A Few benefits of SAP S/4HANA

Abstract:

SAP S/4HANA inherits the capabilities of SAP HANA. SAP HANA provides native in-memory engines that can process any type of data in real-time. It can support both Online Transaction Processing and Online Analytical Processing requirements and built to run on high-end hardware. It stores data optimally. It has built-in, high-availability functions that keep the database running and ensure mission-critical applications are never down.

SAP began by rewriting the Business Suite applications starting with Financial Accounting. The data model for Financial Accounting was redeveloped, and the application code for Finance was rewritten entirely on a simplified data model. The revised application is called SAP S/4HANA Finance, formerly known as Simple Finance.

Later, other applications like sales, procurement, and inventory management, etc., are also simplified.

SAP ECC customers can convert their ECC system to SAP S/4HANA using tools that are provided by SAP.

In SAP, ECC applications are built on a hierarchical data model. The complex data model causes the application code complex. With this sometimes, integration with other applications and enhancements appear difficult. SAP S/4HANA has simplified this data model.

 When users post Financial documents in S/4HANA, records hold all information needed for both legal and management accounting. It gives the ability to track financial accounting data centrally.

The new journal entry has header table BKPF and line items table ACDOCA. It contains all fields needed for G/L, CO, AA, ML, and PA. Data for COEP, FAGLFLEXA, ANEP, MLIT will be stored in single table ACDOCA in S/4HANA. I would like to articulate some of the potential benefits of SAP S/4HANA in this article.

Introduction

The business style around us has been changing and becoming more complex. Every one of us has been experiencing a digital transformation. The usage of Mobile devices and social media, bringing changes in the way we live, work, and run the business. New technologies improve work-life and provide us new opportunities in business. The new SAP S/4HANA has a digital core that gives firms a unique platform for improving main business processes and develops analytical and decision-making capabilities in real-time. This enables a firm smarter, and it helps firms in getting real-time insights.

 When I visit our ECC customers as a part of Hackett Group's S/4HANA engagement program, Many of the SAP ECC customers ask a common question "What are the insights and benefits of SAP S/4HANA?". I would like to share a few of the benefits out of SAP S/4HANA.

Advantages of SAP HANA Technology

With SAP HANA, the key to optimum application performance is pushing as much of the execution logic into the database as possible. It helps to improve data processing performance. It has faster response times. Many organizations are happy with their optimizations and the resulting response times.

Some of the SAP HANA Benefits

· Significant reduction of data volume.

· Simplification of data models & programs.

· Considerable reduction of backup and restore processes.

· Algorithms can be corrected much faster as real data. This is supported by reducing data volume. Data is prepared at runtime and doesn't have to be pre-prepared by using aggregate tables

· Very few efforts for programming to get performance under control.

Advantages of SAP S/4HANA

Improvements in the data model

Actual Tables:

The data model of Finance, Inventory Management, etc.. is simplified in S/4HANA. Only one table for Finance, i.e., ACDOCA and Only one table for Material Documents, i.e., MATDOC, etc. Enabled on the fly aggregation, it

simplifies the data structure and makes accounting more flexible in the long term as reporting is no longer limited by the number of fields in the totals records.

There are significant changes in the way transactional data is stored for financial reporting in SAP S/4HANA. This brings considerable benefits in terms of the ability to harmonize internal and external reporting requirements. This simplification brings accounting more flexible.

Planning Table:

From SAP S/4HANA 1610, it is possible to store the results of planning in the ACDOCP Table. This has the same structure as the universal journal (ACDOCA). Plan/actual reporting will be provided by comparing the entries in the two tables. Integration to SAP Analytics Cloud is also via the new table and master data and reference data and can source from SAP S/4HANA to SAP Analytics Cloud.

For group reporting, the SAP Universal Consolidation Journal Entries table is ACDOCU.

Fixed Asset Accounting:

Asset Accounting is based on the universal journal entry ACDOCA. This means there is no longer any redundant data store. The advantage with New Design for Fixed Asset Accounting is, No redundancy in data storage, Reconciliation between G/L and AA is ensured by design- So does not require FI-AA reconciliation, All non-statistical items are updated as Universal Journal Entries. You will be able to display reports Even after migration. Reporting for previous fiscal years is possible due to compatibility views, even if you convert your system. Depreciation posted with all details: Accumulated depreciation and depreciation cost by asset.

FI-AA Reconciliation postings are no longer necessary as a part of closing operations

Asset Accounting and General Ledger Accounting post to the same Table ACDOCA, Asset Accounting will be reconciled permanently with GL. So, a lot of time saves during period end as we don't need to do Consistency Check of General Ledger and Asset Accounting.

