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Customer’s favourite Innovations in SAP S4 HANA 2020

SAP S/4 HANA 2020 which is the sixth release in a row of SAP’s digital core, comes with a brand-new naming convention and is ready to take over the on-premise market. SAP S/4HANA is designed to be the digital core of the intelligent enterprise and comes as an innovative, robust, and scalable core ERP.

Financial Accounting

1. Reduce number of General Ledger accounts for bank accounts

1. Reduce number of General Ledger accounts for bank accounts

Management Accounting

1. Universal Allocations
   

   Universal Allocations are initially released in S/4HANA 1909.

• Top-down distribution for Margin Analysis
  

  The top-down distribution for COPA functionality is added to the universal allocation app in 2020. Data is not always posted and available on the lowest possible level. For example, revenue is posted on lowest level, but costs are not always available on that same level. Cost by product and the margin by product questions cannot be answered.
  New Allocation context introduced and available in the Manage Allocations App:

1. Manage Direct Activity Allocation

   This app is providing the functionality of GUI transactions KB21n, KB23n, KB24n, KB65, KB66 and KB67.

   Features:

1. Reassign Cost and Revenues

   This app is providing the functionality of GUI transactions KB11n, KB13n, KB14n, KB41n, KB43n, KB15n, KB16n and KB17n.

   Features:

Treasury & Risk Management

1. Cash & Liquidity Management

• Consolidation of bank control keys
  

  In the past, bank control keys could be defined with both house bank accounts and bank accounts, which may have caused data inconsistencies. Starting from this release, control keys defined with house bank accounts are no longer visible. Therefore consolidation of inconsistent control keys using the program “Migrate Bank Control Keys from House Bank Accounts to Bank Accounts” should be done.

• Switch Migration Program for House Bank Accounts
  

  For the migration of house bank accounts to bank account master data, there are two migration programs. Now the Customizing activity “Switch Migration Program for House Bank Accounts” can be used to decide whether it is required to migrate house bank accounts manually using the classic migration report or migrate house bank accounts automatically using the central data migration activity “Start and Monitor Data Migration”

• Migrate Settings for Bank Statement Monitor
  

  Now the program “Migrate Settings for Bank Statement Monitor” can be used to migrate existing settings for monitoring end-of-day bank statements from the Customizing activity “Settings for Bank Statement Monitor” to the bank account master data in the “Manage Bank Accounts” app

• Manage Field Status Groups
  

  The Customizing activity- Manage Field Status Groups has been enhanced with a new predefined field status group and enforced field checks during bank account creation and activation.

• Define Settings for Bank Account Master Data
  

  Some settings in the Customizing activity- Define Settings for Bank Account Master Data have been changed, including direction for bank accounts, sensitive fields, and non-sequential payment approval patterns.

• BAdI: Automatic Field Population upon Account Creation
  

  Now the Business Add-In Automatic Field Population upon Account Creation can be used to define custom logic for the Manage Bank Accounts app. With this BAdI, default values for fields in the Manage Bank Accounts app can be set, including custom fields, which users can use when creating new bank accounts.

• G/L Account Assignment in House Bank Accounts
  

  In the Manage Bank Accounts app, assignment of a new type of G/L account – a bank reconciliation account – to your central house bank accounts can be done. With this new type of G/L account, a dierent approach can be used to maintain G/L accounts for bank account payments. With this new approach, a bank reconciliation account can be assigned to more than one house bank account, which means a bank reconciliation account can be reused and its clearing G/L accounts for dierent bank accounts.

• Business Partners for Banks
  

  With this feature, a new field- Defaultable Business Partner has been introduced in the Manage Banks app. The original bank business partner has been renamed Risk Business Partner. All business partners associated with a bank, including the bank contact person, are now defined in the Manage Business Partners Master Data app and assigned in the Manage Banks app.

• BAdI: Automatic Field Population upon Account Creation
  

  Now the Business Add-In Automatic Field Population upon Account Creation can be used to define custom logic for the Manage Bank Accounts app. With this BAdI, default values for fields in the Manage Bank Accounts app can be set, including custom fields, which users can use when creating new bank accounts.

