CFOs gain high confidence in financial data with SAP Central Finance
Imagine a world with one version of the (financial) truth! In our world, that holy grail of no reconciliation across instances is where SAP Central Finance come in.
Central Finance is an adoption scenario that enables implementing S/4 Finance with minimum risk or disruption to existing systems. It brings transaction data from multiple ERP/Non-ERP applications to one central journal that will enable transaction processing, planning, consolidation, and reporting in one application. It’s beneficial for companies with diverse and distributed systems as it enables a real-time replication of financial information from multiple instances that is harmonized into a central instance.
For finance professionals, the benefits are multiple. With one centralized source of financial data, it allows the organization to communicate in the same language across the organization. No more disagreements about where the revenue came from or when it is recognized.
With data residing in a single system, it enables shorter closing cycle real time planning data and mobile reporting capabilities. It also decreases the amount of system-to-system reconciliations and gives the capability to leverage additional tools such as SAP Closing Cockpit and Blackline to further streamline the closing & reconciliation processes.
Here’s how we helped implement SAP Central Finance for a major American food company:
- Duplicate/overlapping GL accounts
- Unclear Financial views
- Duplicate Customers/Vendors across divisions
- Bank account management, cash management, bank reconciliation and payments using XML v3 files
- Configurated and coordinated with the banks to connect to SAP Multi-Bank Connectivity
- Blueprinting workshops in order to achieve a design for all the stakeholders
- Delivered a successful design and prototype of all areas in scope
MDG implementation for Business Partners, GL accounts
- Deploy S/4 HANA 1909
- Deploy MDG to improve Data Governance
- Reduced set of GL accounts for improved financial processing cycles (EG: EOM Process, FI/CO, CO/PA, etc.)
- Real-time insights to financial/inventory helping reduce warehouse overhead and spoilage
- Clear and more direct Business Partner relationships through holistic views across all divisions and roles
- Predictive insights based on historical seasonal/event-based data
Line of business managers like it because they get their hands on automated managerial reporting view faster. That data all rolls up to management with harmonized data standards enabling a view of the big pictures.
New acquisitions are no longer met with an internal groan because Central Finance ensures timely and efficient integration of new business units, as well as the capability to move to a single SAP instance at some point in the future.
Lastly, the opportunity to implement cash management and accelerate the deployment of SSC capabilities across the organization. Establish the foundation for adoption of innovations like Leonardo.
Scott Cunningham has more than 34 years of experience in information technology with over half of his time at SAP, becoming one of SAP’s elite Platinum consultants. He is a true pioneer in data quality with more than 29 years of experience in enterprise-level architecture and development focused on data quality in areas of data standards, marketing applications, master data governance, data quality product development, S/4HANA, ERP, CRM, ISU, and BI consulting. Scott is also a leader in SAP data migration initiatives, architecting many data migration S/4HANA, ERP, CRM, and ISU solutions as a contributor to SAP’s Best Practice Data Migration tools with data quality integration.