Update on matching methods in SAP Intercompany Matching and Reconciliation

[KatharinaR]

SAP is investing heavily in AI and is bringing cutting edge AI technologies such as generative AI into its products. This requires a strong focus on the next generation of most value-adding innovations for our customers, and therefore certain other features will be retired. 

#SAP Intercompany Matching and Reconciliation is now and will remain the strategic SAP S/4HANA solution for customers that want to bring intercompany processing into the period - enabling continuous accounting. Its capabilities take advantage of key SAP S/4HANA design principles:

• Hyper-automation, with flexibly scheduled runs that can be executed throughout the period - taking the pressure off period end
• Scalability - intercompany volumes can be very high - and SAP S/4HANA is optimized to work at industrial strength
• Focus on end-to-end process and user experience, with pre-configured automated postings for differences
• Embedded compliance, with approvals that can be made mandatory and a clearly documented and controlled "reconciliation close" process
• Business ownership - with data sets and matching rules that are owned and updated by the finance team, not IT.

Intercompany processing impacts local and group accounting  

Companies adopting ICMR are reporting high rates of automatically matched items - based on the matching rules maintained by the finance business users. In 2021, SAP added an (additionally priced) machine learning option to match items that were not matched by the rules-based approach. It was a sequential process - first the rules were applied, and in a second step the ML engine was used. While there was an increase in total matching rates, the "ML uplift" did not justify the increase in complexity. Therefore, when it came to re-prioritizing AI cases, SAP decided to retire this particular case.

The flexibility in business user defined rules is sufficient to drive this particular matching case - and we can even further focus on delivering the next generation of AI solutions!