SAP Finance enablement available on learning.sap.com

[Stefanos]

Hello to all!

In this post, I highlight the available Finance related offerings available today on learning.sap.com for free. 

Update: 01.03.2023: Added new learning journeys that have been made available in the finance area and restructured the content to group things in a more logical manner.

Finance is crucial in SAP implementations as it is the backbone of any organization's operations. SAP S/4HANA integrates various financial modules that streamline and automate financial processes, including accounting, financial reporting, budgeting, and cash management. Implementing SAP finance modules effectively ensures accurate financial data, efficient financial operations, and compliance with regulatory requirements.

Finance provides comprehensive visibility into financial transactions, enabling real-time monitoring and analysis of financial performance. It facilitates better decision-making by providing accurate financial insights and reports to key stakeholders, such as executives, managers, and auditors. Additionally, integrating finance with other SAP modules, such as sales, procurement, and production, enhances overall business efficiency and enables seamless data flow across departments. 

Right now, the whole learning team responsible for producing finance content is working hard on expanding the learning offerings available on learning.sap.com. The team's focus in the current year is on the business user, meaning most of the enablement available and being built will focus on how to use SAP S/4HANA to perform core financial business tasks. 

I want to highlight the available offerings and write a few words for who they might be for. I have grouped the offerings below, so you can scroll down to the ones you are interested in:

1. Overview learning journeys
2. Financial accounting learning journeys that lead to the SAP Certified Associate – Implementation Consultant - SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition - Financial A... certification.
3. Other financial accounting learning journeys
4. Management accounting learning journeys
5. Group reporting learning journeys
6. Treasury management learning journeys

After introducing the topics, let's dive into the content!

1. Overview learning journeys
   • Discovering End-to-End Business Processes for the Intelligent Enterprise is my default recommendation for anyone new to SAP to get going. If you are not sure what you are interested in yet, or you want to get a good overview of the capabilities of the SAP offerings, this is a great place to start. Unit 3 of the course focuses on crucial finance concepts and processes.
   • Overview of Financials in SAP S/4HANA is a learning journey for those who want an expansive view of the finance modules. You will go over many topics, so it is great again for someone who might be "interested in finance" but is unsure yet what area to go deeper into.
     
     
2. Financial accounting learning journeys that lead to the SAP Certified Associate – Implementation Consultant - SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition - Financial A... certification. 
   • Outlining Financial Accounting in SAP S/4HANA will give you a great introduction to all core financial accounting (FI) areas: general ledger accounting, accounts receivable, accounts payable, and asset accounting. You can expect separate, more advanced learning journeys for each topic in the future, but this is a great place to start.
   • Outlining the Record to Report Process in SAP S/4HANA will take you a step deeper toward the core of any financial accounting system, the general ledger. Learn basic architecture and manage master data, post and manage accounting documents, and use the embedded reporting options to analyze the results of these transactions. 
   • Describing the Payables Management Process in SAP S/4HANA again goes a step deeper into the processes in payables management like master data management, invoicing, and clearing functions.
   • Describing the Receivables Management Process in SAP S/4HANA is similar to the accounts receivable, but focuses on the receivables side of things.
   • Performing Asset Accounting Processes in SAP S/4HANA provides an in-depth view so that you can perform all of the core asset accounting processes such as master data maintenance, posting asset transactions, utilizing reporting, managing assets under construction, and all of the basic periodic activities like posting depreciation.
     
     
3. Other financial accounting learning journeys
   • Managing Changes with Organizational Flexibility in SAP S/4HANA is an intermediate-level learning journey in which you will learn about the profit-center reorganization tools in SAP S/4HANA. You will be able to analyze, simulate, perform, and finalize a reorganization of profit centers with the help of organizational flexibility. 
     
     
4. Management accounting learning journeys
   • Outlining Cost Management and Profitability Analysis in SAP S/4HANA is for those who want to start learning controlling (CO) and are not interested in other areas and modules. If you know, you want to learn controlling but know or are not interested in different modules, start here.
   • Performing Overhead Cost Controlling​ in SAP S/4HANA offers a deep dive into overhead cost controlling, which means cost center accounting and basic project controlling. After completing this learning journey, I am confident you will have skills valuable to start working with overhead cost controlling in SAP S/4HANA.
   • Evaluating Overhead Cost Accounting in SAP S/4HANA is an intermediate-level learning journey in which you will go deeper into the topics of creating validations and substitution rules, advanced techniques for allocations and settlement, and finally creating simple reports using embedded analytics tools.
     
