... Foreword ... 15






... Preface ... 17






... Objective of This Book ... 17






... How to Read This Book ... 18






... Acknowledgments ... 23






... Introduction ... 25






... The Changing Role of Finance ... 26






... Finance with SAP ... 37






... Summary ... 48






1 ... The Universal Journal: Designing a Steering Model for the Business ... 49






1.1 ... Designing a Steering Model for Your Business ... 50






1.2 ... The Universal Journal ... 55






1.3 ... Reporting Dimensions in Detail ... 61






1.4 ... Extending the Steering Model ... 79






1.5 ... Changing the Steering Model ... 83






1.6 ... Summary ... 87






2 ... Local and Global Accounting: Changing Organizational Structures to Satisfy Various Requirements ... 89






2.1 ... Controlling and Global Business Management ... 91






2.2 ... Accounting and Local Business Management ... 104






2.3 ... Global Value Chains and Local Reporting ... 108






2.4 ... Summary ... 117






3 ... From Products to Services: Unifying Approaches to Controlling and Financial Operations ... 119






3.1 ... Industry Solutions and SAP S/4HANA ... 120






3.2 ... Controlling ... 122






3.3 ... Financial Operations ... 131






3.4 ... Summary ... 147






4 ... Financial Process Optimization: Standardizing and Automating Processes ... 149






4.1 ... Rethinking Business Processes ... 150






4.2 ... Automating Finance Processes ... 163






4.3 ... Redesigning Applications ... 174






4.4 ... Summary ... 182






5 ... SAP Fiori and Live Data: Merging Transactional and Analytics Data ... 183






5.1 ... What Is SAP Fiori? ... 184






5.2 ... First Steps in SAP Fiori ... 187






5.3 ... Using a Virtual Data Model to Access Live Data ... 203






5.4 ... SAP Fiori and the Intelligent Enterprise ... 219






5.5 ... Summary ... 221






6 ... Key Figures for Operational Reporting: Measuring Financial Performance ... 223






6.1 ... Driving Insight to Action ... 224






6.2 ... Using Semantic Tags to Link Accounts with Key Figures ... 231






6.3 ... Redesigning for 360-Degree Reporting ... 238






6.4 ... Summary ... 246






7 ... Real-Time Financial Close: Providing Timely Information ... 247






7.1 ... Improving the Hard Close ... 248






7.2 ... New Approaches for a Soft Close ... 258






7.3 ... Summary ... 280






8 ... Predictive Accounting: Providing Forward-Looking Insights ... 281






8.1 ... Accounting for Incoming Sales Orders ... 285






8.2 ... Accounting for Statistical Sales Conditions ... 295






8.3 ... Commitment Accounting for Purchase Orders ... 299






8.4 ... Summary ... 301






9 ... Unified Planning Model: Moving from Financial Budgeting to Driver-Based Forecasting ... 303






9.1 ... Moving toward a Unified Planning Model ... 306






9.2 ... SAP Analytics Cloud for Planning ... 313






9.3 ... SAP BPC for SAP S/4HANA ... 319






9.4 ... Planning for the Operational Processes ... 327






9.5 ... Summary ... 341






10 ... Asset Accounting: Making Real-Time Postings for Multiple Accounting Principles ... 343






10.1 ... New Data Structure in Asset Accounting ... 344






10.2 ... Key Figures for Asset Accounting ... 355






10.3 ... Asset Accounting and Controlling ... 357






10.4 ... Summary ... 363






11 ... Inventory Accounting: Simplifying Material Valuation, Production Cost Analysis, and Actual Costing ... 365






11.1 ... New Data Structure in Inventory Accounting ... 366






11.2 ... Production Cost Analysis ... 379






11.3 ... New Data Structure in Actual Costing ... 388






11.4 ... Summary ... 393






12 ... Group Reporting: Producing Consolidated Financial Statements ... 395






12.1 ... Consolidation Solutions ... 396






12.2 ... Group Reporting Dimensions ... 405






12.3 ... Consolidation Data Sources ... 410






12.4 ... Summary ... 413






13 ... Cash Management: Improving Cash Operations ... 415






13.1 ... Bank Account Management ... 417






13.2 ... Cash Operations ... 420






13.3 ... Liquidity Management ... 427






13.4 ... Summary ... 435






14 ... Tax and Legal Reporting: Ensuring Compliance with Key Requirements ... 437






14.1 ... Legal Reporting with SAP S/4HANA for Advanced Compliance Reporting ... 440






14.2 ... Indirect Tax Compliance with SAP Localization Hub, Tax Service ... 446






14.3 ... Summary ... 450






15 ... Cloud Extensions and Connectivity: Looking Beyond the Core ... 453






15.1 ... Finance Solutions ... 455






15.2 ... Finance Extensions ... 468






15.3 ... Summary ... 478






... Looking Ahead with SAP S/4HANA ... 479






... Recent Innovations ... 479






... Planned and Future Innovations ... 481






... Additional Resources ... 486






... Postscript ... 487






... The Authors ... 489






... Index ... 491