 Real-time updation:

For each asset-related transaction example: acquisition, capitalization of assets under construction (AUC), retirement, post-capitalization, etc., asset values for all posting depreciation areas updated in Realtime.

Transparent assignment of depreciation area to accounting principle:

Simplified chart of depreciation. Only one depreciation area per valuation is necessary. Additional depreciation areas (delta areas) not required to portray a parallel valuation, helping in Navigation and drill down per accounting principle.

Separate Document for each Valuation:

Different accounting principles are represented in separate ledgers. Separate accounting-principle-specific documents are posted for each accounting principle.

Accounting Principle specific postings if any

Accounting principle particular assignments can be done using a separate transaction AB01L for an asset acquisition, a post-capitalization, manual depreciation, or write up.

 Cash management for SAP S/4HANA

The new SAP S/4HANA Finance for cash management provides cash managers with novel user experiences.

The end-to-end process of monitoring bank statement imports, checking cash position, and transferring funds to handle surplus and deficit. It also helps in the Medium-term liquidity forecast and rolling plans of long-term liquidity. It has Centralized bank Relationship management, with which business users can manage bank accounts as master data with more business attributes.

Enables analysis of global bank balances & cash positions, based on data from SAP and non-SAP systems. It comes with integrated liquidity forecasting, central bank Relationship management, and equips cash managers with a smart business cockpit.

Centralized Bank Relationship Management.

These Components help for the Approval process for Bank Account Opening, adjustment, and Closing, Cash Position analysis on Bank Accounts instead of G/L Accounts, Signatory integrated with BCM Payment Approval, Plenty of attributes reflecting controls on both bank side and internal side 

Bank Account Master Data stores extensive information like Company Code & Beneficiary Name, Account Number, IBAN & Description, Bank & SWIFT code, Signatory and Limit, Overdraft Limit, Connectivity Path, Account Type, Contact Person, Bank Details, User-Defined Fields, Attachments, etc.

 Integration with Bank Communication Management

Integrated with Bank Communication Management and Fiori App, "Bank Payment Approval." It can define everyone's payment approval limit. Support Single Sign and Joint Sign; Support both sequential and non-sequential Sign. Signatories information used in the Payment Approval process.

Bank Account Approval Workflow can activate for Opening & Closing Approval, Sensitive Attributes Change Approval, Batch Signatories change, and Approval, Review Process Approval, Display existing Bank Accounts in Approval, etc.

 Cash Pooling

The bank account structure maintenance is done using the new bank account group, which is easy to apply for a business user, without configuration The cash pool detail settings Ex: "expected amount" and "minimal movement amount" for every bank account, can be set directly by a business user, without configuration

While concentrating, it's possible to see the balance* before concentration and the simulated balance after the concentration and adjust the transfer amount if needed.

 Transfer Prices

Holding company may do a transaction with its subsidiary or a division with other divisions within a company; transfer price arises for accounting purposes. It determines costs. SAP S/4HANA has Transfer Price Solution

Transfer Price Solution in S/4HANA offers the following:

· Up to three parallel valuation methods for legal, group and profit center valuation provide the following different perspectives on the value chain within a group:

o The legal perspective looks at the business transactions from the affiliated companies including markups

o Profit center valuation treats profit centers as if they were independent companies using, for example, negotiated prices

o Group valuation looks at the whole group eliminating markups

 The Business Partner approach replaces SAP ECC (ERP) SD customer master.

In SAP S/4HANA, we don't need to maintain customer master data and vendor master data separately in two transaction codes. It is possible to manage master data for customers and vendors centrally. The link between a business partner and other components is achieved by a role. A business partner role corresponds like customer or Vendor etc.

New Accrual Engine in SAP S/4HANA for Accruals:

With this, by posting accruals in the system, the relevant costs are allocated to the fiscal period in which they occurred. With release S/4HANA 1809, a new Accrual Engine has developed. The new Accrual Engine is called S/4HANA Accrual Engine. The S/4HANA Accrual Engine is seamlessly integrating with General Ledger. It supports all currencies of General Ledger, and postings can perform on ledger level instead of only accounting principle level. The benefits of New SAP S/4HANA Accrual Engine is :

It is fully integrated into General Ledger. All currencies of General Ledger are supported. The Accrual Engine postings are stored in table ACDOCA as line items. The fiscal year variant of the G/L ledgers is supported. Standard FI reversal, for example, using transaction FB08 or F.80, is supported.

SAP Fiori app Monitor GR/IR Account Reconciliation

With this app, you can get an overview of the status of open items of GR/IR accounts that need clarification. It helps analyze the GR/IR reconciliation by KPIs for purchase order items and open FI items. After identifying where more in-depth analysis is necessary, you can also navigate the monitor to the list of items for GR/IR clarification, investigate the details, or even start processing purchase order items with no matching goods Receipts and invoices receipts.

