To win in fast-moving markets, you need rapid access to information that enables you to take decisive action. SAP S/4HANA Embedded Analytics lets you monitor enterprise data in real-time. This helps you to gain instantaneous, in-context, analytics-driven insights that help you accelerate decision-making, make better choices, and adapt faster to change.
In the following blog – part 2, I will give you an engineering expert view of some selected highlights of our SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition, and SAP S/4HANA for Sales | 2022 release, to show you how you can turn data into action.
In this blog, I will also present some innovations concerning Digital Transformation, and here I mean the next generation of business processes inherently part of SAP S/4HANA.
The blog is built as a series of 3 parts and presents the key highlights:
With the seamless integration of analytics features in S/4HANA, you can benefit from a variety of analysis options in an environment with a simplified data model, new user experience, advanced processing, and deployment options suitable to your business needs. Often transactions and analytics are handled separately. But in most cases, business processes consist of a recurring sequence of transactions and analytics, so analytics is embedded in the daily work with transactional data.
Reminder: Sales scheduling agreements are outline agreement that is created for one or more materials and outlines the overall expected quantity to be delivered to the customer over a specific period of time.
With the Delivery Schedules - Demand Deviation app, you, as an internal sales representative, can monitor product demand and how it fluctuates in delivery schedules. The customer constantly adjusts the request by increasing or decreasing the quantity ordered for a delivery date in new versions of the delivery schedule. This app gives you an overview of quantity changes in forecast and JIT delivery schedules and details of the increases and decreases in customer requests for a given period. Such information offers valuable insights into how product demand changes over time and may unfold in the future.
Picture 1: Gain insights quickly into current and previous release order quantities.
You can use this app to do the following:
Based on the given time scale and type of quantity, the system compares adjacent delivery schedule records in the table and displays the differing quantity for the newer delivery schedule. The comparison starts from the first scheduled line date in the newer delivery schedule and ends on the last scheduled line date in the older delivery schedule. The quantity difference is calculated based on quantities in each scheduled line date. You can view this difference in days, or by week or month.
To view the demand deviation in a table, search for the forecast delivery schedules or JIT delivery schedules in a sales scheduling agreement item, choose the required delivery schedule records, and compare them. Then, navigate to the Demand Deviation tab. Specify a time scale, choose Deviation in Order Quantity as the type of quantity, and apply them.
Picture 2: Example of calculated absolute thresholds, deviation, and updated table.
For more information about Delivery Schedules - Demand Deviation, see the Product Assistance for an example.
Critical business situations such as upcoming deadlines and pending confirmations can negatively impact your business if users aren’t aware of them and don’t take action. Situation handling speeds up the resolution of urgent issues by detecting them automatically, informing the right users, and proposing follow-up actions.
With the standard framework, you can select from a wide range of predefined use cases and adapt them to your business requirements. With its monitoring capabilities, it allows you to optimize your business processes by tracking the life cycle of situations from alert to solution. Intelligent Situation Automation on the SAP Business Technology Platform offers an increased level of automation. This service can be used to configure rules for the automatic resolution of situations and the discovery of patterns.
With the extended framework, you can model your own situations and use notifications to inform the right users and display the issues in the My Situations - Extended app.
Enable business configuration experts to:
Enable billing clerks or billing teams to:
Picture 3: Avoid incorrect revenue data in sales and finance reporting
For more information about Billing Documents Not Posted, see the Product Assistance.
Moving to the Digital Transformation, and here I mean the next generation of business processes inherently part of SAP S/4HANA. Here we are fundamentally rethinking customer experience, business models, and operations. It’s about finding new ways to deliver value and how you work with SAP S/4HANA.
In the following chapters, you will find some examples that illustrate this.
Intercompany sales processes allow two affiliated companies and an external customer to participate in a single intercompany process. With the Advanced Intercompany Sales process, the system automatically creates the following additional business documents:
Let’s take an Example
A local sales office sells to a customer and the goods are delivered from a plant, which is assigned to another company code, directly to the customer.
A standard sales order initiates the entire process, which is integrated into the value chain monitoring.
For the transfer of control of goods between the affiliated companies and the customer, the system uses the newly introduced valuated stock in transit.
