SAP Simple Finance

About the Tutorial

SAP Simple Finance (S/4 HANA Finance) is one of the important modules to manage SAP
Finance and Accounting powered by SAP HANA. It is used to perform financial operations
and accounting in real time and reporting using BI tools. SAP Simple Finance helps to
analyze the financial conditions of an organization in the market.

This is an introductory tutorial that covers the basics of SAP Simple Finance and how to
deal with its various modules and sub-modules.

Audience
This tutorial will be extremely useful for professionals who aspire to learn the ropes of SAP
Simple Finance and implement it in practice. It is especially going to help consultants who
are mainly responsible for implementing Financial Accounting and Cost Accounting solution
powered by SAP HANA solution.

Prerequisites
This is an elementary tutorial and you can easily understand the concepts explained here
with a basic knowledge of how a business deals with its Financials. However, it will help if
you have some prior exposure to accounting and how to deal with financial data.

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Table of Contents
About the Tutorial .................................................................................................................................... i

Audience .................................................................................................................................................. i

Prerequisites ............................................................................................................................................ i

Disclaimer & Copyright............................................................................................................................. i

Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................... ii

1. SAP HANA ─ INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 1

SAP HANA Roadmap to S/4 HANA ........................................................................................................... 2

S/4 HANA ─ Overview ............................................................................................................................. 2

2. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ INTRODUCTION .............................................................................. 5

SAP Simple Finance ─ Key Features ......................................................................................................... 6

Technical System Landscape ................................................................................................................... 6

3. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ ARCHITECTURE ............................................................................... 8

Universal Journal Extensibility in New Architecture .............................................................................. 10

4. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ EXTEND G/L CODING BLOCK ......................................................... 11

5. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ UNIVERSAL JOURNAL ................................................................... 13

6. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ DOCUMENT NUMBER .................................................................. 16

Defining Document Type and Number Ranges ...................................................................................... 16

7. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ DISPLAY FINANCIAL TABLES .......................................................... 18

8. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ DEPLOYMENT OPTIONS ................................................................ 24

SLT Replication in HANA ........................................................................................................................ 24

Advantages of SLT Replication .............................................................................................................. 24

Limitations of SLT Method .................................................................................................................... 25

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9. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ POST & REVERSE DOCUMENTS .................................................... 26

10. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ REPORTING OPTIONS ................................................................... 30

11. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE – MIGRATION .................................................................................. 32

Migration Process ................................................................................................................................. 33

12. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ MANUAL REPOSTING OF COSTS ................................................... 34

13. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ G/L ACCOUNTING......................................................................... 37

Display G/L Account Balances ............................................................................................................... 37

Display G/L Account Line Items ............................................................................................................. 38

14. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ CREATE A PRIMARY COST ............................................................. 40

15. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ CREATE A SECONDARY COST ........................................................ 44

16. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ LEDGER MANAGEMENT ............................................................... 46

Types of Ledger ..................................................................................................................................... 46

17. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ ASSET ACCOUNTING..................................................................... 49

Creating an Asset Accounting ................................................................................................................ 49

18. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ CREATE AN ASSET......................................................................... 53

19. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ ASSET SCRAPPING ........................................................................ 56

20. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ CREATE DEFAULT ACCOUNT ASSIGNMENT................................... 59

21. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING ...................................................... 61

22. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ PROFITABILITY ANALYSIS .............................................................. 63

23. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ PERIOD LOCK TRANSACTION ........................................................ 68

Period Lock in FI .................................................................................................................................... 68

Period Lock in CO .................................................................................................................................. 69

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24. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ NEW PERIOD CLOSING PROGRAM................................................ 70

CO Transaction for Opening/Closing Periods ......................................................................................... 71

25. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ SIMPLE FINANCE INTEGRATION.................................................... 72

26. SAP SIMPLE FINANCE ─ IBPF .............................................................................................. 74

27. SAP S/4 HANA FINANCE ─ CONSULTANT CAPABILITIES ...................................................... 75

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 1. SAP HANA ─ IntroductionSAP Simple Finance

In traditional SAP applications, all the data is stored at the database level and calculations
are performed. The results are displayed at the application layer. Most of the query
processing time involves calculations and aggregations. It is recommended that all
application logic should be pushed at the database level to improve the performance of
query execution.

