Data Management and Landscape Transformations – Currency Conversion Services Overview and Insights

Introduction and Problem statement:

You need to change or add or delete currencies in your SAP system, somewhat like it happened during the EURO conversion end of the 20’st century. Or you suffer from inflation and either need to add a USD or EUR or other hard currency. Or you must change decimals.

You as a SAP customer would like information relating to currency conversion service directly from SAP as your trusted advisor.

You would like to know specifics about the currency conversion service (and maybe others, too).

You would like to know how you can receive support from SAP to execute your currency conversion requirements.

Your way forward:

For address these problems, SAP DMLT’s (AKA SLO) currency conversion background and consulting team can help you!

You may also visit the following portal: https://support.sap.com/en/offerings-programs/support-services/data-management-landscape-transformation/unifications.html for more information.

For a deeper dive into your particular requirements, you may want to get in touch with me / the experts behind this blog or via our global customer engagement team: SAP_DMLT_GCE@sap.com

The technical tricky background

Currency changes in a production SAP system are a common regular requirement, but not easy to conduct by customers themselves, but only by high skilled SAP experts.

In consequence, this is a common and regular service request that SAP DMLT currency experts and currency services can assist you with.

Our services were created by and by, when the EURO Monetary Union wave affected our customers’ SAP systems.

Below a small overview on the most common currency types and their role and place in a SAP system, which you may want to change or introduce:

And whether there are huge local or regional new legal or business function requirements, we are at your service.

We may talk about the classic currencies used in FI or CO, or what to do for Material Ledger (ML) scenarios. A common customer currency project driver is the need to comply with the new, dedicated valuation and reporting demands.

Customers can do currency customizing and setup only when you start your company code currency live. Upon the first significant amount of data you posted, the definition is set, changes are gone. Normally.

But who knows what future holds, what your companies valuation reporting requirements will become? This is, where the DMLT currency team comes into play.

Below a common overview on currency type settings in different currency type valuation scenarios, where ML can or has to be in use

Below you see a sample list of some use case areas in SAP , the ECC view on currency types, application areas, and the variations you have in that so to speak:

Conclusion

Changes in a mature SAP system on currencies in FI / CO is very delicate. DMLT is here to help and assist you.

Customers who try to adjust or change local currencies in FI/FI-AA/CO etc. by themselves in live systems typically fail hard.

Nowadays, with S/4HANA as flagship product, the challenges are more multifold, and decisions for future road map need careful considerations and planning before starting your journey.

Best practice as of today is, you tackle your currency setup before you start your S/4HANA journey.

If you are interested in this topic or already know that you need support from SAP DMLT for such a service, please contact us at  SAP_DMLT_GCE@sap.com.

And: Do not confuse when you only hear ‘EURO’. This is just a placeholder for any of the ISO currencies, you are thinking about.

The important thing for you to know: Yes, some customers can do a mere pure company code conversion in ECC by themselves. But all other categories, like parallel currency introduction, decimal adjustment, selective local currency conversion, group currency, retroactive introduction of new currencies, Swap of Currencies, deletion of currencies – this is the home turf of DMLT only.

Especially for the the currency key rename and its correlation to decimal adjustments an actual important disclaimer: Watch out on note 434349 about decimal changes.

Never activate a currency key without checking its default rollout setup and making sure, that you adjust it to the actual valid ISO settings! Be sure on that

Anyone must understand, that the default SAP system rollout is of course never reflecting actual global changes, e.g. coming by inflation and the desire for decimal removement in first place as to cope with increasing zero’s, or even change of the country currency key itself. SAP is not responsible for the change of history, nor can we just ‘swipe out’ history that was already generated! Customizing and master data of your system is your primary responsibility, and like any other, it is underlying changes.

Too many customers nevertheless seem to trust, that even a new S/4H system shows ‘actual’ currency keys and actual decimal settings as defined per changing ISO standards. This is a wrong hope. So it is never actual. It can’t be. Since if you have a running system with a given currency key already activated, postings are done, but only then you find out you are doing wrong, a change is needed, you have no other choice but DMLT to adjust this, following the global change on financial markets, country ratings, inflation coming from that. Beware on that point, I just got too many customer queries on that.

To give you a small overview on  typical SAP currency notes, to get an idea about the bandwidth we  speak about, you may want to digest and discuss some of the below.

Currency conversion in ERP:

• OSS – SAP-Service Market Place – Inside the ERP-system in the customizing for EURO-conversion (help)
• 921984 – FAQ: Euro translation methods and euro differences in FI – https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/921984
• 335608 – Translation of parallel local currencies from transaction currency or 1st local currency https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/335608
• 921984 – FAQ: Euro translation methods and euro differences in FI – https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/921984
• 2781513 – High number of inmaterial differences identified during conversion to SAP S/4HANA – https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2781513
• 434349 – Decimal place change of currencies https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/434349

Currency conversion in BW:

• 376976 – Euro Conversion in BW system  – https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/376976
• 811461 – Euro conversion no longer available – https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/811461

Currency conversion in CRM:

• 407073 – Local currency changeover in R/3 and CRM – https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/407073
• 389805 – Collective note for the Euro changeover with CRM – https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/389805

Currency conversion in SEM:

• 390359 – Euro conversion for SEM – https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/390359

Currency conversion in SCM/APO:

• 386080 – APO / EURO- https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/386080

Currency conversion in SRM:

• 387095 – Euro problems in EBP- https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/387095

And as a collection about what S4H can offer once you prepared your Journey in ECC, see the following S4H specific notes. Kindly be aware: what does not exist in ECC when you do brownfield, will also not exist in S4H. In turn, the conclusion is: clean up and harmonize in ECC before the move as to avoid to miss something in S4H.

Be sure to be aware

https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2334583

2344012 – Currencies in Universal Journal – SAP ONE Support Launchpad

2894297 – Handling of Currencies in Controlling in SAP S/4HANA – SAP ONE Support Launchpad

Also be sure not to confuse on articles like this one: Managing Currencies in a Live SAP S/4HANA Finance 1809 Environment – SAPinsider (sapinsideronline.com)

This mentions SLO in the beginning, giving the idea that by the help of this function for free defined currencies you can replace a local currency or add it. This is NOT true in the sense of a classic local currency in FI, as for the ones that you have established and which are known as LC1, LC2, LC3.

In other words: if you like to conduct a EURO conversion because you are the owner of a company code for a country that joins the European monetary union (as example) this is actually not possible.

The same is true for any other local currency of the LC1, 2, 3 family.