automation and ever new reporting requirements.

Companies with a digitalization strategy have recognized that finance has a special role to play. The company processes in the value chain must be recorded in real time and evaluated in the desired order.

In the past, many companies relied on SAP R/3 and ECC solutions. However, the "old" systems are now reaching their limits. The technology factor, in particular the use of innovative and strategic tools such as S/4 Hana Finance, is a key success factor in the transformation of the finance sector.

Single Financial Truth

With the new data model, the two previously separate Finance and Controlling modules are undergoing a significant change under S/4 Hana and are merging from a dual-circuit to a single-circuit system.

Based on a common line item table, the so-called Universal Journal, a central data pool is created that combines all relevant transactional data.

Transactions, analyses and insights are ultimately based on this single source. The Single Financial Truth, based on the Universal Journal, forms the heart of S/4 and paves the way for digital transformation.

Another new feature is multidimensional reporting in real time - ad hoc and with drill-down functionalities for financial reports.

The new common database ensures harmonization of internal and external accounting and enables reporting down to line item level.

Multidimensional reporting makes reporting in S/4 simpler, more flexible, faster and significantly more granular. The new general ledger as an integral part of S/4 meets the challenge of mapping different accounting regulations in parallel.

With the option of keeping different valuations in different ledgers, the posting of many transactions now runs in parallel. Redundant postings for cross-valuation transactions become obsolete and only require an additional posting in the event of valuation differences.

The new data model under S/4 Hana significantly simplifies the introduction of the new general ledger and the associated mapping of parallel accounting rules as a ledger solution. The accounts solution still exists as an alternative option in S/4 Hana.

Coordinated, optimized, flexible

Accounting Profitability Analysis (AB CO-PA) has also undergone a significant expansion of its functionalities and is now the focus of management reporting under S/4 as "Simplyfied CO-PA". Integrated as a subledger in the Universal Journal, the Material Ledger (ML) becomes the sole source of inventory and material valuation.

With the optional actual costing, ML calculates periodic transfer prices and allows you to recharge inventories and cost of sales for the actual cost approach.

A parallel valuation with transfer prices for inter- and intra-company transactions is possible in up to three different valuations: legal valuation, group valuation and profit center valuation.

With S/4 Hana Finance, internal and external accounting will merge. Companies should be aware of this in order to make the necessary adjustments to their organizational structure and process landscape.

To avoid having to make the switch to the new technology on your own, support from external consultants can provide assistance and speed up the changeover.

They can examine the requirements objectively and with an independent view from the outside and offer holistic process consulting. Equipped in this way, a company - and its finance and accounting department in particular - can face the challenges of digitalization.