 It helps in Analyzing the situation for the reconciliation processing of unbalanced GR/IR accounts. You can also find which company codes indicate most of the open items in financial accounting? For which supplier exists the most open FI items? Navigate directly to the worklist of items to be processed.

Production versions are mandatory in S/4HANA

In S/4 HANA, the production version has been made compulsory for the Subcontracting process in purchasing. If the same material is being manufactured in-house and procured from the vendor using the sub-contracting process, two production versions can be created and assigned to the product code. Production version helps you to define different combinations of BOM's

 Flexible Workflow:

The flexible workflow in place of the traditional release process for purchase requisitions and purchase orders. It is an alternative to the Release strategy. Flexible workflow is a scenario-based workflow that can have more than one start conditions. There is a possibility of determining approvers through a lot of different options. It has an option to specify under which condition should the workflow step be triggered / applicable. It configures using a Fiori app, and approval action can be taken from Fiori App, and it supports Fiori 2.0 push notifications

 MRP Live:

The advantage with this is Improved performance and execute the planning run in much shorter cycles (10+ times) – several planning runs daily can be achieved using MD01N. The classic MRP run (MD01) also runs on HANA (parallel to MD01N) with the same functionality as on any other database

More up-to-date supply and demand information on which to base decisions. Faster reaction to demand changes reduces the risk of stock-outs and means that you can reduce safety stocks. Users can identify and react to issues faster than was previously possible.

 Lean Service Procurement:

With the introduction of new material type SERV, business no longer needs to create a service master. It already has the product type group 'Service' in the material type configuration.

Businesses can create materials with material type SERV and product type group 'service' in place of service masters. Purchase requisitions and purchase orders can be created using the Fiori Apps 'Manage Purchaser Requisitions' and 'Manage Purchase orders' and 'Manage Service Entry Sheet's. Services are created as materials with SERV and product type group 'service,' and service lines sub-item levels are not required to maintain in purchasing documents. New material type SERV is created with the reduced user departments and fields in the classical transactions like MM01/MM02/MM03.

 SAP S/4HANA blends transactions and analytics

SAP S/4HANA allows operational reporting on live transactional data. This is supported by core data services views for real-time operational reporting. The content is represented as a virtual data model based on the transactional and master data tables of

S/4HANA. The embedded analytics are available inside the business processes. This helps in making the processing more efficient.

SAP S/4HANA Financial Closing Cockpit

The SAP S/4HANA Financial Closing Cockpit is an application that enables companies to create a structured interface for executing transactions and programs that form part of complex closing processes; The structural layout supports operations within a company code, as well as scenarios affecting multiple organizational structures. This allows all users who do financial closing for a company code or for numerous company codes to set a manual status for a task, document whether the task has been checked, and manually confirm that a transaction has been executed or not.

Managers who have authorizations to view an overview of the status of the closing process, can access status information, and see issues related to tasks, and job logs, spool lists, or application logs created by the system during task execution.

Companies can use Closing cockpit for their month-end and year-end closing activities chronologically and make them available on a standardized interface to all the team that do these activities

Harmonizes financial & managerial accounting by using a single data source of truth for all financial and managerial processes. It significantly reduces reconciliation efforts and allows on-the-fly analysis without system limitations from pre-built aggregates. It comes with built-in data migration to seamlessly transform your current data into the new accounting world.

 New Depreciation Run-

With new Transaction code, The planned depreciation is calculated with every master record change and with every posting on the asset. When the depreciation run is executed, it adopts the projected asset values and posts them in GL. The journal entry is updated in UJE on the asset level. You can perform period-end closing even if there is an error on individual assets. You can also perform a test run. The Selection view is simplified.

 SAP S/4HANA Finance Credit Management replaces ERP SD Credit Management

FI-AR-CR Credit Management is not available in SAP S/4HANA. The functional equivalent is SAP Credit Management (FIN-FSCM-CR). The FSCM credit management provides enhanced functionality to improve cash flow through the new FSCM functionalities- Collections management disputes management. FSCM-CM helps to bring better control over customers' credit scoring with features like managing credit scoring internally and/or storing credit rating of External Rating companies, Interfacing with Credit Rating Agencies, etc.

 SAP S/4HANA Sales

SAP S/4HANA provides significant simplifications in the areas of sales and distribution, capacity planning Etc.

These changes are informed of re-architecting the data model and functions, new user experience, and unifying functionality in the core, in-depth integration into the SAP Cloud solution SAP Hybris. Also, you can use complementary Sales and Billing solutions (like Multi-Channel-Billing)

The changes in sales and billing include the replacement of add-ons and the expanded integrated functional bandwidth such as EWM, PP/DS, and advanced ATP, etc.

