Dear SAP S/4HANA Cloud enthusiasts, welcome to my blog illustrating the latest innovations for SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2108 regarding localization, identity and access management (IAM), and our new test data refresh service for SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

This blog covers the following topics:

Localization

• Time-Dependent Taxes
• Enhancement of Purchase Order to Comply with Subcontract Act – Japan
• Incoming Electronic Single Invoice – Brazil
• Instant Payment Scheme (PIX) for Accounts Payable – Brazil
• Pro-Rata VAT in API Journal Entry – Spain

Identity and Access Management

• Security Audit Log API
• IAM Change Overview for SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2108

SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Test Data Refresh Cloud Service

• Launch of Service

Localization

Time-Dependent Tax

In countries/regions where time-dependent tax calculation (TDT) is active, customers are fully enabled to create and maintain tax codes and rates. With 2108, 4 additional local versions have been enabled with TDT: Czech Republic, Finland, Indonesia and Taiwan.

Here is a list of Countries/Regions Where Time-Dependent Tax is Enabled.

Enhancement of Purchase Order to Comply with Subcontract Act – Japan

Japanese law requires that companies protect the interests of suppliers (subcontractors) who have a lower capital fund than the main contractor. This is to protect the subcontractors against bankruptcy and late payments. This law is applicable to subcontractors involved in the domestic trade of materials and services. At periodic intervals, Japanese companies must declare to the legal authorities that they have been following fair trade practices guidelines in their dealings with the subcontractors.

With 2108, this solution is supplemented with:

• Helping users to indicate purchase-order item as applicable to a subcontract act 
• Avoiding a delay in payment due to a holiday schedule 

Solution with SAP S/4HANA Cloud extensibility capabilities: Extending SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Japan Subcontract Act

Incoming Electronic Single Invoice – Brazil

There are special situations in which, an individual or legal entity that is not legally required to issue electronic notas fiscais (NF-e) to register commercial operations, needs to issue an NF-e. In those situations, the individual or legal entity can issue an electronic single nota fiscal (in Portuguese, Nota Fiscal Avulsa Eletronica) through the regional tax authority website.The NFA-e is a one-time nota fiscal that will be issued on the individual or legal entity name but using the tax authority CNPJ (National Registry of Legal Entities, in Portuguese, Cadastro Nacional da Pessoa Jurídica).

You can find further details on NF-e and NFA-e here.

Instant Payment Scheme (PIX) for Accounts Payable – Brazil

PIX, enables a new Outgoing Payment Method to perform transfers and payments between persons, companies and government in a few seconds, real time, 24 hours a day. For PIX payments you can use a PIX key or a QR code with the PIX link and the transaction ID required during the payment process. Here are further details on Instant Payment Processing with 2108 release.

Pro-Rata VAT in API Journal Entry – Spain

In some countries/regions, companies that carry out operations that are subject to VAT and deductible, as well as operations that are tax exempt and not deductible, can deduct only part of the input VAT that they pay for acquisitions. With 2108 the API Journal Entry was enhanced to allow postings with pro-rata VAT codes. Here are further details on pro-rata VAT in Spain.

Identity and Access Management

Security Audit Log API

In order to be able to detect attacks on business systems, those system have to be integrated into the Security Information and Event Management systems (SIEM). With the SAL API, it is now possible to integrate SAP S/4HANA Cloud with customers’ SIEM solutions.

Value Proposition

• Enhanced Threat Detection on cloud systems
• Correlation Analysis for and including application logs
• Increase overall security posture

Capabilities 

• Direct integration into customers threat management systems
• Full analysis of all events logged in Security Audit Log
• REST-based API, enabling integration into different solutions

Fig. 1: With SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2108, it’s now possible to integrate with Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems

If you are interested in more detailed information on the Security Audit Log API, I recommend that you read the excellent blog ‘The SAL API for SAP S/4HANA Cloud – and how you can use it‘ by Patrick Boch.

IAM Change Overview for SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2108

As with the last releases, we continue to have this release-specific SAP Note. Attached to this note, there is a central spreadsheet in the form of an Excel file which lists all IAM-related changes that have been introduced since the SAP S/4HANA Cloud release 2105. With IAM-related changes I mean all changes that affect applications, business catalogs, business role templates, and restriction type assignments. Please note that the spreadsheet only shows changed objects, it is not meant as a comprehensive list.

The changes listed in the attached central spreadsheet cover:

• New, renamed, deprecated, or deleted apps
• New, renamed, deprecated, deleted, or dependent business catalogs
• New and renamed business role templates
• Renamed business groups
• Restriction type assignments
• New and renamed business role templates

Fig. 2: The IAM Change Overview for SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2108 comprises all IAM-related changes compared to SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2105

More Information

• 3066440 – Identity and Access Management (IAM): Change Overview for SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2108

SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Test Data Refresh Cloud Service

Launch of Service

With the 2108 release of SAP S/4HANA Cloud, we are very proud to announce the launch of a new service called SAP S/4HANA Cloud, test data refresh cloud service. With this service, you can request a transfer of your application data (master and transactional data) from the production system to a non-production SAP S/4HANA Cloud system (such as a quality/test system). The beauty of this service is that it enables high-quality testing for SAP S/4HANA Cloud customers with up-to-date test data reflecting their productive data reality.

Fig. 3: With the new test data refresh service, customers can request a transfer of their application data (master and transactional data) from the production system to a non-production SAP S/4HANA Cloud system.

Let me share a quick summary of what the new cloud service can do for you:

• Master and transactional data in Q system will be refreshed from P system.
• The cloud service with the built-in scrambling feature supports customers to achieve data protection and privacy compliance

More Information

• SAP Help: Test Data Refresh

For more information on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, check out the following links:

• SAP S/4HANA Cloud release info here
• Latest SAP S/4HANA Cloud Release Blogs here and previous release highlights here
• Product videos on our SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP S/4HANA YouTube playlist
• SAP S/4HANA PSCC Digital Enablement Wheel here
• Early Release Webinar Series here
• Inside SAP S/4HANA Podcast here
• openSAP Microlearnings for SAP S/4HANA here
• Best practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud here
• SAP S/4HANA Cloud Community: here
• Feature Scope Description here
• What’s New here
• Help Portal Product Page here
• Implementation Portal here

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