SAP S/4HANA Finance


What is SAP S/4HANA Finance?

Initially released in 2014, SAP S/4HANA Finance is the core financial solution for SAP customers, designed to leverage the SAP Fiori user interface and in-memory computing power of HANA. Previously referred to as SAP Simple Finance and SAP ERP Financials, SAP S/4HANA Finance provides multiple innovations, such as the Universal Journal single source of truth, allowing organizations to streamline financial processes, with real-time updates and reporting, across a simplified data model for storing financial and managerial accounting information.

What is SAP S/4HANA Finance?

Initially released in 2014, SAP S/4HANA Finance is the core financial solution for SAP customers, designed to leverage the SAP Fiori user interface and in-memory computing power of HANA. Previously referred to as SAP Simple Finance and SAP ERP Financials, SAP S/4HANA Finance provides multiple innovations, such as the Universal Journal single source of truth, allowing organizations to streamline financial processes, with real-time updates and reporting, across a simplified data model for storing financial and managerial accounting information.

Many SAP ERP customers utilize SAP S/4HANA to manage core business functions that enable timely and accurate financial operations and reporting, such as accounting and finance, financial planning and analysis, financial risk management, and risk and compliance management. SAP S/4HANA Finance is a powerful and versatile system that can be deployed in multiple ways to suit your organization’s needs.

Key features of SAP S/4HANA Finance include:

  • Unified real-time data model for storing all finance-related information
  • Enhanced financial closing capability
  • Centralization of account payables and account receivables
  • Predictive accounting
  • Embedded analytics

Key Considerations for SAPinsiders 

Start thinking about your SAP S/4HANA Finance journey now. In 2027, SAP expects to cease all new development for the core ERP and sunset support, requiring organizations to transition to S/4HANA Finance. Organizations that have yet to make the move to SAP S/4HANA Finance need to begin planning and develop a viable roadmap or risk falling behind their peers.

Reduce compliance risks by properly archiving financial information prior to SAP S/4HANA Finance transition. The size of your financial database directly impacts both the complexity and cost, which often leads to long timelines for moving everything over as well potential compliance risks that need addressing before they can be done. Achieve a high level of data protection by archiving critical financial information before it impacts performance, cost, or availability. Evaluate requirements for data cleanup to transfer historical data securely.

Leverage Central Finance in transition to SAP S/4HANA Finance as an opportunity to optimize core finance functions.Consolidating data from multiple sources and creating a single summary of the information is difficult. Central Finance can make this process easier, as it simplifies everything into one easily accessible place for greater visibility. Organizations can empower SAP S/4HANA Finance modules, applications, and extensions end-to-end with more accessible financial information.

109 results

  1. Maximize Your Move to SAP S/4HANA Finance

    Reading time: 4 mins

    As more and more customers are moving to SAP S/4HANA Finance, they have many questions about how to prepare for the transition and about how the company’s finance and closing processes will be affected. During a recent SAPinsider Live Q&A, Dr. Christoph Ernst, Global Solution Owner for Accounting and Financial Close Solutions at SAP, and…

  2. You Can Now Do Realignments in Account-Based CO-PA with SAP S/4HANA 1610

    Reading time: 10 mins

    Learn how you can do realignment of Profitability Analysis (CO-PA) data in SAP S/4HANA 1610. Realignment of CO-PA characteristics in account-based CO-PA was not available in SAP S/4HANA due to a change in database structures. The feature is now available for use. Key Concept As part of the unified data model and real-time integration between…...…

  3. Live from SAPinsider Studio: Putting SAP Treasury and Risk Management and SAP Cash and Liquidity Management on SAP S/4HANA

    Natasha Doerksen, Treasury Supervisor at uranium company Cameco, shares her experiences being among the first implementers of SAP Treasury and Risk Management and SAP Cash and Liquidity Management on SAP S/4HANA. Topics covered include: Why the business decided to implement these solutions in a sidecar approach How it decided the order in which to implement the…...…

  4. How to Create a Profitability Report Based on Custom Characteristics in SAP S/4HANA

    Reading time: 17 mins

    SAP has simplified financial and management reporting with embedded SAP Business Intelligence (BI) content. Learn how real-time transaction and master data updates in BI enable accurate reporting with most updated key performance indicators (KPIs), thus eliminating the need for a data load into the cubes as in the older versions. Key Concept SAP Business Planning…...…

  5. Fast-Track and Maximize Your Move to SAP S/4HANA Finance

    Reading time: 10 mins

    SAP S/4HANA Finance is SAP’s biggest innovation and upgrade since SAP R/3. Architected to take advantage of the advanced in-memory technology and remove the traditional boundaries between transactional, analytical, and planning systems, it provides instant insights with on-the-fly analysis across dimensions and data. Read the transcript of this live Q&A with experts from BlackLine and…...…

  6. Transcending Finance’s Leadership Role Using Groundbreaking Technology of Today and Beyond 2020

    Rapidly changing technologies are allowing finance professionals to emerge from their specialist “bubble” and become increasingly influential partners with their organizations’ C-level business leaders. Across industries, technology is driving new business models and enabling new competitors to enter the market faster than ever. Companies that empower their CFOs and finance organizations to be dynamic business…...…

  7. Demystifying the Ledger, Currency Setup, and Currency Conversion in SAP S/4HANA Finance 1610

    Reading time: 30 mins

    See how the ledger setup, currency setup, and foreign currency valuation features have evolved with SAP S/4HANA Finance 1610. This will help you evaluate if the new features can be used by your company. Key Concept SAP S/4HANA Finance 1610 offers a new feature called a simulation extension ledger.  The simulation ledger is a category…...…

  8. Extending Your Vision of Value

    Reading time: 3 mins

    Changes in technology and in the ways businesses operate have made the finance function increasingly fragmented, with data residing in disparate systems and locations. The Central Finance deployment option for SAP S/4HANA Finance helps finance departments overcome this challenge by enabling a single source of truth for finance data. This article looks at how Central…

  9. Finance at the Core of Tackling Digital Disruption

    Reading time: 9 mins

    The digital economy is here, and with it perhaps no part of the business is more essential than finance. Whether it’s reporting, compliance, bookkeeping, or predictive analysis, finance plays a central role in anything a business wants to do. It’s no surprise, then, that finance is one of the major components of companies’ digital efforts.…

  10. Finance Is Leading the Way to Digital Change with SAP S/4HANA

    Reading time: 6 mins

    Expectations for financial software have changed. To make insightful, data-driven planning and budgeting decisions, users need real-time access to data via an intuitive user interface, and to provide this, businesses need to digitize their financial processes. This article provides an overview of how SAP S/4HANA can help digitally transform your finance department into an agile,…