     
5. Group reporting learning journeys
   • Introducing SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Group Reporting helps you get to know SAP's consolidation solutions and the critical consolidation processes. This is a more specialized topic, but an excellent way to start broadening your finance solution knowledge.
   • Performing Consolidation with SAP S/4HANA Cloud for group reporting is an intermediate-level learning journey that will take you through the complete consolidation process in an SAP S/4HANA system. You will learn how to use group reporting to perform consolidation, which includes managing the required master data, preparing data for consolidation, consolidating the data and performing eliminations, and reporting on the consolidation results.
   • Implementing SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Group Reporting is an intermediate-level learning journey in which you will get in-depth knowledge of customizing SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Group Reporting as well as SAP S/4HANA Finance for Group Reporting Data Collection. Finally, you will be able to perform intercompany matching and elimination in various consolidation scenarios.
     
     
6. Treasury management learning journey
   •  Discovering Bank Account Administration in SAP S/4HANA will teach you how to manage the lifecycle of your banks and bank account inventory. You will also learn to manage attachments and the payment signatories.

I will keep you all updated for new offerings in the area of finance, but for now, I hope you have enough content to dive into and start learning 🙂

[SonnyG]

Thanks so much for sharing with the community 🙏🏾

[sathya2000]

Thank you so much

[srimsrk]

Excellent and thanks for sharing.

[anijaambika]

Thank you

[nkumar56]

Thank you @Stefanos  for sharing this.. Awesome.. 👍

[akshaydua]

Thanks so much for sharing with the community.

[Shamsa12]

Thank you @Stefanos  for sharing this.

[David_Chaviano]

@Stefanos - Can you share what prerequisite finance knowledge is needed here?
General ledger accounting,  Financial reporting,  Treasury,  Management Accounting. Etc.
What about specifically to C_S4CFI_2308 SAP Certified Application Associate - SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition - Finance 2308 ?

Regards,

David

[Stefanos]

Hi David, to prepare you for studying for the certification, I would first do the learning journey Overview of Financials in SAP S/4HANA. This gives a good first overview of each of these topics and will help you when going through the content that leads you to the certification  C_S4CFI_2308 SAP Certified Application Associate - SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition - Finance 2308.

Some knowledge of accounting would also be good when going into any finance course, if you are starting from a complete blank slate, a basic 4-6 hour introductory course found online can help with this, depending on the topic. A basic course like can help you not be completely lost.

[Emma_nguyen]

Hi @Stefanos, thank you very much for your useful article. I have a question about the SAP certificates learning path for an FICO consultant.

Currently I am working as a FICO consultant in oil refinery industry. I am making my very first steps by searching for certifications needed for an FICO consultant. I aware that I should start from Associate level to Professional level. However, the certifications list still confuses me a little bit.

Hereunder is some certs that I think can support to my career path:

1. SAP Certified Application Associate - SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition - Finance 2308 Get certified in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition - Finance | SAP Learning

2. SAP Certified Application Associate - Business Foundation & Integration with SAP ERP 6.07 Get certified for Business Foundation and Integration with SAP ERP 6.07 | SAP Learning

3. SAP Certified Application Associate - SAP S/4HANA for Financial Accounting Associates (SAP S/4HANA 2021)  Get certified in SAP S/4HANA for Financial Accounting Associates (SAP S/4HANA 2021) | SAP Learning

4. SAP Certified Application Associate - SAP S/4HANA for Management Accounting Associates (SAP S/4HANA 2021) Get certified in SAP S/4HANA for Management Accounting Associates (SAP S/4HANA 2021) | SAP Learning

My questions are:

1. Except the article 1, the others seems valid from 2 years ago. Do SAP have any new release certificates?

2. Are the above certs provide me a good SAP fundamental knowledge (include FI, CO, configuration, etc.)?

3. What the roadmap of certs I should follow for my better knowledge?

Regards,

Emma

[Stefanos]

Hello @Emma_nguyen,

It's great that you are interested in finance consulting 🙂

Most people coming into the consulting area of finance for SAP S/4HANA start with the  3rd one on your list. That is also what I would propose for you. Financial accounting will give you a good core knowledge of customizing in the finance area, and you can then choose to expand into other areas or specialize further in financial accounting.

We plan to update certifications for the 2023 release, but these will come towards Q2 next year (tentatively), so I wouldn't wait personally.

Some of the free learning journeys above can help you get started with the topic, but (for now) SAP learning content explicitly preparing you for the certification is available only within the SAP learning hub. 

[David_Chaviano]

@Emma_nguyen @akshaydua @MarkWood21 @SonnyG @sathya2000 @srimsrk @anijaambika @nkumar56 
We have a live session coming up on April 30 to brief the community on the new upcoming free certification track for SAP Finance here: https://groups.community.sap.com/t5/sap-community/sap-finance-certification-2024-update-for-learning...

Feel free to sign up and send to your colleagues.