The SAP BusinessObjects Intercompany solution (technical product name SBOP INTERCOMPANY 10.0) will be end-of-life in December,2022. SAP’s recommendation for how customers should proceed depends on the customer’s environment:
- For SAP S/4HANA-focused customers, and customers with an SAP-centric landscape, SAP strongly recommends SAP S/4HANA Intercompany Matching and Reconciliation (ICMR). This is a solution with very robust matching capabilities, including for loading and processing non-S/4HANA data.
In the S/4HANA environment, huge improvements in efficiencies can be obtained by moving intercompany tasks into the period (continuous accounting) as well as huge improvements in transparency (more granularity in understanding what is driving matching variances, for example, based on translations or other specific reason codes).
However, ICMR does require an SAP S/4HANA deployment (private cloud, public cloud, or on premise). There is not a separate license for this when used in conjunction with SAP S/4HANA accounting. However, the solution can be extended with a Machine Learning capability – SAP S/4HANA for intelligent intercompany reconciliation.
- For customers without a SAP S/4HANA-centric approach the option, SAP recommends an evaluation of the SAP Solution Extensions by BlackLine. Here, we can observe several different use cases:
- Customers looking for basic matching tool to handle pure transaction matching should consider SAP Account Substantiation and Automation by BlackLine, transaction matching option. This is a Cloud solution that highlights the differences between any 2 data sets.
- For customers looking for more advanced process support, SAP would encourage them to evaluate a broader BlackLine Cloud solution: SAP Intercompany Governance by BlackLine, account settlement option. In addition to the transaction matching capability, this solution has additional support for exception handling and support for settlement.
Finally, regardless of landscape, for all customers that are looking for completely new capabilities about aligning the terms and conditions of the intercompany transaction up-front, especially for non-trade transactions, SAP would recommend an evaluation of SAP Intercompany Governance by BlackLine, origination option. This solution provides a web portal for the two sides of the transaction to agree on details like timing, tax, and transfer pricing details before the corresponding journal entries are posted into the backend ERP systems, avoiding future mis-matches.
The slides attached show the options in more detail.
