SAPinsider EMEA 2023 | Finance

Listen to the story of how Maersk is progressing its Transformation journey towards becoming Global Integrator, offering truly integrated logistics solution that connect, protect and simplify customers supply chains. The New Finance and Tax Platform (NFTP) Program is an integral part of Maersk’s transformation strategy. The Program will change technology, processes, policies, ways of working, as well as behaviors through the implementation of a single, industry-leading standardized platform. With NFTP, Maersk is building the right technological foundation, with SAP S/4HANA at the core, to provide real-time, trustworthy Finance and Tax analytics through a standard model for data capture, in one enterprise-wide platform.

You will:

• UnderLearn how to build a case for change for a large global transformation program leveraging SAP S/4HANA.
• Learn about managing large complex change program with focus on value delivery.
• Understand agile ways of working while delivering with Insourced Technology Team.
• Explore how to build future proof technology architecture aligned to enterprise tech strategy.

Tapan Dash Maersk Engineering Director Senior Tech Leader at Maersk responsible for design, build and run of Corporate Finance Applications. Deep expertise over last 20+ years in leading large global tech enabled transformations while operating at the at the intersection of technology, people and process. Within Maersk Technology, Tapan has successfully delivered on roles of managing the SAP Center of Excellence, managing the corporate portfolio (including Finance and HR), Program Management and Technology track leader across Order to Cash, Procurement to Pay and Accounting to Reporting and technology (Analytics, Integration, Development and Infrastructure) areas. Tapan has been managing globally distributed teams out of Copenhagen. From his past consulting experiences with PwC and IBM Business Consulting, Tapan has gained extensive experiences with large scale complex IT and business transformations implementations projects, enterprise application management covering countries around the globe.

Most companies are spending a lot of time reconciling intercompany operations by using excel sheets or an ABAP program. The main reason they use those tools is that they are not aware that SAP has a standard solution called SAP ICMR. ICMR consists of three powerful modules: Matching, which achieves transaction-level matching and data analysis on both aggregated and line item levels; Reconciliation, where you gain a comprehensive aggregated view of your financial data; and Automatic Posting, which seamlessly adjusts variances, makes accrual postings, and performs elimination postings. Join this session to see how you can save time and strengthen your financial processes.

You will:

• Explore problems that organizations face regarding intercompany flow.
• Review the main modules of SAP ICMR – Matching, Reconciliation, and Automatic Posting.
• Go over best practices that will help you streamline your business processes.

Marc Auro Cuviv Managing Partner Marc Auró is managing partner in Cuviv UK. Since 2017, he has worked as an SAP FI/CO consultant with strong capabilities in finance and treasury. Marc finds solutions to client problems. He also works in ECC and SAP S/4HANA systems.

Unlock the full potential of your organization’s tax management capabilities by using new strategies and tools. Stay ahead of the constant changes with an effective roadmap that will help you maximize your SAP finance resources.

You will:

• Immerse yourself in the world of SAP’s cutting-edge finance modules, including SAP S/4HANA Finance and SAP Central Finance, discovering how they revolutionize financial processes and empower data-driven decision making.
• Embrace the vision of SAP’s future finance solutions, exploring upcoming developments and advancements that align seamlessly with the ever-evolving finance and technology landscape.

For finance professionals, executives, and IT leaders seeking to enhance their organization’s financial management capabilities, this session promises a forward-looking perspective on SAP’s Finance Solutions and Roadmap, empowering leaders to make informed decisions and stay ahead in the digital finance era.

You will:

• Explore the innovative capabilities of SAP’s finance modules, including SAP S/4HANA Finance, SAP Central Finance, and how they streamline financial processes and optimize decision-making.
• Discuss the latest updates and enhancements to SAP’s finance offerings, enabling you to leverage new features and functionalities effectively.
• Learn about SAP’s vision for the future of finance solutions, including upcoming developments and advancements that align with the ever-changing landscape of finance and technology.

Breakout Session Finance

BRF, a global consumer goods company operating in 117 countries, faced challenges with manual and time-consuming payment processes that caused errors and delays, impacting cash flow and payment tracking. To address these issues, BRF partnered with Serrala, implementing a comprehensive financial solution consisting of payments automation, connectivity handling, format conversion, and cash application automation.

