- SAP Managed Tags:
The definition of pre-built content, how it helps your business to jump-start your automation development and how to discover them is explained in the blog, ‘Accelerate Business Process Development with SAP Build Process Automation Pre-Built Content’
This blog covers the pre-built content for finance use cases specifically.
Financial operations refer to the management of finances and resources within a company. These operations include, accounting, budgeting, cash management, financial forecasting etc. They are the backbone of any organization and require strong and robust solutions to accomplish them.
SAP S/4HANA Finance is SAP’s flagship financial solution. There are many competitive and core features of S/4HANA Finance that helps you solve your Finance and Accounting requirements.
Though SAP S/4HANA Finance solution offers various solutions for widely used finance operations across the industries, there are some features that must be extended with BTP with side-by-side extension approach in order to solve customer requirements.
Side-by-side extensions mean extension and integration with custom or standard business applications of the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP). This is either via stable APIs or through business events from an SAP product, for example, SAP S/4HANA.
SAP Build Process Automation is used along with the SAP S/4HANA Finance application as a side-by-side extension, to solve complex business use cases that are not planned in the near future as a feature in SAP S/4HANA Finance module. These are identified and validated as a white space in the SAP S/4HANA finance product. Examples of the processes include, Mass processing of Accruals, Creation of Supplier Invoice by Reference Invoice, External Approval while posting Journal Entry etc.
Currently there are 100+ finance use cases for which pre-built content exists in SAP Business Accelerator Hub
These are the widely used use cases in finance industry across various organizations and sectors.
They can be used with no or very minimal changes which makes it as industry best practice.
In order to discover the finance use cases, follow the steps mentioned in the blog ‘Accelerate Business Process Development with SAP Build Process Automation Pre-Built Content’
Or you can simply use the below link to see them in SAP Business Accelerator Hub.
Explaining some of the SAP S/4HANA Finance Use-cases:
1: Journal Entry Posting Approval
A journal entry records financial transactions that a business engages in throughout the accounting period. These entries serve as the initial step to create ledgers and trial balances. Eventually, they are used to compile a full set of financial statements for the company.
This pre-built content covers the capability to validate the journal entry details and based on the document checks, it is posted to SAP S/4HANA on-premise system.
SOLUTION ARCHITECTURE:
This template automates the posting of journal entries to general ledger accounts like making adjustment entries during period end closing or recording business transactions that do not have a source of document etc. It has the below features:
- StartUI for data input used for entering the journal entry details with create or upload options
- TaskUI approval form for the journal entry approval.
- Approval process for approval of journal entry data by determined approver(s) that need to be posted to SAP S/4HANA.
- Automations for document check & document post.
- Decisions to determine approvers to approve the journal entries.
You can add the pre-built content into your tenant and explore more details via the below link.
Link to the template in Business Accelerator Hub
YouTube video for Journal Entry Posting Approval Process
2: Mass Fixed Asset Acquisition
Business organizations need to acquire long-term assets for their business, which is known as Fixed Asset acquisition. Examples include purchasing machinery, furniture, land and buildings, software, vehicles, or other tangible investments that will be used for a period of more than one year. The fixed asset acquisition process involves researching and evaluating potential purchases to ensure they are necessary and appropriate for the business, negotiating terms, obtaining approvals, managing the payment and delivery processes, and recording details in the books of accounts.
This pre-built content enables business experts to accelerate the mass asset acquisition posting process.
SOLUTION ARCHITECTURE:
This template facilitates the creation of Mass Fixed Asset Acquisition and has the following features:
- Start UI screen, to collect the initial selection criteria (Download/Upload) so that required fixed asset acquisition data can be read from SAP S/4HANA Cloud system.
- Once the data is read, it is stored in an excel sheet in a specified folder as provided by the requestor of the process.
- The data can be reviewed/enhanced by the user and upload it again in the Start UI so that approval workflow gets triggered.
- Once the approval is provided by the decision determined approver, the new data gets posted into SAP S/4HANA Cloud system.
