#MasteringSAP Day 1 Keynote Summary, Finance #MasteringSAPAfrica

Today kicked off Mastering SAP Africa.  Of course this year it is virtual; it was a great experience.

Source: Eventful

Andrea Keegan, Eventful People, said we “still need to get together”

Couldn’t do it without SAP or partners

80+ speakers

Connect with people

Cathy Smith, SAP MD of South Africa

SAP looks to be agile, respond to customer needs

SAP looks to provide actions for customers to achieve intelligent enterprise

Janet Salmon, SAP, is pictured at the bottom.  Janet has been with SAP since 1992.  Chandy is was this track’s moderator.

Source: SAP, Eventful

Source: SAP, Eventful

Where did you start?

In 1992, it was mainframes, no smart phones (when Janet started with SAP)

Today, it’s going from on premise to cloud operating model

Source: SAP, Eventful

5K spreadsheets held together by an SAP system

What are they managing by Excel at the moment?

Could the closing cockpit replace

Real time insights  – typically deliver balance sheet 3 days after

Not information you can use

Starting to change

Where doing data cleansing, clean now and show it

Act on data collect today

Predictive accounting insights – sitting by sales orders, purchase orders, give you an indication of where you are going

Source: SAP, Eventful

Been on the left

Going to the right

Had islands, running SAP, not easy to compare

In 2000, go to Data Warehouse to bring data together

Manage organization as one

Are you still in same business?

Source: SAP, Eventful

Producing or service industry

Car companies – talking today how to handle services, how monetize car wizardry?

Source: SAP, Eventful

Companies doing what they did before, but what are they doing “on top”?

Companies still have engineer to order piece, but now have sensors on top, now charge for outcome

Could do what you are doing before, but could be doing better

Be more efficient – reason for the move to S/4HANA

“do more with less”

Steering model

Source: SAP, Eventful

Many companies have too many cost centers, too many accounts

Why?

Tried to replace mainframe system

Think of cost centers, GL’s

Think of products, services, are they changing?

Think of customer segment

Source: SAP, Eventful

Many thinking of group currency in place for consolidation

Parallel valuation for intercompany business

Urgency has changed

Universal journal – bring FI and CO together

Source: SAP, Eventful

What do you want universal journal to look like?

Are you meeting local view and group view?

Don’t think just about actuals, planning process, consolidation process

Source: SAP, Eventful

Not just profit center report but also have FI dimensions for a more useful report than before

How do you choose to work?

Source: SAP, Eventful

New T account view, a new Fiori view

Start with controlling and P&L account

Way to teach people, look for errors

Source: SAP, Eventful

New document flow

Source: SAP, Eventful

Look at apps for predictive accounting

Predicted revenue on sales order – looking at due date, when delivery, invoice takes place – see when hit P&L statement

Source: SAP, Eventful

GR/IR account

Loads of money not explained well

Look at typical things go wrong

Smart facts

Like Amazon suggestions – write this off, etc.

Q&A

Q: What was the name of the Fiori App which you displayed for the Document Flow example?

A: Display document flow

Q: How can you manage the universal journal dimension with the other orgs like profit centers, cost centers, COA etc.

A: Universal journal is like a pivot table

Q: That was very insightful. What is the name of the book/s you referred to/writing?

A: New book on controlling – due early next year

Current book out now:

Source: SAP, SAP Press

Janet is writing a new book on controlling which is due out next year.

What a great start to the conference…thank you, Eventful People + Steering Committee.  Also thank you to Chandy Beyrooti our track moderator.  Special thanks to Emma Buitendag and Katherine Laubser of Eventful People for the fast help.