What It Means to be an SAP Certified App

In a world where business never slows down, SAP system certification can be a powerful tool that keeps you one step ahead. For businesses seeking to optimize their tax and compliance processes, partners like Thomson Reuters provide SAP-certified app solutions that can make a significant difference. Let’s explore what it means to be SAP certified, the certification process, and how Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE can help your business thrive.

What is SAP certification?

SAP certification allows your business to enhance workflows and improve opportunities for career advancement. For businesses, obtaining SAP certification for their applications means ensuring that they are seamlessly integrated with SAP systems, which are known for their robustness and scalability.

When evaluating third-party solutions for your SAP environment, understanding the different levels of SAP certification can help you make informed decisions that align with your business needs.

SAP Certified

SAP Certified marks the entry-level partnership, where solutions prove they integrate smoothly with SAP applications and follow SAP’s technical best practices. This certification level ensures faster deployments, lowers integration costs, and guarantees smooth compatibility with your existing SAP systems.

SAP Endorsed Apps

For organizations seeking even greater confidence and performance, SAP Endorsed Apps represent the premium tier of certification within SAP’s partner ecosystem. These solutions undergo rigorous premium certification processes that include enhanced security protocols, comprehensive testing procedures, and validation against established benchmark performance standards.

SAP Solution Extensions

Furthermore, SAP Solution Extensions represent another category of certified solutions, developed by independent software vendors (ISVs) to complement SAP’s own offerings. These extensions are thoroughly tested, validated, and supported by SAP, often being marketed and sold as part of SAP’s branded portfolio. Each of these certification levels offers customers varying degrees of assurance regarding compatibility, implementation efficiency, and the potential for achieving business objectives with their SAP technology infrastructure.

What is the process to become SAP certified?

To initiate the certification process, vendors must provide detailed documentation and undergo a thorough code review. The documentation includes technical specifications, functional descriptions, and security measures. The code review is a critical step that ensures the application adheres to SAP’s best practices and standards. It involves a line-by-line examination to identify any potential issues that could compromise performance or security.

After a thorough review of documentation and code, the integration with SAP systems goes through both automated and manual testing. Automated tools simulate real-world scenarios to check compatibility across SAP versions and modules, while human testers validate functionality and user experience. This combined approach ensures the app performs reliably and delivers a smooth, intuitive experience.

Once all tests have been successfully completed, the app is awarded the SAP Certified Integration seal of approval. This seal is a testament to the app’s quality and reliability, and it signals to potential customers that it has met SAP’s stringent requirements.

However, the journey doesn’t end with certification. Post-certification, continuous updates and compliance checks are mandatory. As SAP systems evolve, certified apps must stay current to maintain compatibility and security. This means regularly re-testing and updating documentation to reflect changes in both the app and SAP’s platform. By maintaining these standards, vendors can ensure that their SAP-certified app remains a trusted and valuable solution for their customers.

SAP-certified Thomson Reuters solutions

SAP partners, such as Thomson Reuters, are instrumental in providing certified solutions that target specific business challenges, particularly in the domains of tax and compliance. Thomson Reuters has developed a suite of SAP-certified apps that seamlessly integrate with SAP systems.

For example, ONESOURCE Tax Provision for SAP S/4HANA Cloud is an endorsed app that calculates corporate tax estimates, reducing time spent during a financial close. Key features include simplified data capture within a singular tool, a market-leading, patented calculation engine, and self-reconciling reports. These features significantly reduce manual efforts and minimize audit risk.

Another notable example is ONESOURCE Indirect Tax Integration for SAP ERP and SAP S/4HANA. This endorsed app solution offers capabilities like real-time tax decisions, the ability to set up custom fields for tax calculation, and easy sales tax compliance with up-to-date global content, which is certified compliant to SSAE 18 and ISAE 3402 standards. This integration enables businesses to better manage global tax liability with ease of mind.

For businesses operating in the European Union, ONESOURCE ESG Reporting for SAP Sustainability Control Tower is an integration that allows users to prepare, gather, and file ESG data seamlessly. The connector offers a centralized review process, the ability to compare different versions of your European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) report, and automated updates to source data. Plus, this solution has also been recognized by SAP as an endorsed app, adding extra confidence in its quality and reliability.

How ONESOURCE integrations can help your business

By capitalizing on the partnership of Thomson Reuters and SAP, businesses can access new insights, transforming their operations and regulatory compliance. ONESOURCE automates data input, delivers real-time tax information, and streamlines tax calculations to save time and reduce errors. It also empowers finance teams to make more informed decisions.

The adoption of these integrations is a strategic step that can significantly benefit any organization, particularly when paired with the dependability and compatibility of an SAP-certified app.