• Email Templates for Bank Account Management
  

  New email templates have been provided for managing bank accounts using the dual control mode. Moreover, extensibility options have been provided to email templates for workflow mode, dual control mode, and for bank account reviews.

• Deletion of Active Bank Accounts
  

  Now the In the Manage Bank Accounts app, now delete active bank accounts facility has been provided but it can only be used if the linked house bank accounts have not yet been used in transactions or Customizing settings.

• Generation of IBAN and Account Information
  

  In the Manage Bank Accounts app, the IBAN button has been replaced by the Generate IBAN and Generate Account Info buttons, which allows to generate an IBAN from specified account information or generate account information from a specified IBAN.

• Unlimited Payment Approval
  

  In the Manage Bank Accounts app, payment approvers can be given the right to approve all payments irrespective of the amount by setting the Unlimited Approval indicator.

• “Save as Inactive” Button for Bank Account Creation
  

  When new bank accounts are created in the Manage Bank Accounts app, the new button “Save as Inactive” can be used to save the bank account as an inactive version before activating it or submitting it for activation or approval. This applies to the Activate Directly mode, the Dual Control mode, and the Workflow mode.

• Enhancements for Manage Cash Concentration
  

  The app has been enhanced with the new button “Specify Cash Pool”, which guides users to enter a cash pool before displaying bank accounts and viewing simulation results. New fields have been added to this app, including Plan Date, Value Date, and Reference Text.

• Application Log for Make Bank Transfers
  

  A new tab “Application Log” has been added to the object page of the Manage Bank Transfers app. This tab can be used to track the history of bank transfers, for example, who has created the bank transfer, when was the payment request generated, when was the clearing process triggered and what’s the payment run ID and date.

• Exchange Rate Version for Liquidity Planning with SAP Analytics
  

  Dierent rate versions for exchange rates and viewing of liquidity figures in dierent rate versions can now be defined. This allows to take exchange rate fluctuations into consideration when developing liquidity plans.

• OData API: Bank – Read
  

  The API Bank – Read is now available to read bank data from SAP S/4HANA system. The service is based on the OData protocol and can be consumed by external systems and user interfaces. The Cash Flow API enables to create cash flows through an API call from a source system outside SAP S/4HANA. Furthermore, the service enables to create, update, delete, and erase existing cash flow data from the SAP S/4HANA system

1. Risk Management

• Hedge Management of Balance Sheet FX Risk
  

  With this feature, snapshots of balance sheet exposures and their hedges can be taken. Based on the snapshots, balance sheet exposure hedge requests can be generated to trigger the closing of financial transactions that hedge the net open exposure (balance sheet FX risk). For the released B/S hedge requests, the system automatically creates a trade request, which enables to use the integration with the trading platform integration application

• Process Hedge Requests – Balance Sheet FX Risk
  

  With this app, balance sheet exposure hedge requests can be displayed In addition, edit, release, or delete balance sheet exposure hedge requests can be made that have the status Created.

• Termination Request
  

  With this feature, the Hedge Management Cockpit oers the option of creating a termination request for a transaction used as a hedge. If customer’s business partner’s conditions for the termination do not match the requirements, then overruling can be enabled. This allows customer’s trader to overrule the termination request and create a new transaction to oset the risk. In this case, the original transaction is not terminated.

• Adjustments for Risk-Free Reference Rates
  

  With this feature, the new interest calculation types of Compound Interest Calculation and Average Compound Interest Calculation in variable interest conditions can be used. The interest rate adjustment conditions now allow to enter a lockout period in addition to the already available ‘lookback’ days for the interest rate fixing date. The interest flows resulting from these conditions are applied by the Run Accrual/Deferral app, and NPV calculation also applies the new interest calculation types.

Sales

1. Excel upload for condition maintenance
   

   Within the “Manage Prices- Sales”, users can now select a specific template for the combination of price relevant attributes & download the template to a spreadsheet. Creation or changing of condition records can also be done by uploading the spreadsheet

1. Workflow for Quotation, order and credit memo request
   

   This enables full transparency of the approval process & gain deeper insights.

1. Manage Preliminary billing document workflows
   

   Internal approval workflows for preliminary billing documents are now enabled before the process even starts. Approval authorizations are now controlled through business roles where approvers can approve, reject, ask or rework on preliminary billing documents before they are converted into final billing documents.

