White Paper: SAP S/4HANA Central Finance: A Complete Understanding

The idea of a central finance ERP system to use for financial process and reporting has been around for as long as multi-ERP system landscapes have existed. Many companies have a need to bring together different and diverse ERP systems for centralized financial reporting and process execution – largely because of post-merger integrations, or consolidations as a result or organic growth. Traditionally, this has been done through the deployment of a central system with custom code integrating with source systems using extract, transform and load tools, reporting being done in separate data warehouses, and planning and consolidation performed in separate parallel applications outside the central ERP system.

Today’s business environment requires companies to adapt and adopt with speed. The complexity created by past approaches involving non-integrated systems and redundant applications and data, alongside older technical approaches to integration, have been a barrier for many, making it almost impossible to digitize. Fortunately, centralized finance systems now benefit from innovations like in-memory databases, predictive analytics, machine learning, cloud-based applications and services, and virtualized reporting and analysis. With modern technologies, a central finance system can be the digital twin of all the financial records in an organization, harmonized across IT systems and business models.

SAP Central Finance not only addresses the traditional, central process execution aspect of a central finance ERP system, but also helps SAP and non-SAP ERP customers adapt quickly to SAP S/4HANA’s new and innovative capabilities. It provides an expedited path to adopting SAP S/4HANA via a standard SAP solution bundle, all while helping simplify and consolidate an IT landscape.

This white paper takes a deep dive into SAP S/4HANA Central Finance – misconceptions, limitations, use cases, architecture considerations, deployment options and more.

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