SAP HANA based applications provide best application performance by pushing the
execution into the database as possible. All the data is stored in in-memory database so
the reading data is much faster as compared to a conventional database.

SAP HANA supports real-time data replication and hence removes unnecessary latency
and complexity of data load.

Advantages of Using SAP HANA

Following are the advantages of using SAP HANA as underlying database.

 Real-time data analysis

 Elimination of unnecessary complexity of hardware
 No latency in database due to nightly ETL jobs
 In-memory database
 Column store supports calculations on the run
 Parallel processing
 Data compression

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SAP HANA Roadmap to S/4 HANA

SAP HANA developed interest by mid-2011 and various Fortune 500 organizations started
considering it as an option to maintain their Business Warehouse needs. In 2012, SAP
Business Warehouse powered by HANA was introduced to support real-time analysis and
real-time reporting was introduced.

In 2013, SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA was introduced that supported real-
time business, OLAP, and Transaction on the same system.

In 2014, SAP Simple Finance powered by SAP HANA was introduced for instant financial
insight, no aggregates, and single source of data for reporting.

In 2015, SAP S/4 HANA was introduced that provided a simplified data model, new user
experience, advance processing, and multitenancy.

S/4 HANA ─ Overview

S/4 HANA Business suite is based on the native HANA platform to support simplified data
models, no aggregates, no indices, etc. It has an integrated Fiori-based user interface and
role-based access for different purposes.

S/4 HANA is based on advanced in-memory platform and offers a personalized Fiori-based
user experience to access role-based solution. It can be deployed over cloud environment
or on-premise solution. There are many customers which are moving from SAP Business
Suite to S/4 HANA and for 75% customers, it takes an average 6 months for migration
project.

SAP also offers SAP rapid deployment project to perform a fast migration to HANA platform
and to SAP Simple Finance solution. Various SAP partners provide fixed price integration
for few clients.

Customers can use the customization even after migration of the system. Migration of SAP
Business Suite to S/4 HANA is done via implementation package in the form of SAP Simple
Finance and Simple Logistics, and many more.

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With SAP S/4 HANA, SAP is providing a new product and a next generation of business
applications – simple enterprise software for big data and is designed to help you run
simple in the digital economy.

With the advanced features of SAP HANA, SAP S/4 HANA is designed for real-time business
operations, planning, and BI analyses. Following is a SAP Fiori-based user interface of S/4
HANA solution, which provides role-based experience to its users.

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You can also define user preferences like - Language, Theme, Default values and any
personalized search. Once you make the selection, click the Save button to save the user
preferences.

You can also customize the home page screen of SAP S/4 user experience by clicking the
Edit sign at the bottom of the screen. You can select different home screen themes as
shown in the following screenshot.

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 2. SAP Simple Finance ─ Introduction
SAP Simple Finance

SAP Simple Finance provides an accounting solution powered by SAP HANA. S/4 HANA
finance comes with different finance and accounting management processes and supports
operations efficiently. With SAP S/4 HANA Finance, you have the following releases:

 SAP S/4HANA Finance 1605

 SAP S/4HANA Finance, On-Premise Edition 1503
 SAP Simple Finance Add-On for SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA

Note: SAP Simple Finance is also called SAP S/4 HANA Finance. With the release of 1605,
SAP Simple Finance is only known as S/4 HANA Finance and this will be the only name of
other releases of SAP Simple Finance.

During the installation of SAP S/4 HANA Finance, various front-end and back-end
components get installed.

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SAP Simple Finance ─ Key Features

Following features are available for SAP Simple Finance -

Financial Planning and Analysis

Using SAP Simple Finance, organizations can use it to forecast, plan, and budget as an
ongoing process. With the use of Predictive Analysis, you can forecast the impact of
business decisions on the financial reports of the organization.