1. Flexible document numbering for customer billing document
   

   Use a wide range of criteria to determine an appropriate numbering interval for billing documents enabling a highly flexible assignment of billing document number ranges. Optionally, an alphanumeric number range profile can also be assigned. Substantially it increases the flexibility in determining a billing document number range & makes additional number ranges available for use within the entire billing process chain. It also helps companies to comply to local legal requirements for the way billing documents are numbered

1. New Customer overview App to display main key performance indicators about a customer
   
   Customers Overview: Sales monitoring & Analytics

   The new SAP Fiori app can be used to display most important sales numbers of selected customers:

• Frequency & average net value of incoming orders
• Sales volume & margin
• Open & rejected sales orders
• Latest returns
• Open quotations
• Delivery performance over the last quarters

Pricing Elements- Flexible Analysis

1. Manage customer returns workflow
   

   Manage & monitor the status of customer returns by using a customizable worklist & manage customer returns. Add attachments to customer returns & add follow up activities to the returns process. Automated creation of return approval process & achieve domain specific insights.

1. Schedule creation of preliminary billing documents
   

   SAP Fiori app for “Schedule creation of preliminary billing documents” available based on the job scheduling framework. The jobs can be scheduled based on a regular basis. Intuitive UI for the definition, scheduling & monitoring of the jobs. Hence, the automation of preliminary billing document creation is enabled. Fiori scheduling also enables mass processing of documents along with change logs against each line items.

Data Migration

New migration approaches from 2020 onwards:

1. SAP S4 HANA Migration Cockpit
   

• Migrate data using staging tables
• Migrate data directly from SAP systems

1. SAP S4 HANA Migration Cockpit- Direct Transfer
   

• The SAP S4 HANA Migration Cockpit facilitates the transfer of Business Data (Master Data & Open transactional data) from an SAP Source system to S4 HANA
• It is designed for an initial load of data specifically for S4 HANA new implementation scenario. It is not designed to keep data in sync between systems, to realize a continuous exchange or flow of data or to establish an integration scenario.
• S4 HANA systems are currently not supported as source systems

The list of available migration data keeps growing

Enhanced Intelligence

1. SAP Intelligent Robotic Process automation for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition
   

   SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation (SAP Intelligent RPA) accelerates the transformation of business processes by automatically replicating tedious and repetitive actions in the execution of a defined business process. By incorporating APIs, metadata, and other artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as machine learning, situation handling and conversational AI, SAP IRPA helps to unlock business value trapped in your existing business processes by automating activities and freeing the business users up to make more human knowledge centred and strategic decisions.

   A few examples of topics covered by our pre-content includes the capabilities to create Sales Orders from an MS Excel file, uploading General Ledger entries automatically (from a template) or providing the Status of Supplier Invoices

1. SAP Situation Handling within SAP S/4HANA
   

   SAP S/4HANA includes many attractive functionalities which make it stand out from our traditional SAP ERP system, including the Situation Handling (SH) functionality. This technology enables to automatically identify urgent and important issues and bring these to the attention of the right groups of users. It provides users with intelligent support to the right decisions and triggers taking actions based on notifications.

   A few examples include the possibility to get notified from invoices skipped during reconciliation of payment advice or errors during an allocation run

1. SAP S/4HANA Analytics- Deploying SAP Analytical Cloud technologies for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition
   

   SAP has created a highly dierentiated solution “SAP Analytics Cloud” which is the intersection of Business Intelligence, Predictive capabilities, and Planning. SAP Analytics Cloud is a next-generation Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution that consolidates all analytics functionalities for all users in one product built on SAP Cloud Platform

1. SAP Embedded Machine Learning for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition
   

   The Embedded Machine Learning integrates predictive functionality into business applications. Predictive Analytics allows to manage the predictive use cases shipped by SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition. Embedded ML comprises two SAP Fiori applications – the Predictive Models app and the Predictive Scenarios app. The Predictive Models app leverages the SAP S/4HANA data of the SAP application to train the predictive model version.

   There are several pre-delivered predictive use cases released in SAP S/4HANA system around various lines of business. Few examples include Contract consumption, Stock in transit and Quotation conversion probability rate

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