The results have been transformative, automating payments to achieve significant time and cost savings while enhancing cash flow visibility and control, providing a clearer financial understanding. As a result, BRF now makes payments more efficiently and effectively, allowing them to focus on other crucial aspects of their operations.

Centralizing invoices and payment executions has simplified payment tracking and management, reducing error risks. The automatic matching rate of Cash Application process, an impressive 85%, contributes to fewer errors and delays across diverse countries around the globe. The BRF story exemplifies how payment automation can enhance efficiency and visibility in payment processing.

You will:

• See how 96% of all payments from Turkey, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Chile are processed through an end-to-end SAP-embedded flow.
• Learn how BRF achieved 89% improvement in operational efficiency for payments and an 85% auto matching rate for Cash Application.
• Uncover ways to reduce business continuity risk by outsourcing critical payment operations and maintenance activities.
• Explore how to quickly scale up bank connectivity.

Dieniffer dos Santos Rubino Barboza BRF Treasury Coordinator GCC She began her career in 2008 when she joined BRF as an Analyst. Dieniffer’s expertise in finance processes and her ability to effectively manage projects were critical in her successful transition to this new location. In this role, she manages 12 entities across five different countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Her responsibilities include overseeing financial transactions, managing risk, and ensuring efficient cash flow management for these entities. Last year her team won the ACT Middle East Treasury Awards.

Ulrich Rosenquist Serrala Senior Business Development Manager Ulrich Rosenquist is responsible for sales and key account management at Serrala for strategic corporations in the Nordic, CEE and Middle East regions. Ulrich has a comprehensive financial background with more than 23 years’ experience selling and delivering FinTech solutions globally. Before that he had approximately 20 years’ banking experience in Denmark and the U.S. Ulrich holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce.

This back-to-basics session identifies the most important areas to address when training all end users on SAP functionality, including analysis, display, environment, and reporting. Take home 30 tips that will accelerate the end-user learning curve and reduce calls to the help desk.

You will:

• Help users get the most from reporting tools to maximize their productivity.
• Teach end users to set key default values.
• Identify the most frequently used transaction codes to assist end users in quickly navigating SAP.
• Show users how to get the most from SAP GUI and SAP Fiori.
• Walk away with a list of key parameter IDs for all users.

Rohana Gunawardena Exium Inc. Director, SAP Practice Rohana Gunawardena heads the SAP practice division at Exium Inc. Rohana has been working with SAP since 1992. During his career he has assisted multiple clients on detailed system correction projects, such as correcting inventory balances, controlling area reorganizations, retrospectively activating group currency, and optimizing inter-company accounting transactions. He has spoken at many SAP conferences and has published more than 20 magazine articles in SAP Financials Expert, SAP SCM Expert and SAPtips on various aspects of SAP. Rohana is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. Previously Rohana has worked with the consulting practices of Accenture, Deloitte and PwC. He is a graduate of The University of Manchester School of Mathematics.

Gain a comprehensive insight into the power of SAP Central Finance as a key component of intelligent finance transformation. If you are seeking to optimize your organization’s financial operations, do not miss this must-attend session that will review the benefits of consolidating financial data from diverse systems, harmonizing processes, and facilitating real-time financial reporting and analysis. See how SAP Central Finance can keep you at the forefront of innovative finance trends.

You will:

• Explore the key functionalities and features of SAP Central Finance, including data integration, mapping, harmonization, and the ability to enable a unified view of financial data across the enterprise.
• Review best practices for successful implementation and deployment of SAP Central Finance, with real-world examples demonstrating how organizations have achieved streamlined financial processes and improved decision-making.
• Learn about SAP’s future direction for Central Finance, offering insights into upcoming enhancements and innovations, and how they align with the changing landscape of finance and technology.

Developers and functional analysts ignore one important thing which is extremely powerful in enhancing end user productivity – Program Documentation (Shift +F1). For a business process, a series of Z programs and Z Tables are often created. Then, the core development and business team move on after the transfer of knowledge to production support. There are presentations, recordings, and handshakes. Over time, presentations are lost, team members move on, and the original project knowledge is lost, leaving programmers with the need to reverse engineer the process to find the business logic.

