ERPCorp SAP FICO Blog

I’ve spent the last six months working with the first accounting customers to validate and implement SAP Accounting powered by SAP HANA. I’ve talked with even more customers about the possibilities of the new solution. SAP Accounting powered by SAP HANA will be made generally available on 1st August 2014. In this blog, I’ll explain how the new solution differs from earlier software versions and discuss some of my learnings.

We’ve been working on a project at Woodward to implement SAP Business Planning and Consolidation 10.0, Version for SAP NetWeaver (BPC).   This project is part of an overall roadmap aimed at unifying our financial systems across the company, while being able to maintain more than one ERP.  

In addition to the calculation of standard costs at the company code level, SAP also includes functionality to calculate standard costs across the entire corporation.  These are referred to as group costs. Instead of using legal transfer prices, which is the basis for company code standard costs, group costing performs complete across company costing.

This week we are profiling Thomas Michael, CEO of Michael Management Corporation. Learn more about some of the most important trends that Tom sees in the SAP training space. 

This week we are profiling Martin Munzel, SAP CO/PS Specialist and co-founder of Espresso Tutorials. Learn more about Martin and his view on what is most important to his customers. 

Think back to the last time you ordered a desktop computer online. You probably spent some time configuring your exact needs: the size of the monitor, the amount of memory, the hard drive space, the type of keyboard and mouse – the combinations seem endless!

This week we are profiling Controlling 2014 speaker Joe Cravero, Project Manager on the SAP Financial and Controlling’s Enterprise CO (Controlling) support team at Deere & Company.

Understanding the financial impact of business transactions is critical in today’s competitive and regulatory environment.  Not understanding these impacts can lead to poor business process decisions and incorrect financial reporting.

This week we are profiling Controlling 2014 speaker Thomas Bauer. Thomas is a managing partner and solution architect for planning solutions at biX Consulting in Germany, a BI consulting company he formed 5 years ago with former colleagues from SAP Germany.

Okay, so the question is rhetorical.  Of course – all controllers care about planning and selecting the right tool for the job! When I speak with clients, I often find that they don’t understand the entire range of SAP products available and there is often uncertainty when it comes to what tool should be used for different types of work.

At the Controlling 2014 conference keynote address, Michael DeLeo, Director of Cost Accounting for CareFusion, presented a keynote address on BPC 10 on SAP HANA: How Speed Unlocks Innovation at CareFusion. Michael addressed the following topics:

New users have traditionally struggled to understand the way SAP separates Financial Accounting and Management Accounting where most legacy systems see the two as one. While it’s easy enough to understand how a payroll account flows from the profit and loss statement into cost center accounting because the account information stays the same, the situation becomes more challenging as a revenue account flows into profitability analysis and is transformed into a value field, or a cost of goods sold account becomes multiple value fields depending on the cost components involved. In its latest product release, SAP is bringing the two worlds closer together.

Controlling 2014 was my 3^rd year in a row attending the Controlling conference. I thought I would take a moment to provide a perspective from someone who has implemented SAP Controlling at Rockwell Automation for ten years and just recently went back to the business to support Operations Finance and transition to an SAP end user. 

New users have traditionally struggled to understand the way SAP separates Financial Accounting and Management Accounting where most legacy systems see the two as one. While it’s easy enough to understand how a payroll account flows from the profit and loss statement into cost center accounting because the account information stays the same, the situation becomes more challenging as a revenue account flows into profitability analysis and is transformed into a value field, or a cost of goods sold account becomes multiple value fields depending on the cost components involved. In its latest product release, SAP is bringing the two worlds closer together.

This week we are profiling Tanya Duncan, SAP FICO Consultant with Deloitte. Learn more about Tanya and her start with SAP through the SAP University Alliance program.  

This week we are profiling Controlling 2014 speaker Gary Cokins. Gary is an internationally recognized expert, speaker, and author in advanced cost management and enterprise performance and risk management systems. He is the founder of Analytics-Based Performance Management LLC, an advisory firm located in Cary, North Carolina.

This week we are profiling Controlling 2014 speaker Elitza Alexandrova. Elitza is the Senior Financial Analyst at SPX Genfare, a leader in providing customized fare solutions to transit agencies of all sizes throughout North America and part of SPX Corporation, a Fortune 500 manufacturing and industrial equipment supplier. 

The chicken or the egg, vanilla or chocolate, red or white wine, consulting or industry? Are these some of the biggest questions in the universe? You may argue not, however for a SAP professional, deciding between a consulting or industry position is an important career choice. This is one career choice you may reevaluate throughout your career depending on personal life events, career goals, and present opportunities. The truth is, there is no wrong choice. It’s about what opportunity works best for you at that point in your life and career. 

This week we are profiling Controlling 2014 speaker Michael Shoemaker. Michael is a principal consultant at Alta Via Consulting, where experts design, deploy and support SAP Controlling solutions in ECC, BW and HANA. 

How did you get your start with SAP and SAP Controlling?

My first experience with CO was when I worked for Raytheon Aircraft.  We implemented v4.5B with a big bang go-live of January 1, 2000.  I was a SME with 6 years of cost accounting experience and it was my first time on a big project.  It made me realize how much I enjoyed the IT world.  

Our world is at an inflection point.

• 5 billion people are becoming the middle class
• There are more than 1 billion network users
• There are approximately 15 billion web-enabled devices
• Data is doubling every 18 months