Below are some of the areas simplified on SAP S/4HANA Sales

·  The Business Partner approach replaces the ECC ( ERP) SD customer master.

·  SAP S/4HANA Finance Credit Management replaces FI-AR-CR Credit Management.

·  SAP S/4HANA International Trade Management functionality replaces SAP SD Foreign Trade

·  Migration of Financial Documents from SD-FT to Trade Finance in Treasury and Risk Management.

·  SAP Condition Contract Settlement replaces ERP SD Rebates

·  SAP Revenue Accounting replaces SD-BIL-RR Revenue Recognition

·  SAP S/4HANA Analytics: ODATA & Open CDS views replace ERP LIS/ODP.

 Primary changes in Sales and Billing:

Re-architecting the data model, New SAP Fiori apps & streamlined processes, Expansion of the roles, in-depth analytics, and in-depth integration within and across the business lines. To improve efficiency SAP, Leonardo has been introduced to the sales core processes.

 SAP S/4HANA helps in the optimized order-to-cash process in Sales. SAP Fiori apps and analytical views help for managing and controlling sales and distribution. Embedded analytics allows businesses with smart business processes like the sales order fulfillment cockpit. Sales KPIs are delivered out of the box with the flexibility to create dedicated KPIs as per your need. It helps in business transparency. The sales Heads get insight into the sales data to make the right decision at the appropriate time. Complexity in the order-to-cash process turns simple with simplified logistics. A variety of options such as simulation and predictive information will help the sales team make the correct decision

Foreign Trade:

The classical Foreign Trade functionality is not available in SAP S/4HANA; SAP GTS should be used instead.

Rebate Processing:

Settlement Management replaces SAP SD Rebate Processing in SAP S/4HANA, which means that existing rebate agreements will only be processed up until the end of the validity date of the agreement and must then be closed by a final settlement. New agreements will only be created based on condition contracts, which are part of Settlement Management.

Revenue Recognition

SD Revenue Recognition is not available in SAP S/4HANA. The new SAP Revenue Accounting and Reporting ( RAR)

functionality should be used.

This functionality supports the revenue accounting standard as outlined in the IFRS15 and adapted by local Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Migration to the new solution will be

required to comply with IFRS15 even if an upgrade to SAP S/4HANA is not done.

Sales Activities:

Computer-Aided Selling is not available. It is recommended that customers use CRM side-by-side with SAP S/4HANA or SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer.

 Advanced ATP Overview

The advanced ATP is part of SAP S/4HANA. It helps to improve time to deliver, reduced number of missed business opportunities, and enhanced revenue and profitability. The internal logic for the planning elements from the database to the internal table has been fully redesigned to run in-memory planning. It is integrated into the SAP S/4HANA core.

Advantages:

Promise what you can order, avoid over confirmation

Manage shortage situations

Manage Business Priorities and protect the interest of the customer

Intuitive and fast re-planning

 Manage Sales Plan SAP Fiori app:

This app helps sales managers to create, change, release, and display their sales plans. They can set sales targets on various dimensions for a planned period. Then they compare the actual sales figures to the sales targeted/planned using the Sales Performance - Plan/Actual app.

 Sap Fiori App: Sales Performance — Plan/Actual

Users can select one of their sales plan versions to compare with the actual data. After a sales plan version is selected, the plan and real data can be compared as follows:

Planned and actual values represent incoming sales orders or sales volume, depending on what you have planned in the selected sales plan version

Planned and actual values are compared by month, quarter, or year within the planned period, depending on how you have defined this in the selected sales plan version.

If a customer calls and asks for information on his order, or if our colleague or Manager asks for details on all orders belonging to a particular customer, the Sales team can use it to provide this information quickly. You need to enter search criteria, such as sales documents, requested delivery date, document date, customer reference, to find the relevant sales document

 Embedded EWM :

Reduce cost through better warehouse efficiency, enhanced labor productivity, and better space utilization. It has process transparency, flexible automated processes. Excellent integration with other SAP solutions.

Production planning / Detailed scheduling:

Business benefits from comprehensive planning to production in a single system. It is easy to monitor and for administration. Just a single database to manage.

The Sales order Fulfillment Cockpit

The Sales order Fulfillment Cockpit changes the working mode for an internal sales representative. In SAP, there is an exception based working mode to detect issues earlier and improve customer satisfaction by using sales order Fulfillment Cockpit in SAP S/4HANA.

It brings benefits to the business in a reduction in O to C cycles as well as Outstanding Payments, while service level increases. Using this, we get full insights into all issues of the order Fulfillment process, and we can focus on the most critical issues, Run actions directly and get a track of solution progress. We can also get analytical insights with operational actions

 Group Reporting (Financial consolidation)

Financial consolidation is a very complex topic for Accounts and Finance Departments. It involves complex processes. This is a mandatory exercise for large companies as they have numerous entities, different ERPs, local accounting standards, currencies, etc. play a very significant role.