You will:

• Learn tips and tricks on how to add end user documentation to the Z-Report and Z-Data Elements.
• Learn how to enhance quality and process control.
• Review the importance of documenting all procedures to reduce the risks during turnover.
• Discover how to help new developers understand the background of the process to update the code effectively.
• Explore how documentation/help can be linked to any Z table, standard table, data elements, PDF, Word, programs, and many more cool features.
• Find out how Word or PDF help documents can be linked to Z program documentation for detailed screenshots and documentation.

Chanda Verma Perigee Solutions Director, SAP Practice Chanda has worked on SAP since 2004. Her experiences include 1) Multiple SAP integration projects across Europe, Asia and North America focusing on: 2) Cross module integrations. 3) Leading Data Staging in end-to-end processes across all SAP modules. 4) High volume data conversions. 5) Working closely with the external parties like banks & auditors. 6) Project planning, sourcing and budgeting. 7) Solutions Architect,Finance Project Manager and Team Lead.

SAP S/4HANA has multiple sourcing and procurement tools and each may be suitable for different business situations. Do not miss this opportunity to discuss the different tools (SAP Ariba, SAP SRM, SAP Sourcing, SAP ERP Outline Agreement, SAP ERP Purchasing) and their best-fit business situations, so that they will be properly deployed and not misused.

You will:

• Explore effective strategies and use cases for SAP Ariba, SAP Sourcing, SAP ERP Outline Agreement, and SAP ERP Purchase Order.
• Review the next steps for SAP SRM (Currently end of life is schedule for 2027).

Isaac Mazliach S.D.M. Information Systems Ltd. Manager and SAP Expert Since 1997, Isaac gained hands-on experience in consulting and architecture management by assisting many companies (North America, Europe and Israel) to improve and extend their SAP processes and activities. He built up special expertise in the WM, EWM, sourcing and supply chain arena, platforms and software, together with the integration of SAP modules in SAP S/4 and ECC. Isaac’s skillsets include the following: Experience from agile development and devops methods including understanding of end-to-end software delivery lifecycle processes; system thinking with comprehensive knowledge of SAP platforms and associated technologies including documented experience of enterprise software and API oriented architecture; documented experience from applying digital technology creating business effect; demonstrated business acumen and relevant experience of business, customers, and functional areas.

Indirect production overhead (IPO) is the part of the cost that is related to manufacturing processes that cannot be directly traced to individual materials as opposed to direct overhead costs which includes direct labor or direct materials used in creating a product or service. Lundbeck used to use an Excel database to calculate IPO for in-house production and for the sub-contracting flow. Now, things have changed. In the session, see how you can utilize SAP’s Product Costing solution to get the transparency of IPO calculation for in-house production and in the sub-contracting flow.

You will:

• Learn why we need Product Costing from SAP.
• Explore how to calculate IPO for in-house production flow.
• Review what subcontracting flow is and how to calculate subcontracting IPO.

Mae Wang H. Lundbeck A/S Senior Solution Architect Mae Wang has been working with SAP FI/CO/SD for around 15 years in pharma and shipping industries. She is the senior IT solution architect in Lundbeck for finance application. During the past 10 years in Lundbeck, she has been working with SAP Roll-out worldwide, implementation of product costing, cash management, eDoc, etc. The most recent project is SAP S/4 conversion where Lundbeck is undergoing a brown field conversion from ECC to SAP S/4.

Impact 20 Finance | SAP S/4HANA

What can finance leaders do to reduce the cost and complexity of transitioning to SAP S/4HANA? Uncover some of the key differences between SAP ECC and SAP S/4HANA, as well as practical strategies for streamlining your finance processes and data before you move.You will:

• Discover the advantages of archiving legacy information and introducing new cloud capabilities to increase process flexibility and reduce risk.
• Discuss why taking proactive steps now can help your finance team save time and effort during the move.
• Learn how you can make it faster and easier to improve performance and generate new insights on the new platform.

Breakout Session Finance

SAP provides solutions across the board for various financial planning and analysis requirements. This session offers a detailed overview of these solutions and how they support key planning and profitability capabilities and processes. In addition, you will also hear how SAP is evolving solution functionality in the immediate future.

