https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/9-must-knows-before-implementing-sap-simple-finance-sfin-koerts
When talking to the VP of
Enterprise Architecture in a Swiss-based manufacturer back in April '15, he
told me he was quite confused with all the recent SAP marketing around S/4HANA,
SAP Central Finance, SAP Simple Finance (now embedded in S/4HANA),
HANA Enterprise Cloud (HEC) and the user interfaces that come along with all
this like Fiori. He was looking for the big picture, the real no-nonsense one.
So I explained that in essence S/4HANA is ‘just’ a new name for the same good old
Suite functionality (ERP, SRM, CRM, ...) – the difference however is in that the Suite can now run on an in-memory
database called HANA. Okay - and you can source S/4HANA from the cloud (HEC,
for one) and you have more alternatives when it comes to the graphical user
interface – one of them being Fiori.
So, how does this relate to SAP Simple Finance
(sFin)? Well, the Financials coding was the first part of ERP optimized to run
on HANA. The functionality itself or the way to configure the
system hardly changes (unless you want to use the Fiori apps...).
SAP Simple Finance is an add-on to ERP, which
means it is a standard product developed to work on top of SAP ERP (ECC6.07 to
be precise). The official name used to be ‘SAP Simple Finance add-on 2.0 for SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA’ aka sFin 2.0. However... as of October 2015, the
add-on was removed from the Service Marketplace since the 'Simple'
coding was merged into S/4HANA. SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511
became available in November 2015 (hence, 1511...). By the
way, SAP S/4HANA CLOUD 1506 has been restricted available since June 2015.
An excellent overview of the five S/4HANA editions can be found here.
Looking for experiences with SAP Central Finance
by the way? Have a look at the PoC resultsin Fictious Digital Ltd.
SAP 'Simple Finance' includes SAP Accounting
powered by SAP HANA, SAP Cash Management and SAP Integrated Business Planning
(IP and BPC and embedded BW) for Finance and additional innovations in the
areas of Treasury and Financial Risk Management, Collaborative Finance
Operations and more. The FI and CO tables are now combined in the Universal
Journal, a single line item table.
Before you jump into an SAP Simple Finance
implementation however, there’s a few things you and your team
must know*. Note: the below does not go for S/4HANA 1511.
9 must-knows before starting
your Simple Finance implementation:
The finance add-on replaces the classic
Financials applications in your SAP ERP system. In contrast to accounting
in SAP enhancement package 7 for SAP ERP 6.0, Simple Finance comes with a
simplified data model. Totals tables and application index tables have
been removed and replaced with HANA views with the same technical names. A
full list can be found at the bottom of this article. This
means the impact needs to be assessed on your interfaces, your data
warehouse, your authorization profiles, and potentially your monitoring
tools;
Some industry solutions and SAP ERP add-ons are
not fully compatible with SAP Simple Finance, like Asset Accounting
(FI-AA). Carefully assess compatibility with other components in your
landscape;
The user experience is likely to change. Assess the
impact on the required skill-set in your teams and the potential need to
rewrite documentation and/or training materials;
Handle the required SP levels for SAP ERP 6.0
EHP7 and for SAP NetWeaver 7.40 with the utmost caution and as described
in the administrator’s guide;
Before you install the Finance add-on, you must
prepare the migration of application data. These steps require specific
financials application knowledge;
Install the finance add-on using the Software
Update Manager (SUM). Ensure that you have downloaded the latest version
of it from the SAP Service Marketplace. In addition, you must install two
SAP HANA Live packages using the HANA Lifecycle Manager (HLM);
To run the financials applications, you must
migrate the application data first. For SPS 02, SPS 03, and SP04, some
additional configuration is required. For more information, see
Installation of and Migration to the SAP Simple Finance Add-On for SAP
Business Suite powered by SAP HANA;
Read the Release Information for SAP Simple
Finance add-on for SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA (note
1925902), and;
To conclude, make sure your team reads the
Release Scope Information (note 1968568).
The following tables were replaced by SAP HANA
views with the same names:
The line item, totals tables and application
index tables of General Ledger Accounting (GLT0, BSIS, BSAS and FAGLFLEXA,
FAGLFLEXT, FAGLBSIS, FAGLBSAS)
The totals tables and application index tables of
Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable (KNC1, KNC3, LFC1, LFC3, BSID,
BSIK, BSAD, BSAK)
The line item and totals tables of Controlling
(COEP for certain value types, COSP and COSS)
The material ledger tables for parallel
valuations (MLIT, MLPP, MLPPF, MLCR, MLCD, CKMI1, BSIM)
The Asset Accounting tables (ANEK, ANEP, ANEA,
ANLP, ANLC)
MENDEL KOERTS is the founder of ENSEAD Advisoryand Associate Director with
Gartner Consulting. As an Enterprise Architect he has specialized in IT
Strategy, Architecture, and Governance, predominantly SAP related. Opinions
expressed in this article are strictly his own.
* Based on the Administrator's Guide SAP Simple
Finance Add-On for SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA, document version 1.0 – 2015-01-29