As businesses grow more complex, the need for accurate and timely financial reporting has never been greater. Unfortunately, legacy and manual methods for financial reporting often need help to keep up with the pace of business. Early findings from our Financial Close Transformation benchmark report, exploring the strategic priorities of SAP organizations across the financial closing process, point to growing pressure from executives to improve the efficiency of the financial close. Many finance teams are evaluating opportunities to automate and improve their financial reporting processes.   One way to achieve this is through online consolidation and financial reporting processes. This strategy can help enable faster, more accurate reporting, thus providing greater transparency to the organization's financial activities. To better understand how organizations can benefit from bringing consolidation and financial reporting processes online, SAPinsider spoke with Jonathan Essig, CPA, a Managing Partner at SimpleFi Solutions. Mr. Essig has over 20 years of experience in the SAP software industry, including KPMG and Arthur Andersen positions. SimpleFi Solutions is an SAP Silver Services Partner providing SAP analytic, reporting, and consolidation solutions.    As part of the conversation, the SumUp Group executive team, Aleksandar Ivanov, Senior Manager of Financial Control, and Miroslav Lazarov, SAP Analytics Cloud Specialist, shared their business innovation experience, partnering with SimpleFi to bring their organization's consolidation and financial reporting processes online. SumUp is a global technology company that provides point-of-sale solutions for small businesses, primarily restaurants, bars, and coffee shops.   Link to Video Technology Insight: Video interview and discussion with Jonathan Essig, CPA, Managing Partner Sales & Solutions at SimpleFi, Aleksandar Ivanov, Senior Manager of Financial Control at SumUp Group, and Miroslav Lazarov, SAP Analytics Cloud Specialist at SumUp Group.  

SumUp Growth Story Drives Need for Business Innovation  

The SumUp Group's core product portfolio supports card readers for accepting payment in person (card present transactions) as well as alternative methods such as QR code or online payments; they also have point-of-sale products which can be used by business owners who want easier access on their own mobile devices. The digital payments industry has seen significant growth in recent years, driven by the increasing popularity of mobile and online payments, and SumUp is no different. "Over the last five years, we experienced significant growth, expanding into 34 countries with 2 million active users daily, making 3 million transactions per week," says Mr. Ivanov.   During this growth phase, the SumUP team scaled to keep pace with demand, resulting in several acquisitions to enable growth and the launch of new business units to support product innovation. For most SAPinsiders, growing organizational complexity from corporate transactions, product innovation, and developing business models represents core drivers of F&A strategic priority. Mr. Ivanov aligns with SAPinsiders on this topic, "The growth and number of acquisitions that the group performed presented a challenge for our controlling and reporting teams to easily and consistently bring [together] the financial data and prepare consolidated financial statements."  

Manual Consolidation Process Highlights Need for Change   

Consolidating financial data from multiple source systems is complex when done only in offline spreadsheets. For example, trial balances must be exported from source systems before consolidation and reporting are performed in spreadsheets, with data manually input and calculations performed by financial professionals. The complexity of this task is further compounded because many businesses still rely on manual consolidation processes, which are time-consuming and make it difficult to get timely updates from different subsidiaries. "Until the beginning of 2022, our organization was merging financial data manually using mainly Excel and group reporting packages. Our team worked manually between 2017 and 2021, even as SumUp Group grew by 500% in revenue. We added many new teams and new products to the portfolio of the company," said Mr. Ivanov, who added, "Now, with this hyper-growth, we automated as much as possible in our Excel group reporting package having a bridge between S4/HANA trial balances and our balance sheets and income statements."  

Leveraging SAP Analytics Cloud and Pre-Packed Solutions for Quick Time to Value  

Organizations can reduce the risk of errors and improve efficiency by automating their consolidation and financial reporting functions. To streamline the process, the SumUp Group considered various SAP S/4HANA-aligned solutions, ultimately deciding to partner with SimpleFi to build online consolidated reporting in SAP Analytics Cloud. "We were very excited about the SAP Analytics Cloud solution and interested immediately in partnering with SimpleFi due to the quick time to value with implementation lasting less than three months, as we chose to deploy their pre-packaged consolidation application," says Mr. Ivanov.    Online consolidation solutions can provide real-time visibility into financial data, automate manual tasks such as reconciliations and journal entries, and support multiple users with different access levels. For organizations looking to streamline their consolidation process and improve accuracy, an online consolidation solution offers several advantages, including:  

• Data Accuracy: One of the most critical aspects of consolidation is data accuracy. When all of your company's financial information is in one place, it's easier to ensure that the data is correct. This is especially important when you are consolidating from multiple sources.   
• Compliance with Regulations: Another benefit of consolidating online is that it can help your organization comply with regulatory requirements.   
• Improved Efficiency: Consolidating online can also help improve the efficiency of your financial reporting process.  

By leveraging SAP Analytics Cloud and SimpleFi's pre-packaged solution, organizations can modernize core finance processes without requiring complex and time-consuming implementations. "To be able to deliver the quick wins. We have well-defined processes that our customers can leverage and have worked hard to preconfigure so that the organization can deploy a starting point for a solution in six weeks instead of two to three months. So we can provide that baseline to companies much more quickly than they are used to and move on to those additional value-added use cases quickly." says Mr. Essig.   The new platform has been operational for several months and has significantly impacted the speed, accuracy, and timeliness of SumUp's financial reporting. As a result, the company can now generate accurate consolidated financial statements on a timely basis, which has improved decision-making by management.   

What Does This Mean for SAPinsiders?  

Establish a dedicated internal project team with SAP expertise to help enable implementation. For large or complex deployments, it can be helpful to establish a dedicated internal team to drive the organization's vision and goals for the project and ensure that these are reflected in the detailed planning and execution. This can be beneficial because it allows for more control over the process and enables the successful implementation of best practices. They can also provide valuable input on how to use the SAP system best to meet the organization's needs.   Leverage pre-packaged solutions to help strike a balance between initial transformation risk and value creation. Pre-packaged solutions are often easier to implement and offer more flexibility than custom solutions. However, selecting a pre-packaged solution that is fit for purpose and will not introduce additional risks or complexities is essential. By implementing online consolidation and financial reporting, the SumUp Group could quickly achieve modern, efficient operations without undergoing a lengthy and costly transformation process.   Confirm your organization's needs for ongoing training and support post-go-live. Ensure that your staff is adequately trained on the new system before go-live and that they understand how to use it effectively. Also, ensure that your organization has access to ongoing support in case any problems arise. Mr. Lazarov highlighted the importance of continuing SAP Analytics Cloud support from SimpleFi as one key to success.