There is an on-premise solution that is available from SAP S/4HANA 1809 Edition onwards. There is also the SAP S/4HANA Cloud for group reporting solution which became available from May of 2017 onwards

SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting stands on the shoulders of consolidation solutions such as Enterprise Controlling-Consolidation System (EC-CS), & Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC).

Some of SAP S/4HANA Group Reporting Features

·  Simultaneous legal and management consolidation.

·  Automated consolidation of investments

·  Group structure manager.

·  Capability to calculate multiple group currencies for a group all in one run.

·  Integration into the financial closing cockpit.

·  Integration scenarios with planning applications.

·  Advanced intercompany reconciliation

·  Intelligent data validation leveraging machine learning.

·  Restatements with less data redundancy.

·  Customer defined dimensions. ( To be verified with SAP)

SAP S/4HANA Manufacturing benefits

·  Newly designed MRP Live Transaction (MD01N) for optimized MRP run performance. The planning file is optimized for update performance (SAP Note 2227059). The primary key is the MRP run's speed, which runs much faster with reduced storage compared to SAP ECC. Therefore, it can be executed more frequently during the day.

·  Simple logic for sourcing, subcontracting (SAP Note 2226333 and 2227532)

·  ABAP list-based process instructions sheets have been replaced by browser-based PI sheets (SAP note 397504)

·  Use MED integration or the POI interface instead of outdated interfaces such as PFS, LPO, Icon CBP, KK2, KK5, and s95 interface.

·  ECL viewer replaced by Visual Enterprise Viewer.

·  Flow manufacturing and Process flow scheduled PFS outdated – use SAP APO instead (SAP note 217113)

·  We will be able to move from batch processing to real-time Executions

·  Manage inventories in the small lot sizes

·  Real-time inventory postings and visibility of inventory values

·  Higher inventory accuracy

·  Reduced safety stocks due to high visibility into stock

SAP BPC Optimized for SAP S/4HANA

·  Some of the essential capabilities of SAP BPC Optimized for SAP S/4HANA are below:

·  Single planning solution

·  Real-time access to master & transactional data, for modeling and variance analysis

·  Flexible drill-down on drivers for profitability analysis & End-to-end simulation capabilities

·  Better and seamless integration of planning screens into SAP ERP workflows

·  Pre-built planning models

The advantages of SAP BPC Optimized for SAP S/4HANA are as follows:

·  We can overcome the limitations of GUI based planning

·  Elimination of data replication.

·  Plan data transfer of plan data developed in SAP Business Planning and Consolidation to SAP ERP for variance analysis.

·  SAP Business Planning and Consolidation provides access to real-time master data & actual data maintained in SAP ERP.

Enablement of financial planning capabilities based on

·  SAP Business Planning and Consolidation.

·  An SAP NW version is seamlessly integrated into SAP ERP user interfaces & workflows, effectively replacing the current planning capabilities in SAP ERP.

·  We can have end-to-end simulation capabilities.

Budget Availability Control for Cost Center

The standard SAP R/3 System has no active availability control for cost centers. You can exceed the cost center budget without corresponding messages. If anyone wants availability control for postings to cost centers, we used to use indirect solutions for primary postings. We will be able to activate AVC for cost centers in S/4HANA 1909.

We can create a budget availability control profile, assign budget relevant account groups, and define budget tolerance limits to control the budget consumption in cost centers.

When users post expense, which is tagged as an Actual Cost, the available budget is checked. When the budget consumption reaches a defined limit, the system responds with either a warning or an error message. This system response depends on the settings that you have specified in the budget availability control profile.

If you create a purchase requisition or a purchase order assigned to a cost center, a commitment is generated. This commitment reduces the available budget.

 SAP Fiori Apps

SAP Fiori offers a new Web-based User Experience based on HTML5 and the UI5 framework. It provides Capabilities to users to personalize the screens and adjust the screens. SAP Fiori offers the power to deliver a state-of-the-art user experience.

Conclusions:

SAP S/4HANA is a real-time Business suite for digital business. It allows IT to connect to social & business networks (for example, Ariba and Concur) and the "Internet of Things." SAP S/4HANA comes with very innovative and new feature rich-applications, which make it simple to get insight from real-time data anywhere. Planning, execution, prediction & simulation are all made "on-the-fly," at the highest level of granularity, to drive faster business impact. It is designed with SAP Fiori UX, enabling business users to get the job done with a personalized, responsive, and simple user experience available on any device. In short, SAP S/4HANA is the re-imagined Business suite for re-imagining business.

