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Author's profile photo Swati Balani

Intelligent Record to Report(RTR) with SAP S/4HANA Cloud or on premise

Welcome to my third blog post in the series of Intelligent Technologies for Finance with SAP S/4HANA Cloud. If you missed the earlier ones click here – Intelligent Accounts Receivable, Intelligent Accounts Payable.

In this blog post we will see how the traditional Record to Report processes which were manual, tedious, time consuming can get automated, simplified with innovations in intelligent technologies like SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation, Embedded Analytics.

Record to report (R2R) involves collecting, processing, and presenting accurate financial data. R2R provides strategic, financial, and operational feedback on the performance of the organization to inform management and other stakeholders.

Record to Report processes –

  1. Journal entry posting
  2. Accrual creation
  3. GL reclass postings
  4. Exchange rate updates
  5. Reporting

With innovations in Intelligent technologies, these tasks can be automated, simplified, thus RTR team can focus on more strategic tasks that create actual business value.

SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation

Let’s see how Innovations in Intelligent Robotic Process Automation automates the Record to Report processes.

Standard Bots

Automated Upload of General Ledger Entries (48I)

This bot collects the journal entry templates from the user’s mailbox and uploads them using the standard Fiori application. Afterwards, the user gets notified on the status of the upload, receiving a list of accepted and rejected entries with the explanation included in the application log. This bot works on both SAP S/4HANA Cloud and on premise 1809, 1909, 2020 and beyond.

Automated Upload of Manual Entries via API (4CA)
This bot automatically collects template of General Ledger Journal upload from Microsoft Outlook, extracts and validates the content and post the entries into SAP S/4HANA systems via API.

Smart Accruals Collector (4FN)

Creating manual accruals is a repetitive task that involves getting information from a spreadsheet to copy/paste it in the accounting system. In some cases, the accountant need to create accrual objects manually in the occurrence of a purchase order not created in time. The accountant need to get information from business and create document manually. With this bot we will automate the accrual creation process. This bot works on both SAP S/4HANA Cloud(EX) and on premise 1809, 1909, 2020 and beyond.

 

Automated Generation of GL Re-class Postings (5AK)
The bot checks journal entries created with specific company codes and G/L accounts and reclassifies the journal entries by transferring the amounts to other G/L accounts based on predefined mapping rules. The reclassified journal entries will be created as Excel template files. This bot works on SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

Demo: Automated Generation of GL Re-class Postings

Inconsistent New-GL Open Item Exclusion for Migration Cockpit (4JD)
In a two-step approach, this bot automatically executes the report to get information on the inconsistent documents and then removes the inconsistent documents from the SAP S/4HANA On-Premise 1909 system. Currently, the exchange/orchestration of information between various frameworks like readiness check and migration cockpit requires a tremendous amount of effort due to the volume of data involved in it. Ensuring data consistency during migration is one of the most common and complex challenges for transformation to the SAP System. This bot simplifies the work of SAP S/4HANA users, who are responsible for data migration projects, and core business users, who are responsible for business decisions.

All the standard Bots listed are available Out of the Box in Intelligent RPA Store.

Refer blog post for more details.

Custom Bots: Use Cases

Simpler Custom Bot building with No code/low code approach with SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation 2.0.

Below examples show different ways to build Custom Bots for the Use cases in RTR.

Demo: SAP Intelligent RPA 2.0 Automation – Easily automate Outlook and email activities

Demo: SAP Intelligent RPA 2.0 Automation – SAP Logon Pad and SAP GUI

SAP Analytics

Reporting with Embedded Analytics:

We get embedded Analytics in SAP S/4HANA Cloud and on premise systems which gives us real-time data in Analytical Apps,  Dashboards, Data Analyzer.

Analytical Apps:

  •  General Ledger Overview – With this analytical overview app you can monitor important general ledger accounting indicators and access the relevant general ledger accounting apps.

Dashboards:

  • Group Financial Statements – You use this app to display group financial statement reports.

