This blog is for the enthusiastic souls who want to have a sneak preview into what's going to come with S/4 HANA 1909 for Group Reporting(hereafter called as S4GR). By now, you might know that S4GR is essentially the classic EC-CS solution, but further improvised leveraging the power of
- HANA,
- S/4 HANA Accounting Model
- S/4 Cloud Platform for add-on applications (such as Data Collection and external reporting, etc.)
S/4 HANA 1809 is the initial version for S4GR. As promised by SAP, S/4 HANA 1909 is going to be a major (you can say landmark) version for S4GR. Based on the various documentations available and webinars attended I try to compile, with humanly possible accuracy at this stage, the new features expected to be available in S4GR with S/4 HANA 1909
A) Group Reporting Data Collection (GRDC): This is a new add-on fully built with S/4 Cloud Platform which provides capability to fetch data from non-S4 companies - both financial and non-financial.
GRDC is not mandatory, but recommended. Without GRDC, one can still use the "Flexible Upload" or "API Upload" options. But GRDC is not just another upload mechanism for non-S4 data. It will also provide flexible mapping environment for FS items.
For example, In the current version of S4GR, only the GL accounts can be mapped to FS items. With GRDC, one can map GL Account + Cost Center + Any other characteristic to FS items, making it at par with BPC solution in this aspect
GRDC Solution is already available in S/4 Cloud
B) Transition from EC-CS to S4GR: SAP plans to deploy the possibility of migrating the customers from EC-CS to S4GR. However, BPC has been the solution of choice over the last decade. So, how many customers will this touch - we will have to wait and watch
C) Matrix Consolidation: The current version of S4GR only supports Consolidation By Companies. With S/4 HANA 1909, we are going to see consolidation by Profit Centers and Segments as well. This is already available in S/4 Cloud
D) Consolidation Group Definition: We will see a new and flexible way of defining the consolidation groups including company assignments with respective acquisition and divestiture dates
E) Consolidation of Investments (CoI): In the current version of S4GR, only the Purchase Method is supported for CoI. With S/4 HANA 1909, we can expect support for Equity Method as well
Also, at present only the Full Divestiture is supported. With S/4 HANA 1909, we can expect support for Partial Divestiture too
F) Advanced Inter-Company Reconciliation and Matching: This, in my opinion, is going to be the icing on the cake - A flexible and High-Speed engine to do the Inter-Company Reconciliation and Matching.
See the video in this
SAP Help URL. If the first version of this feature is so beautiful, I am sure we will be short of words when it comes to the future versions beyond S/4 HANA 1909.
G) Automated-Group Share Calculation: We should see some improvements in this area too. The ownership percentages maintained as investor-investee relationship is expected to automate the processing of group share calculation
H) Consistent UX for Validation exercise: In the present version of S4GR, the UX of Validation is not same as the other steps in the Data/Consolidation monitor. With S/4 HANA 1909, we should see it at par with other steps and also the possibility of scheduling it as background activity
I) Integration of Data into Group Reporting: In the present version of S4GR, this was a mandatory step, after performing all the activities in the data and consolidation monitor, to make the data available for reporting. SAP realizes that this is a redundant step and it is expected to be done away with in S/4 HANA 1909
From whatever I could read and view so far, I have been able to compile the above list of awesome innovations. In a span of 1 year since the last version, for this bunch of innovations, we honestly owe a round of applause to the SAP team working on it.
stephane.neufcourt i-lin.hsu & Team - Many thanks for all your efforts on the Consolidation Journey
Regards
Ajay Maheshwari
