SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting 2021 is generally available

We in SAP Product Engineering are happy to announce the general availability of SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting 2021, on October 13, 2021. The latest version delivers on a series of new features to help you run your financial consolidation and close activities. Release 2021 is a major version of our product, as we deliver one on premise release each year. From a functional standpoint, the on premise version inherits from all the features delivered in the cloud versions each quarter. From a tech standpoint, we use the same code line for both cloud and on premise.

As we continue to strengthen our development investment in SAP’s next gen consolidation software, release 2021 delivers on major new features:

• You can run consolidation with multiple group currencies, use consolidation of investments’ processing fields in manual posting, perform sign change for financial statement items, benefit from an improved equity pickup automation, automate the elimination of unrealized profit on inventory, and post journal entries on multiple consolidation groups
• The intercompany elimination is richer, with the ability to integrate data from remote systems in our Intercompany Matching and Reconciliation feature
• On master data, you can create your own financial statement item attributes, and use them in selections, reclassification rules, totals validation rules, and analytics
• Data validation capabilities are enhanced with the ability to create more-complex rules: you can now combine several validation rules into one compound rule with logical operators
• Data monitors are more flexible and powerful: you benefit from new options and UX improvements that streamline the release of universal journals, you can also run multiple data collection tasks in the data monitor, and substitution / validation functionalities are now embedded in flexible upload
• On analytics, you can use new views for comparative reports, and performance is significantly improved
• Group Reporting Data Collection (GRDC) app is enhanced: you can now collect texts for financial reporting, use front-end formula calculations during manual data collection, leverage conditional formatting to improve visual controls in forms, import data from ECC in Group Reporting with data mapping, and benefit from integrated data mapping traceability log from target to source data

SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting 2021 inherits from the innovations delivered in the 2011, 2102, 2105 and 2108 releases of our cloud version. It includes the following new and enhanced functionalities:

You can find more detail below on the new features available in SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting 2021.

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Improved transparency with new GRDC data mapping traceability log
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With our latest release, you benefit from improved mapping transparency using the GRDC Data Mapping app through more efficient traceability, and explanation of target values linking back to source data records. The new traceability log feature includes;

• Integrated traceability log from target to source data
• Generating an integrated traceability log for selected target data records*
• Underlying the mapping and filters that have rejected data
• Linking the target data back to the source data
• Indicating the mapping rule path that were applied from source to target

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New GRDC forms features incl. conditional formatting and improved comments
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With the latest SAP Group Reporting Data Collection (GRDC) version, you now benefit from a new conditional formatting capability which improves the visual validation check of data entered manually in the forms. When creating a form, you can define that a cell is formatted with conditional formatting when the form is run. Depending on the cell value, the font color and the background color can be green, orange, or red. You can use the new conditional formatting feature in combination with the front-end formula calculations, and make embed nice visual controls in your forms (see gif below).

You can also benefit from an improved text comment capability in forms. You can now update and delete comments (see an example of comment update gif below). In addition, the new hover and pop-over navigation provides an improved user experience, as well as the comment indicator triangle which shows the state of a comment via their color: the blue triangle turns grey when the comment is saved.

You can also leverage three additional new feature:

• Improved insertion mode with more possibilities in designing the forms, more guidance for the business end-users, making the forms easier to collect
• Define read-only cells in a form
• Design row height and column width in a form

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New features inherited from the 2108 cloud release
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Check out the new/enhanced features inherited from 2108 cloud release:

• Automation of elimination of unrealized profit on inventory
• Manual journals with multiple consolidation groups
• Collect texts for financial reporting
• Front-end formula calculations during manual data collection
• Extensibility of financial statement item master data attributes (illustration below)
• Increased data and consolidation monitors’ configuration flexibility
• Performance improvements on analytics–

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New features inherited from the 2105 cloud release
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Check out the new/enhanced features inherited from 2105 cloud release:

• Streamlined and improved Release of Universal Journals pre-validation analysis via new options and UX enhancements in the Data Monitor app
• Integrate group reporting with accounting data in SAP ERP Central Component with SAP Group Reporting Data Collection data mapping, and additional new improvements on data mapping apps
• Improved Equity Pickup automation including easier posting to SAP S/4HANA accounting, currency translation adjustments on OCI, and new Excel log file
• Integrate data from remote systems into the ICMR process
• Support for the “compound” type in total data validation rules to enhance data validation capabilities with more-complex rules (illustration below)
• New tile/report to compare group manual journal entries, and check that group-depending entries posted on a consolidation group are also posted to other groups
• New analytics query views for comparative reports on old and new reporting logic, and database listing in group data analysis app
• More flexibility on customer-specific configuration with new self-service configurations

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New features inherited from the 2102 cloud release
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Check out the new/enhanced features inherited from 2102 cloud release:

• Equity pickup automation
• Benefit from strengthened data mapping capabilities
• Apply sign change for Financial Statement items (see illustration below)
• Use an improved “Define Selections” app
• Leverage multiple group currencies and custom fields in the “Import Group Journal Entries” app

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New features inherited from the 2011 cloud release
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Check out the new/enhanced features inherited from 2011 cloud release:

• Consolidation with multiple group currencies (illustration below)
• New form designer for manual data collection
• Multiple data collection tasks in the data monitor
• Consolidation of investments’ processing fields in manual posting
• Enhancement of the consolidation master data
• Substitution and validation functionalities embedded in flexible upload

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More information
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For more information on SAP S/4HANA Finance for group reporting release 2021, you can refer to the following:

• 2021 Feature Deck
• 2021 Help Portal
• SAP S/4HANA for group reporting Road Map Explorer
• SAP S/4HANA for group reporting Product Strategy
• SAP S/4HANA for group reporting Release Blogs

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Co-innovate with SAP Product Engineering
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You can co-innovate online with ourselves in the SAP Product Engineering team by joining us on the SAP S/4HANA for group reporting Customer Influence platform.

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