Here we have a Seamless End-to-End process highly automated and embedded into, for example, product compliance or trade compliance.
Picture 4: Advanced Intercompany Sales - Process Overview.
Intercompany sales process:
Advanced intercompany sales process:
You use this app to track all relevant steps of the Advanced Intercompany Sales, Advanced Intercompany Stock Transfer, and Sell from Stock with Valuated Stock in Transit (VSiT) business processes. This app provides you with a detailed overview of all relevant steps and documents in these processes. In addition, it directly integrates these processes with other business applications. The business benefits are increased transparency, efficiency, and cross-team collaboration.
Picture 5: Harmonized data from logistics to finance to consolidation.
The Advanced Intercompany Sales process is by default disabled.
You can set up your system for the use of advanced intercompany sales either by executing all steps in the configuration guide attached to SAP Note 3233830 or by activating scope item 5D2 in your content-based system.
Currently, the process can be activated for sales order item categories TAN and CBXN.
For more information about the business process, see the product assistance for Advanced Intercompany Sales.
See also the blog post from Gerhard Welker here.
Legal entities operating in multiple countries/regions must satisfy the tax and reporting regulations of the countries/regions in which they do business. Under some circumstances, you’re permitted to register legal entities for indirect taxation abroad without having to create a company code for that county/region. Registration for Indirect Taxation Abroad (RITA) allows you to maintain a tax registration county/region that is different from the company code county/region. This registration helps you link taxable transactions in foreign countries/regions for indirect tax reporting and tax payments.
With this new 2022 release, you can configure the system so that during the pricing process in a business document, the system dynamically includes additional price conditions this business document. For this purpose, you set up inclusion points, main procedures, subprocedures, and formulas for subprocedure determination. During the pricing process, the additional price conditions are derived from subprocedures.
Picture 6: Business Example - Same pricing model, but different tax components: With 5 different processes and 10 different countries.
You use this feature if your pricing procedures can be divided into a common part that is valid across different business processes or areas and a specific part that is valid for specific business transactions.
You as a configuration expert must set up the following elements in the system:
Picture 7: Easier maintenance of tax conditions if a company has tax registrations in foreign countries (plants abroad).
Related Information
Modular Pricing Procedures for Automatic Inclusion of Price Conditions here.
Automatic Inclusion of Price Conditions Using Modular Pricing Procedures here.
Picture 8: Process overview - Enhance process flexibility in the integration of in-house repairs and the customer returns process.
Note: If In-House Repair (Service) has been selected as a follow-up activity, the in-house repair is created automatically. It contains a repair object for each product that is represented by a serial number. The in-house repair status is set to In Process and the repair object status to Precheck: Decision Pending. Service representatives can instantly perform the precheck for the repair objects. The related returns order appears in the transaction history for the repair object.
Triggering of an in-house repair from a customer return order:
Triggering of a customer return order from an in-house repair:
Picture 9: Reduce the time and effort required for managing returns and repair processes by integrating in-house repair with the inbound and outbound logistics capabilities of the customer returns process.
You use follow-up activities to specify the next step in the logistical processing of returns order items in Advance Return Management (ARM). While you are editing a returns order, you can select a follow-up activity for the different items in your returns order. Depending on the follow-up activity you select, you may have to specify additional information, such as the supplier. The system then automatically creates the relevant follow-up documents.
For more information about the logistical follow-up activities, see Product Assistance.
In parallel with the in-house repair process, you can perform the logistics process for the repair objects that are sent back by customers.
You trigger the logistics process for repair objects as soon as you create returns orders that are processed in Advanced Returns Management for Customer Returns. When you send the repair objects back to the customer, you create outbound deliveries that are processed in Delivery Management.
For more information about the manage the returns process for repair objects, see Product Assistance.
Picture 10: Send the repair object back to the customer.
Thanks for reading this blog post.
If you are also interested in other Lines of Business, I would like to draw your attention to my link collection blog – The Link Collection
If you want to learn more and actively engage with SAP subject matter experts on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, join our SAP S/4HANA Cloud Customer Community. This platform which is available to SAP S/4HANA Cloud customers and partners has a clear mission: deliver an interactive community to engage with one another about best practices and product solutions.
