Building Success Through Analytics with SimpleFi Solutions

In the modern competitive business environment, companies need to harness every advantage that they can. Leveraging the power of advanced analytics is one of the best ways companies can bolster and streamline essential functions, improving efficiency and reducing costs.

Yet implementing solutions like SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) is easier said than done. Often, companies do not have the skills or experience needed to implement these solutions. To overcome this, many SAP organizations are turning to partners like SimpleFi Solutions to help.

Sharing Success

To help SAP organizations understand how they can benefit from bolstered analytics capabilities, SimpleFi Solutions shared the success story of working with SumUp Inc., a leading financial technology company supporting over three million small businesses. Founded in the late 1800s, SumUp provides card readers and payment services to small businesses typically underserved by banks. As the company expanded rapidly through multiple acquisitions, managing financial consolidation and reporting became increasingly complex.

Challenges

SumUp initially managed financial consolidation using Excel workbooks to merge trial balances from its various companies. As the company grew and acquired new businesses, this manual process became inefficient and error-prone. Each acquisition brought its own source systems, complicating data integration. The reliance on Excel for currency translation, intercompany elimination, and consolidation created inconsistencies and increased the risk of errors. SumUp needed an automated solution to manage consolidation across multiple entities in real time.

Solution

After evaluating SAP Group Reporting, SumUp opted for SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) due to its faster implementation and integrated reporting capabilities. Partnering with SimpleFi, SumUp implemented SAC in just nine weeks and under budget. SAC allowed SumUp to automate key processes, including:

• Direct data loading from SAP S/4HANA and Google Docs.
• Currency translation at historical rates for equity accounts.
• Automated intercompany matching and elimination of accounts receivable/payable and P&L transactions.
• Automated cash flow statement calculation based on balance sheet and income statement movements.
• Centralized reporting on consolidated balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow statements with drill-down capabilities.

Results

SumUp experienced immediate benefits. They included:

• The consolidation process became faster and more accurate.
• SAC’s reporting tools provided improved financial visibility at various levels of granularity (company, region, profit center).
• SAC enabled SumUp to combine actual and budget data for enhanced planning and decision-making.
• Integration with Google Suite allowed seamless access to reports, dashboards, and input forms.
• SAC replaced Excel-based processes, reducing errors from manual data entry and formula misalignment.

Future Plans

SumUp plans to extend SAC’s functionality for:

• Automated income tax calculations and transfer pricing adjustments.
• Goodwill and intangible asset amortization adjustments.
• HR workforce planning, capital expenditure planning, and profitability analysis.

By implementing SAC, SumUp improved its financial reporting, reduced administrative workload, and enhanced strategic decision-making. The solution provides a scalable platform to support SumUp’s continued growth and evolving business needs.

What This Means for SAPinsiders

Manual solutions are no longer viable. All too often, companies rely on outdated, manual methods like Excel. In order to keep pace with modern businesses, organizations must leverage automated solutions. They reduce the chances of manual errors and free up teams to spend their time on other important work.

Analytics are essential to building a competitive advantage. Companies must understand the full scope of their own organization and the environment in which they operate. In order to do this, real-time analytics are crucial. Companies are increasingly turning to solutions like SAC for their visualization and modeling needs.

Find a trusted partner to help drive innovation. SAP organizations often have competing priorities and limited skillsets within their organization. This means that even though they may want to adopt new and advanced technologies they cannot effectively deploy and leverage them with the existing skills they have. Many SAP organizations are now partnering with SimpleFi Solutions to help deploy these technologies more effectively and drive innovation.