A Look at SAP Business Partner - Collaboration Series with Michael Management

SAP Business Partner is a person, organization, group of persons, or group of organizations that a company has a business interest in.

One would use this business object for a variety of business transactions. Most notably it is used in order processing.  It is used to create both Sales and Purchase Orders.

For individuals who have worked in SAP ERP, the SAP Business Partner replaces the SAP Objects Customer and Vendor as well as all other partner objects except for the HR Personnel number. 

While SAP Business Partner has been available in SAP CRM and SAP FI Contracts Accounts for quite some time, Business Partner will now be used in SAP FI- Accounts Payable and FI- Account Receivables. 

Master Data

SAP Business Partner is a part of what is referred to as Master Data. Master Data is data that is required to carry out the business of the organization. This contrasts with Transactional Data which refers to data created by carrying out transactions. Examples of transactional data are sales and purchase orders.

Master Data generally remains unchanged for a while and is often used to facilitate creating transactional data. Once the Business Partner is created it can be entered into a sales or purchase order. This supplies address and other information to the order.

Business Partner Categories

Business Partners are created in Categories. Categories determine the fields available for general data entry. There are 3 different categories of Business Partners:

• Organizations

• People

• Groups

SAP Business Partner Roles

The Business Partner Serves as a database of every person, group, or organization that is involved in a business.  SAP Business Partners can serve different functions within a company. These are referred to as Roles.

For example, if a partner is a Customer and a Vendor, both these roles can be supported by this Object. This prevents the system from having to store redundant data for multiple objects.  Rather than storing multiple objects, a Business Partner has roles added to account for additional data the Partner needs to cover an additional role they play in your business.

Business Partners can be created in as many roles as needed:

All Business Partners must be created in the General Role. General data includes address information,  technical and other forms of identification, tax, and general payment information.

Business Partner and Sales Order Process

In order to process Sales Orders, Business Partner’s must be created in the Customer Role. Separate data must be created for each sales area the Customer does business in. For example, if a company has a Chicago sales as well as a New York sales area, separate data will be required for each.

In order to process a Sales Invoices, Business Partner’s must be created in the Customer (Fin Accounting) Role. Separate data must be created for each Company Code the Customer does business in. For example, if a company has a US Company Code as well as a German Company Code, separate data will be required for each.
 

Business Partner and Purchase Order Process

In order to process Purchase Orders, Business Partner’s must be created in the Supplier Role. Separate data must be created for each sales area the Supplier does business in. For example, if a company has a Chicago Sales Area as well as a New York Sales Area, separate data will be required for each.

In order to process a Invoices in purchasing, Business Partner’s must be created in the Supplier (Fin Accounting) Role. Separate data must be created for each Company Code the Supplier does business in. For example, if a company has a US Company Code as well as a German Company Code, separate data will be required for each.

Other SAP Business Partner Roles

Customers and Suppliers are the most common Business Partner roles. there are however other roles a Partner can be created in. Among the most common are two roles used in the Financial Supply Chain Management Module, these are the Credit Partner and the Collections Partner.

The first is used to check the creditworthiness of a Customer, the second is used to maintain data on how collections activity should be carried out should the customer become past due.

The Employee Business Partner is generally attached to the Employee Personnel Number from the SAP HR module. This is generally used for HR purposes. The Employee Responsible can also be attached to a sales order to indicate which employee should be contacted if problems arise with an Order.  These Partners are created in the Category Person.

The Contact Partner is another role that is created in the Category Person. This role is someone from outside the company. They often are people at companies that are Suppliers or Customers. They can be attached to a sales order to indicate a person at the company the order is for or from that should be contacted if problems arise with an order. Contact people can also be any individual your business has a relationship with. 

In addition to these, there are several Industry-specific roles such as the Financial Services Business Partner which is used in the Banking Module to show all of the accounts a customer has at a Financial Institution.

Introduction to Using SAP Business Partners – Operating in S/4HANA

In S/4HANA, SAP Business Partner will replace the SAP Customer, Vendor, and all other types of Partners except for the SAP Personnel Number. Experienced users will need to make the transition to this object once they upgrade to S/4HANA. For any user new to SAP who will be working in HANA, Business Partner is a foundational concept you will need to learn on your way to becoming an SAP expert.

This Introduction to Business Partner course will introduce you to the basic concepts underlying Business Partner and take you through creating a Business Partner for use as both a customer and a vendor.

The class includes a tutorial on how to create a business partner as well as exercises you can print out and use to create a basic Business Partner in your own system. The class includes quizzes and a certification test to aid in your learning process.

The class is a beginning class and will not include configuration. It is appropriate for most audiences, however, individuals who are completely new to SAP may benefit by taking a few Basic SAP Skill courses before taking this one.