For more information on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition, and SAP S/4HANA, check out the following links:
Follow us via @Sap and #S4HANA, or myself via @VoglerChrist and LinkedIn
In the following blog – part 2, I will give you an engineering expert view of some selected highlights of our SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition, and SAP S/4HANA for Sales | 2022 release, to show you how you can turn data into action.
In this blog, I will also present some innovations concerning Digital Transformation, and here I mean the next generation of business processes inherently part of SAP S/4HANA.
The blog is built as a series of 3 parts and presents the key highlights:
- Part 1: Low-Touch Sales Order Processing
- Part 2: Business Insights & Decision Support / Digital Transformation
- Part 3: Digital-age User Experience
Introduction: SAP S/4HANA Embedded Analytics
With the seamless integration of analytics features in S/4HANA, you can benefit from a variety of analysis options in an environment with a simplified data model, new user experience, advanced processing, and deployment options suitable to your business needs. Often transactions and analytics are handled separately. But in most cases, business processes consist of a recurring sequence of transactions and analytics, so analytics is embedded in the daily work with transactional data.
Sales scheduling agreements – Product Demand
Reminder: Sales scheduling agreements are outline agreement that is created for one or more materials and outlines the overall expected quantity to be delivered to the customer over a specific period of time.
With the Delivery Schedules - Demand Deviation app, you, as an internal sales representative, can monitor product demand and how it fluctuates in delivery schedules. The customer constantly adjusts the request by increasing or decreasing the quantity ordered for a delivery date in new versions of the delivery schedule. This app gives you an overview of quantity changes in forecast and JIT delivery schedules and details of the increases and decreases in customer requests for a given period. Such information offers valuable insights into how product demand changes over time and may unfold in the future.
Picture 1: Gain insights quickly into current and previous release order quantities.
Key Features
You can use this app to do the following:
- Display and search for forecast or JIT delivery schedules that have been created for a sales scheduling agreement item.
- Display the amount of product requested (order quantity) in forecast delivery schedules or JIT delivery schedules within an item over time.
- Display changes in the order quantities between forecast delivery schedules or JIT delivery schedules within an item over a specific time scale.
- Display quantities based on defined deviation profiles.
- Export data in the analysis result from the table to a spreadsheet.
Demand Deviation
Based on the given time scale and type of quantity, the system compares adjacent delivery schedule records in the table and displays the differing quantity for the newer delivery schedule. The comparison starts from the first scheduled line date in the newer delivery schedule and ends on the last scheduled line date in the older delivery schedule. The quantity difference is calculated based on quantities in each scheduled line date. You can view this difference in days, or by week or month.
To view the demand deviation in a table, search for the forecast delivery schedules or JIT delivery schedules in a sales scheduling agreement item, choose the required delivery schedule records, and compare them. Then, navigate to the Demand Deviation tab. Specify a time scale, choose Deviation in Order Quantity as the type of quantity, and apply them.
Picture 2: Example of calculated absolute thresholds, deviation, and updated table.
For more information about Delivery Schedules - Demand Deviation, see the Product Assistance for an example.
Situation handling of billing documents not posted to financial accounting
Business background: Situation handling
Critical business situations such as upcoming deadlines and pending confirmations can negatively impact your business if users aren’t aware of them and don’t take action. Situation handling speeds up the resolution of urgent issues by detecting them automatically, informing the right users, and proposing follow-up actions.
With the standard framework, you can select from a wide range of predefined use cases and adapt them to your business requirements. With its monitoring capabilities, it allows you to optimize your business processes by tracking the life cycle of situations from alert to solution. Intelligent Situation Automation on the SAP Business Technology Platform offers an increased level of automation. This service can be used to configure rules for the automatic resolution of situations and the discovery of patterns.
With the extended framework, you can model your own situations and use notifications to inform the right users and display the issues in the My Situations - Extended app.
Key features
Enable business configuration experts to:
- Configure notifications to billing clerks, billing teams, or other users based on specified filter criteria in billing documents
- Notify billing clerks or other specified users about billing documents not been posted to finance due to certain time issues
Enable billing clerks or billing teams to:
- Receive timely notification about billing documents that have not been posted to finance due to certain issues
- Navigate from the notification to the billing document object page of the SAP Fiori app, Manage Billing Documents to view the details
- Easily identify billing documents by posting issues on the list page of the Manage Billing Documents app through issue icons
- Filter billing documents with posting issues in the list page of the Manage Billing Documents app
Picture 3: Avoid incorrect revenue data in sales and finance reporting
For more information about Billing Documents Not Posted, see the Product Assistance.