Accounting and Finance

With the use of advance Finance and Accounting features, organizations can meet the legal
terms and complete the financial reports on time.

Financial Risk Management

Using Predictive Analysis, organizations can find the risk in financial processes at an early
stage and device ways to mitigate them. It is easy to find the best possible investment
rates as per market standards.

Risk and Compliance Management

Using strong financial processes, it is easy to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive
data in the organization. It is easy to detect fraud and abuse, and organizations can
proactively balance the risk for all the financial processes.

Technical System Landscape

SAP S/4 HANA Finance is developed based on SAP NetWeaver and SAP ERP Business suite.
Following is the minimum system landscape for backend of S/4 HANA Finance (without
SAP Fiori and Smart Business application).

SAP S/4 HANA Finance involves ERP 6.0 to be updated to SAP ep8 for SAP ERP 6.0 and it
is tightly integrated with other ERP applications like Material Management, and Sales and
Distribution.

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SAP S/4 HANA comes with a simplified data model. The tables and indexes are removed
and replaced with HANA views in the underlying database.

SAP S/4 HANA Finance uses an in-memory computing power of HANA. To run SAP S/4
HANA, you have to use the latest features of ABAP technology that comes with NetWeaver
7.5.

Central Finance
Central Finance is used to transition to SAP S/4 HANA Finance without impacting the
current system landscape. Using Central Finance, you can implement a common reporting
structure by mapping the common entities in the local system to a common set of master
data in the Central system.

For data replication from source system to Central Finance, you have to use SAP Landscape
Transformation Replication Server.

You can use Software Update Manager (SUM) to perform the installation of SAP S/4 HANA
Finance and to perform system upgrades as well as enhancement package installations.

Note: It is not possible to install SAP S/4 HANA Finance with classical database and you
have to ensure that migration happens to SAP HANA before installation. You can’t migrate
to SAP HANA once the installation of S/4 HANA Finance is done.

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 3. SAP Simple Finance ─ Architecture
SAP Simple Finance

SAP Simple Finance provides huge cost and time saving to manage finance and accounting
by leveraging the computing power of SAP HANA. Universal journal combines all the good
qualities of accounting components. In the previous SAP Finance Accounting tool, all the
components are separately managed due to technical restrictions without HANA platform.

Before SAP Simple Finance there were a lot of challenges, such as -

 Different level of details stored in respective components/tables

 To move the data to appropriate table for reporting purpose
 Multiple BI extractors to analyze full data in BI
 Reconciliation needed for all components

With the new architecture of SAP Simple Finance, Universal Journal serves as a single
source for all components with one line item table.

Key Features of the New Architecture

Following features are provided with new SAP Simple Finance architecture -

 Multidimensional reporting on Universal journal without performing data

replication to BI.

 Universal Journal as one-line item table with full detail for all the components. No
reconciliation is required and data is stored only once.

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 SAP Simple Finance

 Improved structural capabilities of the financial solution - multiGAAP, additional

currencies, etc.

 Support for the existing ABAP programs or reports to prior tables with read
access.

Following tables are replaced by compatibility views in the new architecture -

Index Tables Removed:

 BSIS - Index for G/L account

 BSAS - Index for G/L Accounts (Cleared Items)
 BSID - Index for Customers
 BSAD - Index for Customers (Cleared Items)
 BSIK - Index for Vendors
 BSAK - Index for Vendors (Cleared Items)

Aggregate Tables Removed:

 GLT0 - General Ledger Totals

 GLT3 - Summary Data Preparation for Consolidation
 KNC1 - Customer Master (Transaction Figures)
 LFC1 - Vendor Master (Transaction Figures)

Other Tables Removed:

 COEP - Cost Line Items

 ANEP - Fixed Assets: Line Items

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Universal Journal Extensibility in New Architecture

You can easily extend Universal Journal with customer fields. Extensibility is available for
all the components that use Universal Journal - G/L, Asset Accounting, and Material
Ledger.

Extensibility for General Ledger coding block extensibility.

HANA based reporting of all the components - General Ledger, AA, and Controlling.

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