Financial Planning Options in S/4HANA (Updated for...

SEdelstein · ‎2020 Dec 01

This blog provides an update on Financial Planning Options in S/4HANA based upon the S/4HANA.

Planning applications have steady evolved at SAP. In this blog we will explore available planning options with a focus on the integration of the S/4HANA.

SAP S/4HANA Planning Options

The following blogs provide excellent overviews of SAP S/4HANA Planning Options:

https://blogs.sap.com/2022/10/18/integrated-financial-planning-an-overview/

https://blogs.sap.com/2022/11/03/more-than-just-efficient-financial-planning-and-project-execution-w...

Summary of SAP planning applications:

Quick Overview:

SAP Cloud Platform (SCP) tools are SAP long term strategic offerings. SAP Analytics Cloud for Planning (SAC), which runs on SCP, is SAP’s recommended strategic planning application for most customers. SAC Planning for S/4HANA on premise requires S/4HANA 1809 SP01 (or higher).

SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) for S/4HANA may still be used for real-time planning on releases prior to S/4HANA OP 1809

SAP BPC for BW/4HANA is the official recommendation for those customers requiring a standalone on-premise planning application.

SAP S/4HANA ERP (Classic ERP Planning Transactions)

The former FI-CO planning t/codes have been removed from the user menu in SAP S/4HANA and the classical planning capabilities have been replaced by modern BPC/SAC functionality and content.

Reactivation of selected classic ERP planning functionality in a converted S/4HANA system is possible for some scenarios where you cannot immediately convert your planning data and your reporting to BPC for S/4HANA or SAC. Please see details in SAP Note 2474069 - Reactivate G/L planning.

This planning option exists but is not recommended for any new implementations.

SAP Business Planning and Consolidation for Netweaver

SAP Business Planning and Consolidation for Netweaver (BPC_NW) is a mature, fully functional planning and consolidation application utilized by thousands of customers. It continues to be supported and maintained so customer’s investments are protected. SAP BPC_NW 10.1 version for NetWeaver will continue to receive mainstream maintenance until at least 31-Dec-2027. Please refer to the SAP Product Availability Matrix (PAM) for support dates by specific product version: https://apps.support.sap.com/sap/support/pam?hash=s%3D%26filter%3Dfavorites%257CT%26o%3Dname%257Casc...

This planning option exists but is not recommended for any new implementations.

BPC for SAP S/4HANA

Designed to function from within a S/4HANA installation, Integrated Business Planning for Finance (IBPf) was the first dedicated S/4HANA financial planning application. IBPf was rebranded in S/4HANA release 1610 to BPC Optimized for S/4HANA and later to BPC for SAP S/4HANA. A limited embedded BW is provisioned within S/4HANA and provides the support to host the BPC application. Caution: The S/4HANA embedded BW is not intended to be used as an Enterprise Data Warehouse (SAP’s recommends the use of a dedicated BW/4HANA solution for EDW scenarios).

BPC Optimized for S/4HANA provides only the embedded modeling option. “Actuals” are sourced from ACDOCA and plan data is stored in the ACDOCP table (additional data modeling variations can provide some data model flexibility on where plan data is ultimately stored).

BPC Optimized for S/4HANA (or IBPf) is not the same as IBP (Integrated Business Planning). SAP Integrated Business Planning focuses on supply chain monitoring, sales and operations planning, demand management, inventory planning, and supply planning.

For additional details on BPC for S/4HANA, please see:

SAP Note 2081400 - SAP BPC Optimized for S/4HANA Finance (aka: Integrated Business Planning for Fina....

This planning option is recommended for new implementations requiring rare real time planning use cases.

SAP Business Planning and Consolidation for BW/4HANA

SAP Business Planning and Consolidation 11.x, version for SAP BW/4HANA is a new product based on SAP BW/4HANA. This product supports the HANA database and uses SAPUI5 user interface technology. The SAP UI5 user interface is based on standard HTML5, which provides all the benefits of HTML5 and supports languages such as Hebrew and Arabic that are written and read from right to left. BW/4HANA is a new, next-generation data warehouse product that is optimized for the SAP HANA platform, delivering real-time, enterprise-wide analytics that minimizes the movement of data and connecting all the data in an organization into a single logical view.

SAP Business Planning and Consolidation 11 can be deployed in two configurations:

In an embedded configuration, Business Planning and Consolidation is integrated with SAP HANA-optimized processing, through which you can perform SAP HANA-optimized planning.