Introduction: Digital transformation
Moving to the Digital Transformation, and here I mean the next generation of business processes inherently part of SAP S/4HANA. Here we are fundamentally rethinking customer experience, business models, and operations. It’s about finding new ways to deliver value and how you work with SAP S/4HANA.
In the following chapters, you will find some examples that illustrate this.
Advanced Intercompany Sales
Intercompany sales processes allow two affiliated companies and an external customer to participate in a single intercompany process. With the Advanced Intercompany Sales process, the system automatically creates the following additional business documents:
- Purchase orders from the selling companies
- Sales orders in the delivery companies
Let’s take an Example
A local sales office sells to a customer and the goods are delivered from a plant, which is assigned to another company code, directly to the customer.
A standard sales order initiates the entire process, which is integrated into the value chain monitoring.
For the transfer of control of goods between the affiliated companies and the customer, the system uses the newly introduced valuated stock in transit.
Here we have a Seamless End-to-End process highly automated and embedded into, for example, product compliance or trade compliance.
Picture 4: Advanced Intercompany Sales - Process Overview.
Key features
Intercompany sales process:
- Receipt of a purchase order from an external customer by a sales organization assigned to a selling company
- Subsequent creation of a sales order for goods from a plant assigned to another company code, which acts as the delivering company
Advanced intercompany sales process:
- Automatic creation of an intercompany purchase order in the selling company that, in turn, triggers the creation of an intercompany sales order in the delivering company
- Availability of all required business documents in both affiliates, documenting the process flow in an auditable fashion, and providing the basis for consistent reporting on both sides
- Delivery of goods to the customer by the delivering company, which invoices the selling company
- Invoicing of the customer by the selling company
- Integration of the entire process into the value chain monitoring framework (VCM)
- For the transfer of control of goods between the affiliated companies and the customer, the system use valuated stock in transit (VSIT)
Business benefits
- Design, run, and monitor intercompany sales processes – fully integrated, highly automated, and end to end
- Support legal compliance (IFRS 15 matching principle and arm's length principle)
- Support consistent flow of values throughout logistical transactions
- Get harmonized data from logistics to finance to consolidation
- Keep financial and material ledger postings in sync with full audit transparency
Monitor Value Chains
You use this app to track all relevant steps of the Advanced Intercompany Sales, Advanced Intercompany Stock Transfer, and Sell from Stock with Valuated Stock in Transit (VSiT) business processes. This app provides you with a detailed overview of all relevant steps and documents in these processes. In addition, it directly integrates these processes with other business applications. The business benefits are increased transparency, efficiency, and cross-team collaboration.
Picture 5: Harmonized data from logistics to finance to consolidation.
Process activation
The Advanced Intercompany Sales process is by default disabled.
You can set up your system for the use of advanced intercompany sales either by executing all steps in the configuration guide attached to SAP Note 3233830 or by activating scope item 5D2 in your content-based system.
Currently, the process can be activated for sales order item categories TAN and CBXN.
For more information about the business process, see the product assistance for Advanced Intercompany Sales.
See also the blog post from Gerhard Welker here.
Pricing procedure configuration to handle international sales transactions and tax requirements
Business background: Registration for Indirect Taxation Abroad (RITA)
Legal entities operating in multiple countries/regions must satisfy the tax and reporting regulations of the countries/regions in which they do business. Under some circumstances, you’re permitted to register legal entities for indirect taxation abroad without having to create a company code for that county/region. Registration for Indirect Taxation Abroad (RITA) allows you to maintain a tax registration county/region that is different from the company code county/region. This registration helps you link taxable transactions in foreign countries/regions for indirect tax reporting and tax payments.
Key features
With this new 2022 release, you can configure the system so that during the pricing process in a business document, the system dynamically includes additional price conditions this business document. For this purpose, you set up inclusion points, main procedures, subprocedures, and formulas for subprocedure determination. During the pricing process, the additional price conditions are derived from subprocedures.