Trailing Foreign Currency Valuation Posting Log in SAP S/4 HANA 1709

The valuation of foreign currency in SAP has always been a process that requires additional accounting effort to track historic posting for Financial reporting and auditing requests. Information reports available in SAP do not include some details usually requested by the auditing process (i.e., vendor or customer associated to valuation document, original open item document valuated, etc.) in a single report. Even though a log can be activated and stored for this transaction, further custom development should be done to fulfill internal information needs.

A single report gathering balance and open items valuations that could be executed whenever be required can have the following simplified layout:

      I. Process Overview

Foreign currency valuation runs utilizing transaction FAGL_FCV.  This application allows the valuation of balance accounts and open items.

The financial/accounting department has to define all parameters required to execute this transaction (i.e., valuation method, accounts to be valuated, etc.) per local accounting principles. Then it can be used to calculate how the rate of exchange of the balance is affected by foreign currency fluctuations at the month-end. As a result, a gain or loss is posted with correspondence to configured accounts.

Depending on what kind of valuation has been chosen by the user, there are two possible posting options: balance accounts and open items documents (accounts, vendors, and customers). Both scenarios will be presented in the next paragraphs.

Balance account valuation.

It is executed using tab ¨Open Items: G/L Accounts¨:

Resulting screen will look like:

Journal entries will have the following accounting structure:

The screenshot above demonstrates that valuated account 11010500 is directly debited or credited to a gain or loss account (i.e., 42020106 or 62010206); as a result, the actual account balance is changed.

 Open items valuation

It should be executed on the tab "Open Items: G/L Accounts":

The result is shown below:

The associated postings do not affect reconciliation accounts directly; they post balance differences to balance correction account. It keeps intact the reconciliation account balance of vendors and customers

For document 0800000004, currency exchange difference generates a debit to an expense account and a credit to balance correction account.  On the other hand, the document 0800000006 posting credit a gain account and debit to balance correction account. Hence, the document´s open balance remains unchanged.

Standard transaction log available in FAGL_FCV.

SAP provides the possibility of the store log from the execution clicking on “Save Log” option to store execution outcome in a log file:

But it does not bring information besides what you see in the standard screens showed above. Moreover, if this option is not timely activated, the log will not be saved. 

     II. Technical approach for custom log report

Three main tables store data created after execution of the valuation process: ACDOCA, FAGL_BSBW_HISTRY, FAGL_BSBW_HST_BL, and ACDOCA. Now we are going to see their relationship in the next paragraphs.

FAGL_BSBW_HISTRY - Valuation History for Documents

This table keeps historical documents created by the valuation of open items documents (vendors, customers, and balance accounts with OI management). In the next table, I have detailed principal fields that should be considered to build a link with Universal Ledger:

FAGL_BSBW_HST_BL  - Valuation History of Balances:

This table keeps historical documents created by the valuation of balance accounts.  In the next table, I have detailed principal fields that should be considered:

ACDOCA -Universal Ledger and Foreign valuation

In S/4 HANA 1709, the universal ledger provides the table ACDOCA for most financial data postings. So, this table must be used as a principal database for any report related to the FI module.  The next table shows the essential fields to consider:

III. Balance Report design

Using a query ABAP or an ABAP report is possible to do the desired layout following this mapping chart:

There are some crucial points to keep in consideration:

· Auxiliary tables FAGL_BSBW_HISTRY and FAGL_BSBW_HST_BL  collect information of balance and open items in a time interval selected

· FI documents created during FAGL_FCV execution are recorded in ACDOCA.

· Company code, year, business transaction type, valuated account, date, and time stamp are the key linking ACDOCA and FAGL_BSBW_HST_BL.

· Company code, year, business transaction type, date, and time stamp are the key linking ACDOCA and FAGL_BSBW_HST_BL.

· ACDOCA is the main table to collect data from auxiliary tables.

· Currency exchange rate used for each document in ACDOCA can be retrieved using function module READ_EXCHANGE_RATE.

Application Development in SAP S/4HANA

SAP Customers deal with many business objects in daily business. SAP developed many applications to manage several business objects to use. In many scenarios, customers do define and develop custom business objects (Applications) to speed up or to develop a new business process.

Most of the business objects are in hierarchical structures—a mandatory header, Item, sub-item, and so on. In SAP S/4HANA, one can utilize the power of SAP S/4HANA development artifacts to design and develop applications in simple steps that require basic knowledge of ABAP, Core Data Services, and Fiori Elements using WebIDE. Business object development starts with design. Let’s continue with an example of a business object with header and item relation.

Step 1: Design a database table for header and Item with respective keys and foreign key relation.