You will:

• Understand the latest capabilities in planning and profitability and how they are being delivered.
• Learn how SAP’s latest product roadmap impacts your existing investment in SAP solutions.
• Get the inside scoop on the new and future planning and profitability capabilities, including predictive planning and scenario planning.
• Find out how customers are using SAP to navigate the challenges of planning and forecasting in this unique business climate.

Breakout Session Finance

With SAP’s recent release of the universal parallel accounting (UPA) solution, SAP has finally delivered a true end-to-end solution for parallel accounting within the SAP Finance area. This solution has been in development for cloud customers, but now SAP S/4HANA 2022 has been released for on-premise as well. As a feeder system to the GL, asset accounting has had to make significant changes around how values are tracked in parallel to support the new UPA requirements. Delivered alongside UPA, the new intelligent asset accounting (IAA) solution represents the biggest re-write of fixed asset functionality in SAP ERP and will be the go-forward solution for all SAP customers.

You will:

• Hear about the full feature release of UPA’s impacts and changes on Asset Accounting.
• Understand the integration related topics that cover APIs, equipment integration and cFIN.
• Review the flexibility changes regarding depreciation.

Nathan Genez Serio Consulting Managing Partner Nathan Genez is a former Platinum Consultant with SAP America who has been working with SAP since 1996. He has worked extensively in the SAP Finance area from R/2 up to the current SAP S/4HANA release, with a strong emphasis on the capital accounting solution. This includes Fixed Assets, New Asset Accounting, Project Systems, Investment Management, ALA, AROM, and the core FI/CO modules. He is currently a Managing Partner at Serio Consulting LLC, an SAP Development Partner company. Serio Consulting has assisted SAP AG Development with testing new solutions and frequently leads the initial pilot implementations for new capital accounting solutions. Nathan is a consistent contributor to the larger SAP ecosystem and has in the past served at ASUG and been an SAP Mentor and Moderator with the SAP Community Network (SCN). He is also a frequent author, blogger, and presenter at SAPinsider events dating back to 2004. He is a graduate of Furman University where he studied accounting and music.

Join this interactive session to stay informed and ahead of the curve with the latest developments in EMEA finance regulations. Do not miss this opportunity to enhance your understanding of the new changes and the need to leverage SAP’s cutting-edge solutions to achieve regulatory compliance and operational excellence.

You will:

• Discover how the recent updates and changes impact financial operations and reporting for businesses operating in the EMEA region.
• Explore SAP’s innovative solutions designed to address these new regulations, ensuring seamless adaptation and compliance for organizations of all sizes.
• Gain practical guidance and best practices to implement the latest SAP tools, empowering attendees to optimize financial processes and maintain compliance in a rapidly changing regulatory environment.

Breakout Session Finance

Finance teams are spending more time and money implementing new technology to make reporting and routine tasks easier on their teams, but data shows that only 30% of technology projects succeed. This can result in too many systems aimed at helping finance’s digital transformation either going unused or overcomplicating daily workloads.

Finance leaders need to set a technology roadmap and strategy to stay nimble in the post-pandemic economy. And it is even more important for finance leaders to take a key role in the company’s overall data and analytics strategy. By breaking down the silos of an existing technology portfolio and developing a strategic plan, CFOs can lead their organization into an era where they are doing more with less, automating repetitive processes, and uncovering efficiency insights in their existing data.

You will:

• Identify technology investments that will help finance teams.
• Learn what to include in a finance technology roadmap.
• Take an active role in your organization’s data strategy.
• Identify finance software that will work together.

Tony Cregg insightsoftware Senior Solutions Engineer Tony has over 30 years’ experience working in software across a number of companies in various roles from programmer/consultant through to Sales Director. He has been at insightsoftware since 2016 and uses his expertise in financial and operational reporting together with analytics and planning to provide value to our customers on a daily basis.

Breakout Session Finance

When operating internationally, clients face a multitude of compliance topics for travel expenses. Especially in Europe, each country has its own regulations for paying travel allowances. Rates and rules change frequently. Furthermore, regulations can be coupled with collective or company agreements.