In a standard configuration, you can use all the functionality that is available in the standard configuration of SAP Business Planning and Consolidation, version for SAP NetWeaver.

For additional details:

https://blogs.sap.com/2021/11/26/sap-business-planning-and-consolidation-sap-bpc-strategy/

This planning option is recommended for new implementations requiring an on-premise deployment.

SAP Analytics Cloud

SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) is SAP strategic next-generation software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution built from the ground up that allows business users to plan, discover, predict, and collaborate all in one place. SAC enjoys the benefits of a modern user interface that allows usage across all mobile devices.

SAP Analytics Cloud is fully integrated with SAP S/4HANA and enables integrated financial planning and budgeting processes. To exchange data, SAP Analytics Cloud connects to ODATA services in SAP S/4HANA. For your financial planning requirements, SAP delivers the predefined Integrated Financial Planning for SAP S/4HANA business content that is available with demo data. These solutions allow you to import your own data from SAP S/4HANA and to export your planning results back to SAP S/4HANA.

For details on planning availability between SAC and S/4HANA:

https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_S4HANA_CLOUD/1cbcff7ccd35405ab445b223c1ab1588/debbbd61f0f141f9b0d552e9...

S/4HANA relevant SAC content (as of release 2022):

Landing Page for Financial Planning

The landing page story (SAP_FI_IFP_IM_LandingPage) gives you an overview of the financial planning scenarios in SAP Analytics Cloud, such as operating expense planning, product cost planning, and sales and profitability planning. From here, you can jump directly to the respective planning stories, making it easier to navigate within planning.

For more information, see: Landing Page for Financial Planning in SAP Analytics Cloud

Operating Expense Planning

Operating expense planning involves entering plan figures for costs, activities, cost rates, or statistical key figures for a particular cost center or project and planning period.

For more information, see: Operating Expense Planning in SAP Analytics Cloud

Sales and Profitability Planning

Calculate the revenues, deductions, and costs based on the planned sales quantities. Product-related costs originate from product cost planning whereas product-independent costs such as administration costs originate from cost center planning directly.

For more information, see Sales and Profitability Planning in SAP Analytics Cloud

Product Cost Planning

Calculate the costs of products. The two main components of product costs are the raw material costs and the activity costs, such as machine costs.

For more information, see Product Cost Planning in SAP Analytics Cloud.

Financial Statement Planning

Execute profit and loss planning with trading partner allocation, balance sheet planning, and cash flow calculation.

For more information, see Financial Statement Planning in SAP Analytics Cloud.

Capital Expense Planning

Plan profit center expenses for acquiring, maintaining, or improving fixed assets such as buildings, vehicles, equipment, or land.

For more information, see Investment Planning in SAP Analytics Cloud

Group Financial Planning

Group financial planning enables you to perform profit and loss, profit center, and balance sheet planning for the dimensions of group reporting, such as consolidation unit, profit center, and financial statement item in SAP Analytics Cloud.

For more information, see Group Financial Planning in SAP Analytics Cloud

To check for the latest new SAC-S/4HANA content, follow this link:

https://help.sap.com/doc/474a13c5e9964c849c3a14d6c04339b5/100/en-US/8880de6dbfb94ea3b0de1f26b40816dc...

The SAC planning option is recommended for all new implementations.

Hybrid Planning Solutions

Major new planning enhancements will be delivered through SAP Analytics Cloud; however, existing BPC customers can also leverage these enhancements via “hybrid” integration with SAP Analytics Cloud. A hybrid approach (BPC live connection) SAC can use BPC data and planning technology with a live connection – thus it is possible to build state of the art planning solutions combining the modern and user centric front end technology of SAC stories and applications with the powerful BW-based engine of BPC.

For additional details:

https://blogs.sap.com/2023/02/17/sap-bpc-move-to-sac-benefits-scenarios-of-moving-sap-bpc-planning-s... (scenarios 2&3)

SAP Note 2695252 - Hybrid (live write-back) support for SAP BPC embedded model with SAP Analytics Cl... and, SAC Live Connections: https://help.sap.com/viewer/00f68c2e08b941f081002fd3691d86a7/release/en-US/5b4dad4d97664c41ae63bf115... .

Summary

The evolution of financial planning tools for S/4HANA continues to mature with SAP Analytic Cloud as the obvious preferred choice for most planning applications. SAC’s prepackaged Integrated Financial Planning for SAP S/4HANA business content provides solutions for all major financial planning scenarios with full integration with S/4HANA.