Picture 6: Business Example - Same pricing model, but different tax components: With 5 different processes and 10 different countries.
Additional Details
You use this feature if your pricing procedures can be divided into a common part that is valid across different business processes or areas and a specific part that is valid for specific business transactions.
You as a configuration expert must set up the following elements in the system:
- Inclusion point: You define an inclusion point as a special kind of condition type.
- Main procedure: You define the places where additional condition types are to be included during document processing by adding inclusion points at a specific step number in a pricing procedure. With this configuration, the pricing procedure becomes the main procedure.
- Subprocedure: You set up pricing procedures that each contain a set of additional condition types you want to be included automatically in the main procedure during document processing. To use a pricing procedure as a subprocedure you assign the relevant inclusion point to each procedure.
- Formulas for subprocedure determination: To control which sets of additional condition types are included during the pricing process, you define a formula for subprocedure determination and use its formula ID in the inclusion point. The formula contains business logic that tells the system when to determine which subprocedure.
Picture 7: Easier maintenance of tax conditions if a company has tax registrations in foreign countries (plants abroad).
Related Information
Modular Pricing Procedures for Automatic Inclusion of Price Conditions here.
Automatic Inclusion of Price Conditions Using Modular Pricing Procedures here.
Integration of customer returns and in-house repairs
Business background
Picture 8: Process overview - Enhance process flexibility in the integration of in-house repairs and the customer returns process.
Note: If In-House Repair (Service) has been selected as a follow-up activity, the in-house repair is created automatically. It contains a repair object for each product that is represented by a serial number. The in-house repair status is set to In Process and the repair object status to Precheck: Decision Pending. Service representatives can instantly perform the precheck for the repair objects. The related returns order appears in the transaction history for the repair object.
Key features
Triggering of an in-house repair from a customer return order:
- Create an in-house repair as a follow-up document in the return order and in the material inspection
- After repair processing is complete, trigger the outbound delivery to send the repair object back to the customer
Triggering of a customer return order from an in-house repair:
- Create customer return orders as follow-up documents from the in-house repair
- Allow creation and management of repair quotations while the customer return order is in process
- Continue with the in-house repair upon completion of the customer return order
Picture 9: Reduce the time and effort required for managing returns and repair processes by integrating in-house repair with the inbound and outbound logistics capabilities of the customer returns process.
Logistical Follow-Up Activities for Returns Order Items
You use follow-up activities to specify the next step in the logistical processing of returns order items in Advance Return Management (ARM). While you are editing a returns order, you can select a follow-up activity for the different items in your returns order. Depending on the follow-up activity you select, you may have to specify additional information, such as the supplier. The system then automatically creates the relevant follow-up documents.
For more information about the logistical follow-up activities, see Product Assistance.
Manage the Returns Process for Repair Objects
In parallel with the in-house repair process, you can perform the logistics process for the repair objects that are sent back by customers.
You trigger the logistics process for repair objects as soon as you create returns orders that are processed in Advanced Returns Management for Customer Returns. When you send the repair objects back to the customer, you create outbound deliveries that are processed in Delivery Management.
For more information about the manage the returns process for repair objects, see Product Assistance.
Picture 10: Send the repair object back to the customer.
Thanks for reading this blog post.
If you are also interested in other Lines of Business, I would like to draw your attention to my link collection blog – The Link Collection
If you want to learn more and actively engage with SAP subject matter experts on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, join our SAP S/4HANA Cloud Customer Community. This platform which is available to SAP S/4HANA Cloud customers and partners has a clear mission: deliver an interactive community to engage with one another about best practices and product solutions.
For more information on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition, and SAP S/4HANA, check out the following links:
- SAP S/4HANA 2022 “highlights in seconds” blog and video
- SAP Enterprise Resource Planning website
- SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition release here
- SAP S/4HANA Community here
- The Link Collection for Sales here
- The Link Collection for Product Compliance here
- SAP S/4HANA PSCC Digital Enablement Wheel here
- Inside SAP S/4HANA Podcast here
- Join the SAP S/4HANA Movement
- Best practices for SAP S/4HANA here
- Help Portal Product Page here
- Feature Scope Description here
- What’s New here
Follow us via @Sap and #S4HANA, or myself via @VoglerChrist and LinkedIn
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