For companies that are hoping to stay ahead of the compliance wave of change, SAP Concur is offering a packaged solution for the most important countries and provides no touch compliance. In addition, it offers the flexibility to support complex rules for collective agreements or company rules worldwide. Join this session to gain insights on future developments and review customer cases where the SAP Concur travel allowance solution has helped clients to be compliant, offer their travelers a world-class user experience, keep tabs on expenses, and cut process costs.

You will:

• Explore the benefits of the new travel allowance solution.
• Learn how SAP Concur will help you be compliant with country regulations.
• Smartly cut travel expense spending.

Hartmut Laser SAP SE Senior Product Manager Hartmut Laser is a senior product management expert with more than 30 years of experience in the IT Industry. For the last six years, he has been responsible for the new Travel Allowance solution in SAP Concur. He has been instrumental in rolling out this solution in all markets for small and large enterprise clients and the public sector. Before joining SAP Concur, he was a Product Manager for the SAP Cloud T&E solution. Previously, he has held positions at SAP in Program and Project Management, Business Development and Consulting. In his role as a consultant, he worked in the U.S. and implemented the first SAP ERP Payroll clients in Australia. Throughout his career, Hartmut has been passionate about working closely with customers, understanding their business processes end to end and bringing them up to a new level of excellence.

Breakout Session Finance

Don’t miss this opportunity to unpack the relative priorities that IT and finance bring to the challenge of moving to SAP S/4HANA. No matter where you are in your transformation journey, you will come away with tips and tricks to ensure that you reach your business objectives and goals.

You will:

• Discover that RISE with SAP is a fantastic way to improve or transform your finance function.
• Gain insights on how to execute an effective transition.

David Ormerod Independent Consultant Until recently David was a Chief Business Expert with SAP, with a mandate for Global Business Development of the Finance, Risk and Billing solution portfolio. He now works as an independent advisor, analyst and commentator, drawing on a 30-year career spanning Corporate Finance, major software implementation projects, and working in business development roles for 3 major software companies.

In this session, you can learn about the various ways organizations can benchmark their planning and analysis processes and capabilities. We will discuss KPI’s and metrics that are commonly used to evaluate the effectiveness of FP&A teams and provide examples of how best-in-class organizations have achieved excellence in this area.

You will:

• Learn about the latest trends and technologies in FP&A benchmarking.
• Gain an understanding of FP&A best practices for implementing and maintaining a successful benchmarking program.
• Hear about practical strategies for improving your organization’s FP&A capabilities and performance.
• Make the move from traditional budgeting to a more forward-looking, strategic planning function.

Breakout Session | Finance | SAP S/4HANAData Analytics + BI

H. Lundbeck A/S expected challenges in data consistency when the company started its preparation to migrate to SAP S/4 version 2022. It had to deal with more than 60 company codes in over 40 countries with multiple ledgers and currencies, data going back from 2003, new G/L activated in 2008, together with the implementation of new asset accounting recently in ECC. But after they completed two trial conversions and one sandbox real conversion, including clean-up in the productive system, they are still facing new migration errors, including errors with G/L and asset accounting.

One of the key learnings from this process is to know when and how to use transaction FINS_MIG_STATUS, as well as when to use FINS_RECONXXX of G/L and asset accounting focus. Join this session to hear more about the timing of when H. Lundbeck A/S started to deal with data inconsistencies and how they were resolved, both in ECC as a pre-burner clean-up and in the SAP S/4 conversion.

You will:

• Learn how to prepare your system for readiness checks from financial data quality checks.
• Discuss when to run financial data quality checks (trial 1, trial 2, actual conversion) in ECC.
• Review what are the most frequent errors and where to look for solutions.
• Learn more about master data reconciliation and clean-up.

Mae Wang H. Lundbeck A/S Senior Solution Architect Mae Wang has been working with SAP FI/CO/SD for around 15 years in pharma and shipping industries. She is the senior IT solution architect in Lundbeck for finance application. During the past 10 years in Lundbeck, she has been working with SAP Roll-out worldwide, implementation of product costing, cash management, eDoc, etc. The most recent project is SAP S/4 conversion where Lundbeck is undergoing a brown field conversion from ECC to SAP S/4.