Step 2: Define basic CDS views on top of DB tables (Basic views starts with I_*). The basic view should reflect the underlying data model.  Define mandatory header annotations like

@VDM.viewtype: #BASIC, @objectmodel.representativekey: 'Material' @accesscontrol.authorizationcheck: #CHECK @objectmodel.usagetype.*, @abapcatalog:*

Tip: Make use of SAP Global Field Names (GFN) to refer to the DB field names. SAP GFN's are approved abbreviations to refer to a view field.

Tip: Annotate basic CDS view fields with semantic annotations like Currency key, Currency, Quantity Quantity Unit, Visibility, and so on.

Step 3:  Build a relation between header and Item CDS view via association.

Define consumption view, in view of the business process and user interface:

Step 4: Define consumption header(root) CDS view and include view fields from the underlying BASIC header view. Must include the mandatory header annotations

@VDM.viewtype: #CONSUMPTION, @objectmodel.*, @objectmodel.semantickey:*, @abapcatalog.* , @accesscontrol.*

 Step 5: Define consumption item CDS view and include fields from underlying BASIC Item view. Must include the mandatory header annotations

@abapcatalog*, @accesscontrol.*, @VDM.viewtype: #CONSUMPTION, @objectmodel.*

Step 6: Associate header and item consumption views with respective key combination.

Consumption views reflect the user interface. Which means, the UI technology ‘Fiori Elements’ will generate the user interface in resemblance to the annotations defined in consumption views.

Fiori elements offer different layouts to develop the user interface. The most popular layout is the list report. List report comes with the pattern of a list page, that displays the header data records in a table format. Upon selecting the record, user will be navigated to an object page, where further details of header data and items can be found. Header data and items are groped by Facets. Further selection of item from related table will navigate to the object page of respective item.

Application to use Fiori elements must define a set of annotations either in CDS views or in local UI project metadata.

Frequently used annotation in list report:

List page: @ui.lineitem, @ui.selectionfield

List page contains a table and associated filters. For an example, a header CDS view has 8 fields and list page must show 5 important fields in table and 2 of them are filterable.

@AbapCatalog.sqlViewName: 'CHEADER'

@AccessControl.authorizationCheck: #CHECK

@EndUserText.label: Header view'

@VDM.viewType: #CONSUMPTION

@ObjectModel.createEnabled: true

@ObjectModel.updateEnabled: true

@ObjectModel.deleteEnabled: true

C_Header as select from I_Header

association [1..1] to C_Item as _Item on $projection.ID = _Item.ID

{

@UI.lineItem: [{position: 10 }]

@UI.SelectionField: [{position: 10 }]

Key Field1,

@UI.lineItem: [{position: 20 }]

@UI.SelectionField: [{position: 20 }]

Field2,

@UI.lineItem: [{position: 30 }]

Field3,

@UI.lineItem: [{position: 40 }]

Field4,

@UI.lineItem: [{position: 50 }]

Field5,

@UI.SelectionField: [{position: 30 }]

Field6,

Field7,

Field8,

}

As a result, Field1, Field2, Field3, Field4, Field5 will be positioned in list page table. Fields Field1, Field2, Field6 will be positioned in global filters in respective position order.

Object page:

Object page projects an overview of an entity and relation to associated entity sets. In our example, the general data facet should show all fields of header data and a facet for item data table.

Frequently used annotation in Object Page:

@ui.Identification, @ObjectModel.association.type, @ui.Datapoint

Below example can be followed to display non fields of root node in one facet and another facet to access item records formatted in a table.

{          

            @ui.dataPoint: { targetValueElement: ‚Field1‘ }

Key Field1,

@UI.identification: [{position: 10 }]

Field2,

@UI.identification: [{position: 20 }]

Field3,

@UI.identification: [{position: 30 }]

Field4,

@UI.identification: [{position: 40 }]

Field5,

@UI.identification: [{position: 50 }]

Field6,

@UI.identification: [{position: 60 }]

Field7,

@UI.identification: [{position: 70 }]

Field8,

@ObjectModel.association.type: [#TO_COMPOSITION_CHILD]

_Item

}

Result:

As a result, fields from 1 to 8 are shown as a form in facet ‘General Data’ and Item table in another facet. Field1 will be positioned in Object page Header.

CDS header annotations like @Objectmodel.create/update/delete enabled will enable create, update, delete operations on respective entity set. Of course, ABAP data provider class must be implemented to handle the request.

In addition, a gateway project should be defined (Tcode: SEGW) to build an interface between UI & Backend. The project should be created via Referenced Data Source in reference to the Consumption Header CDS view. As a result, Data provider class, Model Provider classes, Gateway service will be granted automatically upon project generation. Register the service in gateway client to build an UI project using Web IDE.