You can add the pre-built content into your tenant and explore more details via the below link.
Link to the template in Business Accelerator Hub
3: Mass Creation of Bank Master
Bank master data includes essential details about banks that your company interacts with, such as their addresses, control data, and unique identifiers. This data is maintained once and reused across transactions without frequent changes.
Bank master creation in SAP refers to the process of setting up and maintaining information related to banks within the SAP system.
This pre-built content enables businesses to create bank master in an automated way after approval is provided by a designated approver.
SOLUTION ARCHITECTURE:
This template facilitates read and create of the bank master in SAP S/4HANA cloud system and has the following features:
- Check the email with attachment of excel file and save it in a specified folder.
- Read the excel file and check the existing bank master data in SAP S/4HANA cloud system.
- If data already exists in the SAP S/4HANA cloud system, then details are copied from the system and sent to the requester to review. If details are not existing in the system, an approval flow is triggered so that approver reviews bank master and take a decision on approval.
- Once approval is done, data is added into SAP S/4HANA Cloud system.
You can add the pre-built content into your tenant and explore more details via the below link.
Link to the template in Business Accelerator Hub
4: Manage Invoices without Purchase Order
Businesses use non-PO invoice that doesn’t have any associated Purchase Orders (PO), which are usually the result of spending outside of the usual procurement process.
A non-PO invoice, as opposed to a PO-based invoice, hasn’t been pre-approved and, therefore, needs to go through the invoice approval process within the purchasing department.
This pre-built content enables SAP ERP customers to automate the creation and update of non- PO Vendor Invoice in a transparent approach and provide flexibility to meet business requirements. It includes processes, decisions, automation, and visibility scenario artefacts.
SOLUTION ARCHITECTURE:
This template contains API trigger that triggers the process with required invoice details that is submitted from SAP UI5 application form. The template has the following features:
- The SAP UI5 screen has invoice details of header and item level, attachments and comments, which can be used to fill details of the invoice and trigger the process.
- Invoice data can be validated with decisions that provide easy & flexible use of business validation.
- Approver(s) & watcher(s) are notified via email about the request.
- This template also uses a decision to group invoice item details for delegation of approval request to the responsible approvers.
You can add the pre-built content into your tenant and explore more details via the below link.
Link to the template in Business Accelerator Hub
Other interesting use cases that you may want to explore in SAP Business Accelerator Hub with respect to Finance LOB are:
1: Central Finance Mappings (CFIN Mapping)
SAP Central Finance is used as a single repository of financial accounting. It replicates the master data from different source systems into SAP Central Finance running on SAP S/4HANA RISE (private cloud).
This template automates the process of mapping, replication and is also capable of resolving issues that may occur or provide insight into the issue which would assist an analyst in resolving it.
This pre-built content is maintained by Central Finance team.
2: Safe Deactivation Procedure for Central Finance Replication
Central Finance uses SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server (SLT) to transfer data between Source System(s) and the Central Finance system. In a standard replication, users simply deactivate and reactivate replication. However, Central Finance recommends a multi-step procedure for safe deactivation and reactivation.
This template helps in identifying and performing safe deactivation and reactivation of central and non-central finance replication. Creation of log for the execution and facilitates to send email to designated recipients.
This pre-built content is maintained by Central Finance team.
3: Creation of Supplier Invoice by Reference Invoice
Businesses need to create supplier invoices with reference to preceding documents, such as purchase orders, goods and services receipts, inbound deliveries, or purchasing contracts.
This pre-built content streamlines and automates the process of supplier invoice creation with variable amount by monthly / weekly reference invoice within the SAP S/4HANA public cloud system.
Related Blogs:
- SAP Build Process Automation Pre-built content for SAP SuccessFactors Use cases: SAP Build Process Automation Pre-built content for... - SAP Community
- SAP Build Process Automation Pre-built content for Procurement Use cases: SAP Build Process Automation Pre-built content for... - SAP Community