Bo Tarnø NNIT A/S Consultant Bo Tarnø has 28 years of experience as SAP Finance SME and Solution architect on various global projects mainly within the Pharmaceutical industry. During the past years, his main focus has been the SAP S/4 brown field conversion at H. Lundbeck A/S.

Breakout Session | Finance

Benchmarking Your Planning Processes and Capabilities: How Do You Compare to Best-in-Class Organizations
The receivables management process has a direct impact on key performance indicators, with benefits including a reduction in the days div outstanding (DSO), reduced resources and effort to process disputes and collections, and improved customer satisfaction.

You will:

• Learn how embedded automation and AI capabilities are available to help finance teams become more efficient and add value to the customer experience during the billing and subsequent receivables processes.
• Unearth which technology is most appropriate for each task, including machine learning and RPA.

SAP

Breakout Session | Finance

How to Design Your Volume-Driven Integrated Financial Planning

More than 60% of companies still use Excel as their primary budgeting tool. The lack of integration makes it difficult to respond to changes. Although companies have an ERP system that supports their business processes, they still rely on spreadsheets. An integrated planning process for sales, production, and finance is often not possible due to the lack of an integrated budgeting tool. By using the integration between SAP Analytics Cloud, IBP, and SAP S/4HANA, an integrated and volume-driven financial forecast can be set up in SAP Analytics Cloud, from Net Sales to the final cash flow.

You will:

• Learn how to use forecasts from IBP as input to financial planning.
• Simulate the financial impact of alternative volume forecasts.
• Integrate and link financial planning areas (gross sales to cash flow).

Thomas Freil Implement Consulting Group Management Consultant As a senior management consultant in finance and controlling, Thomas has worked with SAP since 1998. He has participated in several implementation projects and supported existing SAP installations. During his time as an SAP consultant and solution architect he has gained considerable knowledge in all areas of finance and controlling and the integration to the supply chain modules in SAP. Thomas is a specialist in product cost planning, and he has worked several years with process optimization in the financial planning process. His experience includes financial planning and reporting in SAP BW and SAP Analytics Cloud.

Breakout Session | Finance

AP Automation: What, Why and How?

Many companies are realizing that numerous manual touchpoints result in longer times to process invoices. This usually leads to unhappy suppliers. Therefore, organizations are now looking to automated solutions to streamline their finance processes and improve customer satisfaction. But where do you start when you are ready to begin your transformation?

You will:

• Decide what AP automation tools are best for your organization.
• Review various software options that will fit your needs.
• Negotiate system costs.
• Generate competition among software providers.
• Develop ROI for management approval.
• Create a 3- to 5-year roadmap that shows the total cost savings.

Chanda Verma Perigee Solutions Director, SAP Practice Chanda has worked on SAP since 2004. Her experiences include 1) Multiple SAP integration projects across Europe, Asia and North America focusing on: 2) Cross module integrations. 3) Leading Data Staging in end-to-end processes across all SAP modules. 4) High volume data conversions. 5) Working closely with the external parties like banks & auditors. 6) Project planning, sourcing and budgeting. 7) Solutions Architect, Finance Project Manager and Team Lead.

Breakout Session | Finance

Case Study: SAP S/4HANA – Automate all Your Exchange and Interest Rates with Standard Functionality

Does your company conduct business in America, Europe, Asia, or Latin America? Gain more customers by communicating monetary amounts in their local currencies in a standard, easy, and fully automated way in SAP S/4HANA. For some cultures, it is important to receive amounts in their own local currencies, instead of the most common currencies. Knowing the cost of a project, goods, services, or shipment in the business partner’s currency can elevate the relationship.

You will:

• Learn how to fully automate foreign currency activity by customizing the standard TBD4 transaction.
• Discover where to find specific customization options in SAP S/4HANA.

Adrian Wilder WAE Solutions LLC Partner Adrian is founder of “OB08.net” and he is a partner at WAE Solutions (www.waesolutions.com). He is developing activities as a business developer, project manager and SAP FI Expert with over 25 years experience. He has international experience in project management, SAP implementations and SAP FI training.

Esteban Wilder WAE Solutions LLC Partner Esteban is a partner at WAE Solutions (www.waesolutions.com). He is an expert in SAP ABAP and a founder of OB08.net.

Salvatore Lobasco Merck KGaA

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