SAP Central Finance – Exposing AIF errors for value benefit

In my previous blog and in lot of other blogs & on internet you must have seen that AIF is a real challenge to use after any Central Finance project goes live. But as the history says that everything has pros & cons and same is with AIF. Let’s talk about both of the cases.

AIF as a challenge:

• With the implementation of SAP S/4HANA Central Finance you are trying to optimise your processes, people, technology and simplify your business but at the same time introducing AIF to the organization is another complexity to add. New people (with or without experience) are needed to manage AIF
• Team size depends on scope of CFIN. Like if you have 2 source ECC systems you might need 1 person but if you have 15+ source ECC systems then you might need more people
• If the source catalogue also has non SAP systems then you are in more complex stage and need to rethink the team size.
• How the support of technology & data on source side is managed is a key area. If you have several partners supporting and several data teams then it is a real challenge.
• In the end with AIF you are adding more people, more complexities and more SLA to your period end close/month end close etc

AIF as a value add:

• When you are implementing SAP S/4HANA Central Finance then of course you can’t run away from the challenges and problems with AIF but why not to get value out of it. Let’s use the problems as opportunity to deliver value. But how?

• Few options are:
o Build Dashboards by using the error data – Everyday AIF is getting tons of errors. Use that data based on some key parameters like
 Source systems
 Pattern of Data objects in error
 Timeframe of error
 Pattern of configuration error

o Root Cause Analysis of errors
 Based on the data available start reviewing the root cause. If 40% errors of X source system are because of vendor master data then what’s the field or process which can help in reducing them.
 If for Y ECC system its always the configuration data governance is creating 50% of problems then we need to work out of the configuration governance process

o Implement Process mining – You implement tool or do it offline but it is important that based on the errors, data points we are getting from CFIN we need to mine our processes.

Lot more can be done with this as its just about using the data and get value out of it. I have done it in project and have delivered lot of value in processes.

Happy reading and keep sharing…