10 advantages of combining SAP S/4HANA and SAP Group Reporting

How to make consolidation and reporting faster and smarter with integrated SAP Solutions

Our previous blog explained how a consolidation solution can help you speed up your business. A wide variety of CPM solutions are available on the market, but how do you determine which is best for your company? This article will dive deeper into why it is a big win if your financial and consolidation solutions form an integrated landscape instead of separate systems. And if you already use SAP S/4HANA, why does combining it with SAP Group Reporting (GR) have so many advantages?

At cpmview, we help many companies that are already using SAP S/4HANA, to implement SAP Group Reporting. This may sound too obvious, but besides the general advantages of consolidation and reporting tools, there are some specific advantages to combining SAP S/4HANA and SAP Group Reporting. In general, you can say that integrating your financial and consolidation system makes your consolidation and reporting process faster and smarter because of:

• a higher level of automation
• more easy integration
• less manual work
• less time-consuming activities
• better collaboration in month-end close
• real-time insights.

10 advantages of combining SAP S/4HANA and SAP Group Reporting

#1 Pre-delivered material

SAP Group Reporting is basically integrated within the S/4HANA environment and puts an extra layer on top of it. As all SAP S/4HANA processes are part of the same landscape and use the same front-end (Fiori), SAP Group Reporting also uses the user-friendly Fiori environment. Furthermore, SAP Group Reporting includes pre-delivered content for the consolidation process and a built-in reporting solution that can be used to leverage information and facilitate customization.

#2 Near real-time data collection

Because of the integration with SAP GR, the data in your consolidation system easily flows directly from S/4HANA. So, you no longer have to pull or replicate data manually from various source systems anymore.

Did you know that this solution is also available for companies that are not in the S4 environment or even in the SAP world? Based on SAP GRDC functionality – another add-on to SAP Group Reporting – non-SAP entities can easily collect data and directly upload it to the consolidation tables with standard upload methods. Furthermore, companies that are not yet in S/4HANA but have older SAP ERPs, are able to map their data with the SAP GRDC app and directly load it into the consolidation table of Group Reporting. The only prerequisite is to have at least one company in the S4 environment.

#3 One data model

SAP uses one data model, both for local and group reporting. This facilitates your reporting processes and saves you time during reconciliation activities, as both accounting and consolidation data have the same view and structure.

#4 Faster close

In SAP Group Reporting, your full consolidation process will be running on two major apps in a user-friendly environment. Status updates for consolidation tasks are available to streamline the process. Moreover, it will significantly reduce the number of manual tasks. This will make your closing process far less time-consuming and improve the quality and process governance.

#5 Real-time aggregated view of consolidation information in accounting universal journal

When integrated with SAP Group Reporting, the latest functionality of the preparation ledger also includes a pre-consolidation view in the accounting universal journal of S4. This makes it possible to get a preview of how your legal data will look after consolidation. Allowing you to correct mapping mistakes and incorrect information beforehand instead of afterward, avoiding unnecessarily repeated consolidation runs.

#6 Consolidation in multiple group currencies

It is possible to run consolidations in different group currencies. For example, if you report in both EUR and USD group currency, you can generate both in SAP Group Reporting. Reporting in different group currencies for sub-groups is also feasible.

#7 Full legal and matrix consolidation

Legal consolidation concerns the main consolidation requirements, for example, annual reporting requirements and periodical reports based on accounting principles. Matrix consolidation enables the further breakdown of data for management reporting purposes. Combining SAP S/4HANA and SAP Group Reporting allows both as it offers functionalities for both financial consolidation and management reporting consolidation. A true asset for finance departments!

#8 Different types of validations: quality and numerical validations

Both quality and numerical validations are available. Quality validations check whether your data is correct and make sense for consolidation. For example, when working with intercompany accounts, the system can check if transactional data contain correct information so eliminations can run smoothly.

Numerical validations check if your data complies with financial and consolidation rules. For example, your values in the balance sheet are checked to verify if the assets and liabilities/equities are equal.

#9 Planning consolidation for predictive analysis

In addition to SAP S/4HANA and SAP Group Reporting, SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) can also be integrated. This makes it possible to combine actuals and planning data and fully consolidate them for predictive analysis.

#10 Easy intercompany matching and reconciliation

Combining SAP S/4HANA and SAP Group Reporting enables you to drill down deeper on intercompany discrepancies, even to the transactional level. This helps identify and solve necessary corrections to fix the discrepancies. Workflows and approval features can be designed to smooth the intercompany matching and reconciliation process. Built-in communication functionality is also available to shorten the intercompany process and facilitate collaboration to speed up the month-end activities.

Make your consolidation and reporting process faster and smarter. Cpmview can help!

In our next blog post, we will share our lessons learned during SAP Group Reporting implementations. And explain why these valuable insights make our methodology different from others.

Do you want to know what integrated SAP solutions can do for your company? Contact us, and we are happy to help!