Data Analyzer:

  • Group Data Analysis – Analyze consolidated financial statements, such as balance sheets and profit and loss statements by drilling down to specific dimensions.
  • Group Data Analysis with Reporting Rules – Use this app to perform ad hoc analyses for rule-based reports, such as cash flow statements, statement of changes in equity, and comprehensive income statements, by drilling down to specific dimensions.
  • Cash Flow Comparison by Time – Cash Flow Comparison by Timestamp with SAC

You can also create custom analytical reports and dashboards, for details see blog post – Custom Stories/Dashboards, Embedded Analytics FAQs

 

What’s New?  

Important Highlights of SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation 2.0​

Simpler Custom Bot building with No code/low code approach.

Building Bots is more User friendly, even Business Process Experts can easily build Bots with easy drag and drop.

Ability to build Bots through Studio in cloud, orchestrate in cloud & execute wherever customers infrastructure is on premise.

Additionally, now you can monitor the Bots on CALM.

What’s New Blogs –

Unveiling SAP Intelligent RPA 2.0 : Hyper automation for everyone

Join the Future of Automation with SAP Intelligent RPA 2.0

What’s New for SAP Intelligent RPA with SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2102

Additional References –

SAP Note 2788986 – Release Strategy for SAP Intelligent RPA

Discover SAP Intelligent RPA at SAP TechEd 2020

Try SAP Intelligent RPA for Free: Trial Version | Pre-built Bots

Offerings for Business Transformation as a Service: Rise with SAP

Get started with SAP S/4HANA Intelligent ERP

Learn more: Webinars | Help Portal | openSAP

Explore: Product Information | Successful Use Cases

Exchange knowledge: SAP Community | Q&A | Blog

Do stay tuned with the latest updates in Intelligent Technologies with SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

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      6 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Warren Nash
      Warren Nash

      Is BP 48I available for on-premise?  Yuou mentioned on-premise but your blog tags don't show it.

      Author's profile photo Swati Balani
      Swati Balani
      Blog Post Author

      Yes, 48I is available for SAP S/4ANA on premise (1809, 1909, 2020 beyond) and also for SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

      Author's profile photo arghadip kar
      arghadip kar

      Seems Promising. I could not play with it yet as I am getting access Denied for Trial License.

      So what benefit we get from switching from UIPATH to IRPA

       

       

      Thanks

      Arghadip

      Author's profile photo Jia Ding
      Jia Ding

      Thank you for your sharing.

      I'm trying this "Automated Upload of Manual Entries via API (4CA)" Bot for S/4HANA on-premises now.

      I tried to verify it with S/4HANA on-premises system by referring to Test Script,
      But I got an Security error occurred on Status: 12175
      If you know the reason please tell me.
      
      This is My variable setting on Cloud Factory below: 
      ・S4H_COMM_USER_0002: Set my own S/4HANA user ID and password.
       ("A technical user with the required authorization of the Journal Entry – Post (Synchronous) API is needed" this is written by the Test Script.
         I'm not sure if my setting is true or not.) 
      
      ・SYSTEMURL_SOAP_4CA: The WSDL URL of the SOAP API generated by SOAMANAGER is set.
      
      Could you please tell me how to fix it if you have any idea.
      
      Best Regards,
      Jia 
      
      Author's profile photo Prasanth Padmanabhan Menon
      Prasanth Padmanabhan Menon

      Hi Jia,

       

      Could you refer to the blog https://blogs.sap.com/2020/08/10/understanding-the-role-of-ignore-client-certificate-flag-while-invoking-api-odata-services-on-sap-s-4hana-on-premise-system-using-sap-intelligent-rpa/? This will help you to solve this error.

       

      Thanks and Regards,

      Prasanth

      Author's profile photo Jia Ding
      Jia Ding

      Hi Prasanth,

      Thank you for your response.

      SSL certificate(CA certificate and System certificate) were installed in our S/4HANA On-Premise system.

      But we have no idea is it a valid SSL certificate.

      Do you know how to check the validity of SSL certificate?

      If you have any idea please tell us.

      Best regards,

      Jia